Let's share quotes from soldiers writing about war, either from their letters home, memoirs, journals, etc. Any nationality and any Veeky Forums appropriate conflict. Include context (names, what war, etc) if you can.
Quotes from soldiers about battle/war
Juan Richardson
Other urls found in this thread:
digitalcommons.chapman.edu
aarp.org
twitter.com
Dylan Foster
You first.
Aiden Lee
Kenneth W. Bagby, in a letter home to his parents, Vietnam War.
>I met a boy on the ship coming over to Vietnam. He was a good guy from the State of Missouri. He was my friend. We lived in the same tent together, went into An Khe together, and spent most of our free time together. I got to know this boy well, and he was my best friend. His name was Dan Davis. On Monday Morning, the 15th of November, he died in my arms of two bullet wounds to the chest. He said, "Ken, I can't breathe." There was nothing I could do.
From the same letter
>The many men that died, I will never forget. The odor of blood and decayed bodies, I will never forget. I am all right. I will never be the same though, never, never, never. If I have to go into battle again, if I am not killed, I will come out insane. I cannot see and go through it again. I know I can't. The friends I lost and the many bodies I carried back to the helicopters to be lifted out, I will never forget.
Justin Parker
John O'Halloran, letter home to his father, Vietnam War.
>Saturday was the worst day of all. I was one of the gusy picked to go out on patrol... That was the most sickening day of my life. We were walking down a road, and coming from the opposite direction was a woman and a little baby in her arms. The Sergeant told us to watch out for a trap, because the VC use women all the time. We were maybe fifteen feet from her and she started crying like a baby. I didn't know what was going on, and the next thing I know the Sergeant shot the hell out of the both of them. She had a grenade under the baby's blanket which was noticeable, but she was afraid to sacrifice her kid to kill us, so she started crying. The Sergeant said it's a dirty war, but it's kill or be killed.
Sebastian Bailey
Richard L. St John, letter to unknown person, Vietnam.
>I still feel the same way. I want to get off the line. I'm tired of this war. Just so tired. The realization of what could happen has finally caught up with me.
Gavin Cox
Charlie B. Dickey, letter to his wife, Vietnam War.
>I probably shouldn't tell you but I want you to know that there is a War over here. Men are being hurt and killed every day. Don't think this is just an adventure or having fun. This is hell. Besides killing and maybe being killed there are many other things that make life almost unbearable. Leeches that suck our blood, insects of all kinds, snakes, spiders (you KNOW how I feel about those). The heat, the rain and mud. The long marches with heavy pack, going two or three weeks without a bath, wearing the same clothes for weeks at a time, not having a place to sit down or even lie down except in six inches of mud. Now my wife don't get me wrong. I am not complaining. It is my wish to be here doing my job. I know that any second might be my last. Yet I go willingly because there is a job I can do better than anyone else and I must do that job.
Adrian Brown
>All the courage in the world cannot prevail against machine guns
A young Charles De Gaulle after narrowly surviving a battle in which he was ordered to charge at a German line during WW1. The French generals had not yet grown accustomed to modern warfare, and preferred to simply attack relentlessly in hopes of breaking through. Meanwhile, the Germans would dig in, and then tear the French apart with machine guns and artillery. This attitude very nearly cost France the war.
Jonathan Diaz
Captain Isaac N. Chenoweth letter to his friend, Jasper N. Bertram, August 24, 1864 (Deleted all the [sic]s from the transcript because eh)
>I take present opportunity of dropping you a few lines in answer to your very kind note which came to hand a few days past and was gladly received. I was glad indeed to hear from Friends who I esteem so high as you. I had almost come to the Conclusion that you had forgotten you old friend as I could not get any news from you, but a good and true friend is never forgetten. I have no news of importance to write more than the boys with myself are well and in high spirits. The boys are looking forward to the 17th of Sept. when we will once more retire to a private life. The boys are very anxious to get out of the service, under the present program of things, and I am sure that I am Keen to retire from the service. I have a nice little wife at home, to take care of, and things don't go on to please me. No way. So I have determined if I ever fight any more it wil be at home on my on footing.
>I am oppose to Mr. Lincoln, and would see him ramed jammed & Cramed in the bottomest pitts of hell before I would vote for him, but I don't propse to say much about that at present. We are now at Mt. Sterling and have been here for the past four weeks, and will proberally stay here untill time to muster us out. I have been building a Fort here. We are getting it nearly done. We have only one Brigade at this place. I work from 2 to 3 hundred men every day. Col. Hanson is Comdg the Brig. He say that he is going to make applications to Gen. ________ Burbridge and call it Fort Chinowth.
