"This is astonishing," said I, as I handed back the volume. "The man's career is that of an honourable soldier."
"It is true," Holmes answered. "Up to a certain point he did well. He was always a man of iron nerve, and the story is still told in India how he crawled down a drain after a wounded man-eating tiger. There are some trees, Watson, which grow to a certain height, and then suddenly develop some unsightly eccentricity. [...] Whatever the cause, Colonel Moran began to go wrong. Without any open scandal, he still made India too hot to hold him. He retired, came to London, and again acquired an evil name. It was at this time that he was sought out by Professor Moriarty, to whom for a time he was the chief of the staff. Moriarty supplied him liberally with money, and used him only in one or two very high-class jobs, which no ordinary criminal would have undertaken."
"It is true," Holmes answered. "Up to a certain point he did well. He was always a man of iron nerve, and the story is still told in India how he crawled down a drain after a wounded man-eating tiger. There are some trees, Watson, which grow to a certain height, and then suddenly develop some unsightly eccentricity. [...] Whatever the cause, Colonel Moran began to go wrong. Without any open scandal, he still made India too hot to hold him. He retired, came to London, and again acquired an evil name. It was at this time that he was sought out by Professor Moriarty, to whom for a time he was the chief of the staff. Moriarty supplied him liberally with money, and used him only in one or two very high-class jobs, which no ordinary criminal would have undertaken."
—The Return Of Sherlock Holmes, "The Empty House"
"Back in the Navy, we delivered guns all over the world, dropping off guys with twenty crates of rifles for the local fighters, so they could knock over some dictator. Mind you, that's not twenty crates of factory M16s - these were illicit weapons, confiscated in some raid and then redistributed... no paperwork, right? If a crate here or there goes missing - hey, it happens. Military teaches you two things: how to deal with bureaucracy, and how to avoid it. Learning how to avoid it means learning how to deal in arms. You muster out, you apply what you learned. Every gun runner I ever met got his start that way, losing illicit weapons in transport with national militaries."
—The Jackal, Far Cry 2
"Tired of relentless fighting for poor pay and no recognition, hardened militia from all over Eastern Europe came together to put their skills to more profitable use: organized crime."
Bank Employee: Y'all are Browncoats, eh? Fought for independence? Petty thieving ain't exactly soldier's work...
Mal: War's long done. We're all just folk now.
Mal: War's long done. We're all just folk now.
"S.D. Plissken... American, Lieutenant: Special Forces Unit 'Black Light'. Two Purple Hearts, Leningrad and Siberia. Youngest man to be decorated by the President. Then you robbed the Federal Reserve Depository... life sentence, New York maximum security penitentary. I'm about to kick your ass out of *the world*, war hero..."
—Bob Hauk to Snake Plissken, Escape from New York
Former Sheriff Hunter Mosley: (discussing several criminals he put away) ...And Chris Lighter. You remember little Chris Lighter?
Deputy US Marshall Raylan Givens: (confused) Chris Lighter the...?
Mosley: The little faggot who twirled the stick in the marching band. Yeah, that's him.
Raylan: I thought he became a Marine.
Mosley: Yeah! And then he came back and started growing pot from here to the Virginia state line. Trying to put him down was like playing whack-a-mole.
Deputy US Marshall Raylan Givens: (confused) Chris Lighter the...?
Mosley: The little faggot who twirled the stick in the marching band. Yeah, that's him.
Raylan: I thought he became a Marine.
Mosley: Yeah! And then he came back and started growing pot from here to the Virginia state line. Trying to put him down was like playing whack-a-mole.
"I brought you all together because I have a certain proposition to make. Now what do we all have in common, apart from an urgent need for funds? We were all trained at great public expense to do certain things with the utmost efficiency, such as how to kill a man with the minimum effort and other minor arts-and-crafts which, while frowned upon in peacetime, are acclaimed in times of war. Well I've got a social conscience and I think it's a crying shame for so much public money to be wasted. I intend to put it to some practical peacetime use."
— Lt. Colonel Hyde (retired), The League of Gentlemen
"Then of course, it's 1994; no more army, no more apartheid. Truth and reconciliation and all of that rubbish, you know. Kumbayah. [...] We thought we were fighting communism, but in the end, it was all about who gets what, you know? Ivory, oil, gold, diamonds. So one day, I decided fuck it, you know. I'm gonna get mine."
— Danny Archer, Blood Diamond, explaining his motivation for turning to crime
