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Patton to Troops 1944 (must read) warning: graphic language
Great speeches Timeline ^ | May 17, 1944 | Genl George Patton

Posted on 01/01/2005 9:01:45 AM PST by beebuster2000

NOTE : This speech contains language that may be considered offensive. User discretion is advised.

General George S. Patton, Jr., in characteristic unexpurgated detail, gives his troops a final pep-talk prior to the invasion of Normandy, Enniskillen Manor Grounds, England, May 17, 1944.

Men, this stuff some sources sling around about America wanting to stay out of the war and not wanting to fight is a lot of baloney! Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. America loves a winner. America will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise a coward; Americans play to win. That's why America has never lost and never will lose a war.

You are not all going to die. Only two percent of you, right here today, would be killed in a major battle.

Death must not be feared. Death, in time, comes to all of us. And every man is scared in his first action. If he says he's not, he's a goddamn liar. Some men are cowards, yes, but they fight just the same, or get the hell slammed out of them.

The real hero is the man who fights even though he's scared. Some get over their fright in a minute, under fire; others take an hour; for some it takes days; but a real man will never let the fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty, to his country and to his manhood.

All through your Army careers, you've been bitching about what you call "chicken-shit drills." That, like everything else in the Army, has a definite purpose. That purpose is instant obedience to orders and to create and maintain constant alertness! This must be

_______________

You are not all going to die. Only two percent of you, right here today, [will] be killed in a major battle.

_______________

bred into every soldier. A man must be alert all the time if he expects to stay alive. If not, some German son-of-a-bitch will sneak up behind him with a sock full of shit! There are four hundred neatly marked graves somewhere in Sicily, all because one man went to sleep on his job--but they are German graves, because we caught the bastards asleep!

An Army is a team, lives, sleeps, fights, and eats as a team. This individual hero stuff is a lot of horse shit! The bilious bastards who write that kind of stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don't know any more about real fighting under fire than they know about fucking! Every single man in the Army plays a vital role. Every man has his job to do and must do it. What if every truck driver decided that he didn't like the whine of a shell overhead, turned yellow and jumped headlong into a ditch? What if every man thought, "They won't miss me, just one in millions?" Where in Hell would we be now? Where would our country, our loved ones, our homes, even the world, be?

No, thank God, Americans don't think like that. Every man does his job, serves the whole. Ordnance men supply and maintain the guns and vast machinery of this war, to keep us rolling. Quartermasters bring up clothes and food, for where we're going, there isn't a hell of a lot to steal. Every last man on K.P. has a job to do, even the guy who boils the water to keep us from getting the G.I. shits!

Remember, men, you don't know I'm here. No mention of that is to be made in any letters. The USA is supposed to be wondering what the hell has happened to me. I'm not supposed to be commanding this Army, I'm not supposed even to be in England. Let the first bastards to find out be the goddamn Germans. I want them to look up and howl, "Ach, it's the goddamn Third Army and that son-of-a-bitch Patton again!"

We want to get this thing over and get the hell out of here, and get at those purple-pissin' Japs!!! The shortest road home is through Berlin and Tokyo! We'll win this war, but we'll win it only by showing the enemy we have more guts than they have or ever will have!

There's one great thing you men can say when it's all over and you're home once more. You can thank God that twenty years from now, when you're sitting around the fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the war, you won't have to shift him to the other knee, cough, and say, "I shoveled shit in Louisiana."


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: georgespatton; godsgravesglyphs; kerrynopatton; patton; speech; truehero
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To: jakkknife
Oh, I know he would be slammed in today's world.

He was slammed in the WWII world, too.  Long before he slapped a soldier in a medical tent many of his peers thought he was a loon.  After the war they still thought he was a loon, but they sure as heck were glad he was their loon!

While the 36th ID was in training in Massachusetts, Patton stopped by and asked to speak to the officers.  They assembled and Patton, who believed the 36th would be part of a Corps under his command, gave one of those vulgarity punctuated speeches a lot of us seem to love so much.  The 36th's officers were not impressed.  Quite the opposite. They were quite happy to see him go on his way and happier still not to be placed under his command.

Later, when the sane, calculating Mark Clark wasted two regiments of the 36th on a Gallipoli style river crossing at the Rapido, I sometimes wonder whether some of the surviving officers wished Crazy George, and not Mark Clark, was running the war in Italy.

21 posted on 01/01/2005 10:42:20 AM PST by Racehorse
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"We're going to cut out their living guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks."
Google

22 posted on 01/01/2005 10:45:49 AM PST by SunkenCiv (the US population in the year 2100 will exceed a billion, perhaps even three billion.)
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To: jakkknife

Yup. Compare this with Rumsfeld's speech a few weeks back: "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you'd like to have..." I'm sure that was inspiring beyond belief.

We need some Pattons to take charge of Iraq!


23 posted on 01/01/2005 11:53:12 AM PST by pickemuphere
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To: beebuster2000

bump


24 posted on 01/01/2005 12:02:58 PM PST by rightwingextremist1776
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To: SunkenCiv
Patton was also way ahead of his time in introducing cardio work outs for the troops..he instituted a novel peacetime training practice: running.

He also launched what is now called The National Training Center in the desert in California...

When there was not sufficient equipment he had officers tie stove pipes to the hoods to trucks to simulate tanks...