>Jasper, I would like to write you a Long letter but I am very busy so I hope you will excuse this note and I will do better next time. I hear from our Country nearly every day & every thing is quite in that Country. I must Close hoping to hear from you soon. I hope you may all receive those few lines in good health.
Joshua Richardson
Unknown name, lietenant in the American airforce. Killed in action in Italy during WWII. Letter to his wife from July 1944.
>My Dearest One,
>Hope you haven’t given up hope of ever hearing from me. Today would have been six days without writing. I really couldn’t’ help it sweet. I was out with Hill trying to see a bit of the country over here (hitch hiking). Will tell you all about it tomorrow, really had quite a time but missed my ?? Very much.
>I will try to answer all of your questions. The first question you asked if I would be home by July, well I doubt that in fact I’m sure that I won’t because it is already July. Not even sure about September. (2) For the second or third time dear, not the fifth Army, I’m in the Air Force. (3) No I haven’t been in the invasion. (4) Yes we fly after 60 missions. (5) the 4th answers this one (6) H. (7) Yes darling I remember you and I mean really, just as though we had only been apart for a day or two, really sweet I can’t even forget you for a minute. (8) No sweet I haven’t changed even a little, the war couldn’t have much effect on me, at least I haven’t notice any difference. (9) Yes sweet, with all my heart I love you. (10) Do I? and I also might add that I am being very very true to you just as I told you I would be. (11) Yes sweet I do say my prayers every night, without fail.
>Had quite a batch of mail waiting for me today when I came back, 11 from you and five others. Not to bad for twelve days.
>Well sweet must close for now, will write often from now on, so don’t forget to love me.
>I love you sweet with all my heart and sold. Goodnight sweetheart and a million kisses.
Caleb Gutierrez
Damn user. Damn
Ian Morris
"Shit" - Pv. John Candles Royal Australian Army, France 1946
Anthony Allen
James Fahey, from a secret diary he kept on the USS Montpelier
November 10 1943
>This afternoon, while we were south of Bougainville ... we came across a raft with four live Japs in it ... As the destroyer Spence came close to the raft, the Japs opened up with a machine gun at the destroyer. The Jap officer then put the gun in each man’s mouth and fired, blowing out the back of each man’s skull. One of the Japs did not want to die for the Emperor and put up a struggle. The others held him down. The officer was the last to die. He also blew his brains out. The Spence went in to investigate. All the bodies had disappeared into the water. There was nothing left but blood and an empty raft. Swarms of sharks were everywhere. The sharks ate well today ... We went to battle stations ... and at 10PM we were attacked by enemy planes ... Later darkness descended and the rains came.
He survived the war. His diary was later published as "Pacific War Diary."
Brody Barnes
Charlemagne at verdun
>I shed Blood of Saxon Men! I shed the Blood of the Saxon men! I shed the Blood of the Saxon men! I shed the Blood of the Saxon men! I shed it at Verden! shed the Blood of the Saxon men! I shed the Blood of four thousand Saxon men! I shed the Blood of the Saxon men! I shed the Blood of the Saxon man!
Owen Reed
From 21 year old Tommie Kennedy, an American POW who wrote a goodbye letter to his parents on photographs of them he kept, which was smuggled out of a Japanese POW camp.
>Momie & Dad: It is pretty hard to check out this way with out a fighting chance but we can’t live forever. I’m not afraid to die, I just hate the thought of not seeing you again. Buy Turkey Ranch with my money and just think of me often while your there. Make liberberal donations to both sisters. See that Gary has a new car his first year hi-school.
>I am sending Walts medals to his mother. He gave them to me Sept 42 last time I saw him & Bud. They went to Japan. I guess you can tell Patty that fate just didn’t want us to be together. Hold a nice service for me in Bksfield & put head stone in new cematary. Take care of my nieces & nephews don’t let them ever want anything as I want even warmth or water now.
>Loving & waiting for you in the world beon.
>Your son,
>Lt. Tommie Kennedy
Ian Morales
>I’ll tell you those civilians—you call them civilians—they kill American GI’s. They plant mines and spy and snipe and kill us. Sure you all print color pictures of dead little boys, but the live ones—take pictures of the live ones digging holes for mines.
Tim O. Brian, "If I Die in a Combat Zone Box Me Up and Ship Me Home"
It's about Vietnam, if you couldn't tell. Apparently it was from an exchange he had with a reporter after the story about My Lai Massacre broke.
Leo Russell
"Fuken Cannons!" Baz, 1stRAR, Gallipoli 1917
Christopher Moore
Andrew Carroll, who collects American soldier letters, donated 100,000 of them to Chapman University a few years ago.
