Marine Corps Birthday Quotes post, #4

  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 Corps Quotes:

"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." 

(First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, USMC, 96th Co., Soissons, 19 July 1918.) 

You cannot exaggerate about the Marines. They are convinced to the point of arrogance, that they are the most ferocious fighters on earth - and the amusing thing about it is that they are. 

(Father Kevin Keaney, 1st Marine Division Chaplain, Korean War)

"They [Women Marines] don't have a nickname, and they don't need one. They get their basic training in a Marine atmosphere, at a Marine Post. They inherit the traditions of the Marines. They are Marines." 

(Lieutenant General Thomas Holcomb, USMC, 1943.) 

Marines attacked by a German airplane at Vierzy during the Battle of Soissons July 18-19, 1918.
Lithograph by Lucian Jonas, 1927.