Marine Corps Birthday Quotes post, #2

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

10 November 2025 is the 250th anniversary of the United States Marine Corps. I served in the Corps, and today I work for the Corps s a historian. I am proud to be a Marine, proud of my Corps. We celebrate our birthday every year with balls and ceremonies, and for the past few years I've celebrated by sharing quotes about Marines on line. Not all positive - loving the Corps means taking the bad with the good - but they all illustrate, in my opinion, some aspect of the Corps and the Marines who make it what it is. So, through 10 November, I'll share several quotes a day, a long with a iconic painting or photograph about Marines. 

Today's Marine Quotes:

I selected an enormous Marine Corps emblem to be tattooed across my chest. It required several sittings and hurt me like the devil, but the finished product was worth the pain. I blazed triumphantly forth, a Marine from throat to waist. The emblem is still with me. Nothing on earth but skinning will remove it.

—MajGen Smedley D. Butler, recalling his time as a lieutenant in Asia.

The Marine Corps is the Navy’s police force and as long as I am president that is what it will remain. They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin’s.

—President Harry S Truman, 29 Aug. 1950 letter to Congressman Gordon L. McDonough replying to his 21 Aug. 1950 suggestion that the Marine Corps be entitled to full recognition as a major branch of the armed forces.

"Marines I see as two breeds, Rottweilers or Dobermans, because Marines come in two varieties, big and mean, or skinny and mean. They're aggressive on the attack and tenacious on defense. They've got really short hair and they always go for the throat."

-RAdm. "Jay" R. Stark, US Navy; 10 November 1995.

Smedley Butler at Marines vs. American Legion Football Game, 11 November 1930
"11 November 1930: Major General Smedley D. Butler, USMC, Cheerleader at a football game at Franklin Field, where American Legion versus U.S. Marines at football."
Butler is one of two Marines awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor twice. Sadly, there are no pictures of him shirtless, showing off the tattoo he proudly describes above. 

Marine Corps Birthday Quotes post, #1

All views in this blog are my own and represent the views of no other person, organization, or institution.

10 November 2025 is the 250th anniversary of the United States Marine Corps. I served in the Corps, and today I work for the Corps s a historian. I am proud to be a Marine, proud of my Corps. We celebrate our birthday every year with balls and ceremonies, and for the past few years I've celebrated by sharing quotes about Marines on line. Not all positive - loving the Corps means taking the bad with the good - but they all illustrate, in my opinion, some aspect of the Corps and the Marines who make it what it is. So, through 10 November, I'll share several quotes a day, a long with a iconic painting or photograph about Marines. 

Today's Marine Quotes:

"On board the GANGES, about 12 mos. ago, Lt. Gale, was struck by an Officer of the Navy, the Capt. took no notice of the Business and Gale got no satisfaction on the Cruise; the moment he arrived he call’d the Lieut. out and shot him; afterwards Politeness was restor’d”

—Signed “Yr obdt. Svt, W. W. Burrows, LtCol Comdt, MC” (2d Commandant of the Marine Corps)

"The Continental ship Providence, now lying at Boston, is bound on a short cruise, immediately; a few good men are wanted to make up her complement." 

—Marine Captain William Jones, Providence Gazette, 20 March 1779.) 

Visit the Navy-Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts, —a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments…

—Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience, 1854

Charles Waterhouse's "Cutting Out of the Sandwich, Puerto Plata, 11 May 1800" depicts Marines capturing a French privateer during the Quasi War with France.