Marine Corps Birthday Quotes post, #7

 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:

Their fiery advance and great tenacity were well recognized by their opponents.

—LtCol Ernst Otto, Historical Section of the German Army writing about U.S. Marines in the fighting at in 1918 Belleau Wood, France

Marines have a cynical approach to war. They believe in three things; liberty, payday and that when two Marines are together in a fight, one is being wasted. Being a minority group militarily, they are proud and sensitive in their dealings with other military organizations. A Marine’s concept of a perfect battle is to have other Marines on the right and left flanks, Marine aircraft overhead and Marine artillery and naval gunfire backing them up.

—War correspondent Ernie Pyle, killed on Ie Shima, Ryukyu Archipelago, 1945

We Marines are truly blessed. We get to enjoy the sweet taste of freedom because we know its price.

—Marine veteran John Chipura, survivor of the 1983 Beirut bombing, a NY Fireman, who wrote the above for the 225th Marine Corps birthday, 2000. He was later killed while responding to the terrorist attack, Sept. 11 at the World Trade Center, Tower 2.

The explosion of the Marine Corps building in Beirut, Lebanon on October 23, 1983
created a large cloud of smoke that was visible from miles away.
Photo by: Official USMC Photo PhotoID: 2001101810128 

Marine Corps Birthday Quotes post, #6

  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:

"To our Marines fell the most difficult and dangerous portion of the defense by reason of our proximity to the great city wall and the main city gate. . .The Marines acquitted themselves nobly." 

(Mr. Edwin N. Conger, U.S. Minister, in commending the Marines for the defense of the legations at Peking, China, in 1900.) 

"Retreat Hell! We've just got here!" 

(Attributed to several World War I Marine Corps officers, Belleau Wood, June 1918.)

"Once a Marine, always a Marine!"

(MSgt Paul Woyshner, a 40-year Marine, is credited with originating this expression during a taproom argument with a discharged Marine.) 

"Wheat Field" charge of 6th Marines—around Belleau Wood—to town of Bouresches.
Schoonover, Frank Earle (September 1919). "Souvenir Pictures of the Great War-caption: How Twenty Marines Took Bouresches". Ladies' Home Journal vol. 24 (no. 1).

Marine Corps Birthday Quotes post, #5

   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:

"A ship without Marines is like a garment without buttons." 

(Admiral David D. Porter, USN, 1863.) 

"The Marines have landed and have the situation well in hand." 

(Attributed to many sources and popularized by the correspondent Richard Harding Davis during the late nineteenth-century.) 

"Casualties many; Percentage of dead not known; Combat efficiency; we are winning." 

(Colonel David M. Shoup, USMC, Tarawa, 21 November 1943.) 

Marines struggle ashore on Tarawa Atoll's Betio Island
Charles Waterhouse, Tarawa, 20 Nov. 1943

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.

Marine Corps Birthday Quotes post, #3

 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:

"The raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years."

(James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy, 23 February 1945)

"I still need Marines who can shoot and salute. But I need Marines who can fix jet engines and man sophisticated radar sets, as well."

(General Robert E. Cushman, Jr., USMC, 17 May 1974.)

"The Marine Corps...believes that it has earned this right—to have its future decided by the legislative body which created it—nothing more. Sentiment is not a valid consideration in determining questions of national security. We have pride in ourselves and in our past, but we do not rest our case on any presumed ground of gratitude owing us from the Nation. The bended knee is not a tradition of our Corps. If the Marine as a fighting man has not made a case for himself after 170 years of service, he must go. But I think you will agree with me that he has earned the right to depart with dignity and honor, not by subjugation to the status of uselessness and servility planned for him by the War Department."

(General Alexander A. Vandergrift, USMC, to the Senate Naval Affairs Committee, 5 May 1946.)

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, by Joe Rosenthal, 23 February 1945
Despite Forrestal's prediction, within the year the Marine Corps
was fighting against the most serious threat to its existence it ever faced. 

 

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.