About 1,000 have been digitized so far and you can find them for free: digitalcommons.chapman.edu
The good is that there are transcripts if you scroll down past the scans, although the bad is that because they have to be transcribed digitizing them is slow-going.
Some quotes specifically from last letters by soldiers who were killed are here: aarp.org
Carroll has a book out which includes 150 of these letters. I haven't read it yet myself but from the table of contents it covers from the Civil War through Bosnia.
Michael Martinez
Bump, this shit is interesting
William Sanchez
Riley M. Hoskinson letter to his wife, Martha Hoskinson of Rushville, Illinois, Oct. 27, 1863, American Civil War.
Excerpt:
>By the time we got back we had no lack of work, for by this time the wounded were coming in by scores, wounded in all parts of their bodies from the top of the head to ends of the toes. There were not less than fifty wounded in the feet & ankles, and at least twice as many wounded in the hands &* arms, several shot in the mouth, one right through [erased text] into the groin. One had his right leg shot off just below the knee and so on to the end of this fearful chapter. Stuart and I helped to carry them from the ambulances to places of safety, then made fires to help keep them warm as the Houses were now all full. We made fires in the yard, in the Garden, and in the woods outside the premises. In short, every where we could find a place to put a man for comfort. While some carried wounded, some made fires, others made & distributed coffee to the poor chilled fellows, others temporarily bound up wounds xc, so all had their hands full to the letter. The conflict lasted till near 9 o’clock at night. I shall not attempt its description. I am not equal to the task. Language can’t do it.
Another excerpt:
>The cannon shots were so rapid as to be (most of the time) too frequent to count, and the musquetry resembled the crackling of a handful of salt thrown into the fire, add to this the constant screaming of officers and men, various bayonette charges. Men marching at doublequick in all directions trying to get better positions. Cannons & caissons being hauled at full gallop in every conceivable direction, couriers going at the topmost speed of their best horses. Then add the fearful wounds, bruises, cuts, slashes, groans & cries, bloodshed & death in all its forms, then imagine as much more as you can and then you will fall far short of a description of this Awful contest.
Evan Watson
Here are some gruesome accounts
Aaron Davis
Excerpt from a diary of Toshihiro Oura, a Japanese officer who was stationed in New Georgia during WWII. His fate is unknown.
>Battle Situation: Nothing aside from annihilation. No cooperation from the navy. If I were to compare the complete cooperation of the enemy, it would be like the war of a child with an adult. Our mountain artillery positions were knocked to pieces by enemy tanks. We are encircled, so they say, and about to be overrun. Consequently, all we can do is to guard our present positions.
>As things are now, even if our air and naval forces [give] battle, we could not regain the lost ground. Great numbers of enemy planes are constantly up in the sky. In front of the island, camouflaged destroyers and PT-boats swarm in and out. What in the world could our forces at Rabaul or the staff of Imperial headquarters be doing? Where have our air forces and battleships gone? Are we to lose? Why don’t they start operations? We are positively fighting to win, but we have no weapons. We stand with rifles and bayonets to meet the enemy’s aircraft, battleships, and medium artillery. To be told we must win is absolutely beyond reason.
>The Japanese army is still depending on the hand-to-hand fighting of the Meiji era, while the enemy is using highly developed scientific weapons. Thinking it over, however, this poorly armed force of ours has not been overcome, and we are still guarding this island. But this is no time for praise. If [our] forces don’t move, this island will soon be taken. If we, as well as the enemy, were to fight to the end with all available weapons, then I would be willing to give up, whether we win, lose, be injured or be killed. But in a war like this, where we are like a baby’s neck in the hands of an adult, even if I die, it will be a hateful death. How regretful! My most regretful thought is my grudge toward the forces in the rear and my increasing hatred toward the Operational Staff.
Easton Clark
From a German gunner, WWII, letter home.
>I am finding it increasingly hard to manage when you’ve just been having a good chat with a comrade and half-an-hour later you see him as little more than scraps of flesh as if he had never existed, or comrades who are lying badly wounded in front of you in a large pool of their own blood and beg you with pleading eyes to help them because in most cases they cannot speak any more, or pain takes away their power of speech ... This war is a crushing war of nerves.
Jonathan Hernandez
From a letter written by Hayashi Ichizō, a kamikaze pilot, before his death
>Last night I went out to a field of Chinese milk vetch (rengesō) and lay down, thinking about home. My friends told me that I smell of you, Mother. They think that they felt the mother-son bond in me. I have been fortunate. People have been so good to me.