He was probably working more on radio control of the troops as mentioned in the top post.

Basically, Patton was 50 years ahead of his time...too bad the Army has maintained their tradition of promoting careful faggots for officers.

Pio - Cavalry Scout, (SP4 retired).

25 posted on 01/01/2005 12:03:35 PM PST by Pio (Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus)
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To: Thumper1960
"Hard to believe that Gen. Patton and Bubba Clinton were/are both of American 'blood'."

Weak, indecisive, ineffective, liberal males like "Bubba Clinton", et.al., are the quintessential examples of what is referred to by this phrase: "The feminization of America".

26 posted on 01/01/2005 12:05:23 PM PST by Matchett-PI (Today's DemocRATS are either religious moral relativists, libertines or anarchists.)
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To: marty60
Here's what Patton thought of "the Army of One". Thankfully he left us his opinion. Here 'tis:

"An Army is a team; lives, sleeps, eats, fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is a lot of crap."

27 posted on 01/01/2005 12:19:31 PM PST by holyscroller (A wise man's heart directs him toward the right, but the foolish man's heart directs him to the left)
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To: Pio
...too bad the Army has maintained their tradition of promoting careful faggots for officers...

Reminds me of what I'd read about some U.S. sub commanders at the outbreak of W.W.II

Several were "cashiered" (canned, fired, etc.) because they simply weren't aggressive enough.

They were quickly replaced by guys with big brass ones, and the rest (as they say) is history.

28 posted on 01/01/2005 12:22:57 PM PST by MarineDad (Whenever mosques and JDAM's meet, civilization benefits.)
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To: beebuster2000
A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.

Hmm, isn't that the kind of talk that got Rummy into trouble a few weeks ago?

29 posted on 01/01/2005 12:25:12 PM PST by SlowBoat407 (Couldn't you have stopped shooting at us and watched your baby grow instead?)
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To: marty60

"The idiot that thought up the Army of One ads should be very happy that Patton isn't alive."

It's the only way to get the socialists to pull their own weight. You have to make the military look as if it's "all about ME!" ;)

Great, great speech! Is there a link for the "I Am a Bad American" essay referenced to above? Thank! :)


30 posted on 01/01/2005 12:28:53 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin (Save The Earth. It's The Only Planet With Chocolate.)
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To: jakkknife

We have them...the MSM just won't cover them unless they say something that the MSM can spin into a gaff.


31 posted on 01/01/2005 12:34:44 PM PST by Redleg Duke (Pass Tort Reform Now! Make the bottom clean for the catfish!)
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To: Redleg Duke
We have them...the MSM just won't cover them unless they say something that the MSM can spin into a gaff.

Or a war crime.

Seymour Hersh, most recently of Abu Ghraib infamy, tried to do a number on Barry McCaffery concerning a Gulf War I engagement between the 24th Infantry Division and a so-called retreating Iraqi tank division in the vicinity of Rumaylah.  Though a cease fire was in effect, the Iraqis made the fatal mistake of firing on the 24th.  General McCaffery then ordered the 24th to respond in force.  The Iraqi tank division was quite literally destroyed.  Hersh spun the engagement into a war crime accusation published in detail by The New Yorker.

32 posted on 01/01/2005 1:18:14 PM PST by Racehorse
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To: jakkknife

A couple of "Black Jack" Pershings too, wouldn't you say?


33 posted on 01/01/2005 1:18:44 PM PST by NC Native ("Bombing begins in five minutes"... Ronald W. Reagan)
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To: jakkknife

Absolutely!!!


34 posted on 01/01/2005 1:26:33 PM PST by Frank_2001
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To: Fiddlstix

That Eagle looks REALLY pissed. Since it is War, He has a right to be po'd.


35 posted on 01/01/2005 4:35:03 PM PST by marty60
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To: Racehorse

Well my Mother has often told me that the American people LOVED Patton. Guess who didn't like him......THE MSM.


36 posted on 01/01/2005 4:41:34 PM PST by marty60
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

Weird, I have been here sine 98 and I can't remember reading it. Ah yes, the ME Generation.


37 posted on 01/01/2005 4:44:45 PM PST by marty60
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To: Matchett-PI
The Chauvinistic Pig movement did that little number on our men. Funny I like having a door held open for me, or the Good Day Ma'am, thing makes me feel great. Oh well.
38 posted on 01/01/2005 4:48:12 PM PST by marty60
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To: marty60
Well my Mother has often told me that the American people LOVED Patton. Guess who didn't like him......THE MSM.

Wael, I'm not about to contradict your mother.

I can tell you there were more than a few now Great Grandfathers who didn't love him or like him.  Neither emotion was required to do the job they did.  And, none of them were part of the MSM, then or now.  :-)

Me?  I liked the movie version.  A lot.

39 posted on 01/01/2005 5:12:46 PM PST by Racehorse
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To: Racehorse
What was that line in the movie, when Patton said his Army would reach the men in the Ardeinnes? The Gens were laughing, that Pattons men loved him sarcastically. Patton said no they don't love me, they will do what they were trained to do. Can't remember the actual line.

My Mother told me the reason the fams loved him, is because if their loved one was going to come home, Patton was the man they trusted to make that happen. he wasn't in a popularity contest. He was going to win a War.

40 posted on 01/01/2005 5:24:03 PM PST by marty60
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