>Cherry blossoms of the Yoshino variety have fallen, but double-petaled cherry blossoms are blooming. Yellow rose (Kerria japonica) blooming on the fence is wet from rain. Every morning, as I wash my face in a brook, I think of our house in the country with blooming Hibiscus mutabilis and the little brook where daffodils bloom.
>Tomorrow, I shall plunge onto a group of enemy aircraft carriers. If you perform a memorial service, the date should be April 10.
>Thinking “today is it,” eleven days have passed. The commander-in-chief of our combined squadron came to tell us to do our best. Mother, I have written all I wanted to say. Today, I went with my friends to a nearby school and sang hymns accompanied by an organ.
Kevin Richardson
Commander William Wilson, written to his father, Vietnam War.
>They brought the seven casualties down by skimmer. These guys were fucked up! They were riddled with holes and covered with blood. I helped carry one guy in on a stretcher. The doctor took one look at the guy and said he was dying. It was written all over his face. He was going fast. They started externally pumping his heart but he just lay there with his eyes wide open ... They put the dead guys out in the mess lines with a blanket over them. That made me think a bit as I passed them. A few minutes ago they were alive living thinking human beings, but now they were just a limp mass of blood and bones on a stretcher. They put the dead guys in body bags. It was like a big garbage bag. They hauled them up to the dust-off helo like a sack of potatoes.
Kevin Clark
Harold Lederman to his parents, WWII
November 24, 1944
>Dear Mother & Dad,
>I received my first letters from you yesterday since I've been over seas. There were three of them, 2 v-mail and 1 airmail. I'm glad you finally sent me Rum's address. Now I will be able to write to him.
>Yesterday was Thanksgiving. We had the turkey and all the trimmings. Most of the doughboys had turkey also. Its amazing when you think of all of us, so far from home, observing still in the midst of a battlefield, Thanksgiving. I'm sure there was many who gave thanks to God today. I was sure one of them.
>I recently was able to see some of the dead boys they had just taken off the battlefield. If some of the men back home, whom of personal ambition attempt to prolong the war, could se them--I'm sure the war would soon end. When you look at them you can't help but think--why are they dead! Just a year or so ago they were either going to school-working-married and now their dead. Many among them had ambition--all looked forward to the future--Now their dead. It keeps shooting thru your mind-again and again-why have these men died? I know why we fight-I know of the values we're trying to secure. I hope these men have not given their lives for empty words.
>I'm sorry I went up on slight a philosophical side. But I had to air out some of my thoughts. Love, Harold
Wyatt Diaz
bump
Brayden Allen
this is fucking horrible
Jaxson Flores
Oficer Montgomery, WWI, letter to his parents
>Dear Father and Mother, I feel it is more than time that I wrote and told you something of the war. 'The wee war' as your dear sweet wee grandson called it... I am still writing to Mr Gaffikin about his son George. He got his death wound when fighting desperately side by side with me in the wildest hand grenade and machine-gun fight man could live or die in. I am said to have absolutely no nerves. I saw over a hundred of our men blown to fragments by a big shell about 200 yards from where I was lying. It's turned midnight and I think I will sleep now.
Samuel Hughes
>read a bunch of these yesterday
>see one of my neighbors who was in Vietnam this morning walking his dog
>wonder what the fuck he saw
Grayson Nguyen
...
Tyler Robinson
Frederick Swannell to his wife, Nell Swannell, WWI. These are some excerpts from the last letter he wrote before he was killed in the Battle of Arras. Nell carried the full letter (6 pages, wish the full thing was available) in her handbag with her for the next 64 years, until her death. Her family copied the letter and put the original with Nell in her coffin.
>How I wish that this terrible anxiety and suspense was over for I do long to be with you and our dear little ones who are continually in my mind.
>I have done over my bit as you know but it seems no matter how long or what you have been through out here they are never done with you.
>Let us...hope for a peaceable time for us both and all for if I am lucky enough to get through it alright I hope to have a happy and loving life with you and our dear little ones for you know I love you and I always will and I know you do me.
>I am your ever loving husband Fred Swannell.
Eli Jackson
They say 2% of the population are psychopaths. There must be people out there too dumb to know they're psychos, surely?
William Rivera
Or it's bravado and chest-beating.
It depends on the sort of war, type of formation, and mentality too. Reading the private letters of cavalrymen throughout the ages you will find them perfectly cocky even after being decimated.
Lucas Phillips
If you aren't prone to PTSD and aren't injured it isn't bad for you personally, millions fought in the war and got on with their lives afterwards.
Brayden Cruz
>no "Have you thought about my cock today?"
disappointing.
Nicholas Adams
That's in the subtext
Nolan Barnes
bump