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Isn't war a terrible thing?
— Zeke Yeager, Attack on Titan
War is not heroic. War is not exhilarating.
It is dark. It is dreadful. It is a thing of sorrow and gloom.
That is why people fear war. That is why people choose to avoid it.
It is dark. It is dreadful. It is a thing of sorrow and gloom.
That is why people fear war. That is why people choose to avoid it.
— Izuru Kira, Bleach
In the battlefield, there is no place for hope. What lies there is only cold despair and a sin called victory, built on the pain of the defeated. All those people who met there have wholeheartedly admitted the evil and foolishness of this act called "war." As long as people don't repent and don't regard it as the most evil taboo, then hell would endlessly reappear in the world.
— Emiya Kiritsugu, Fate/Zero
You must've lost hope. War destroys it all.
— Tanosuke Hata, Future Robot Daltanious
This is a war without victory.
— The President of the USA, Future War 198X
Since the war started, they were the first to lose their lives. But you were there too, commanding in the midst of fighting. Peasants that were cheerfully delivering milk until yesterday, return all banged up today. Every day. Until the war ends, it will continue day in and day out. Can you really handle that?
"I can't exactly fight a war with a big smile on my face."''
— Athrun Zala, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED
A person becomes naïve if they're too kind. Careless if they're too bold. And no matter how hard you try to protect others, there's no gratitude. Those who can't comprehend such things aren't fit to be magical girls.
— Homura Akemi, Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Hey, is this world even worth protecting? What have I been fighting for all this time? Answer me. Right now! Come on, tell me! Or else...
— Sayaka Miki, Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Asuna... I... didn't know anything. How horrifying war is... how painful it is to lose... I didn’t know anything...
— Rika "Lisbeth" Shinozaki, Sword Art Online
Sylvia: Have any of you ever killed anyone before? Have you ever been killed before?
Terrorist: Obviously not, ya dumb broad!
Sylvia: Have you ever had a limb torn off by an artillery shell?
Terrorist: Huh?
Sylvia: Have you ever heard the sound of bones shattering? Have you ever smelled the reek of rotting flesh?
Terrorist: What are you going on about, lady?
Sylvia: Have you ever found the crushed bodies of your parents and siblings in a pile of rubble that used to be your home? Have you ever discovered a blown-off piece of your lover stuck to a wall? Have you ever been so hungry you tried to eat tree bark? Have you ever stewed human flesh in a pot? Have you ever convinced yourself your enemy was sub-human so you could slaughter them like animals? Have you ever been so haunted by shame and regret afterward that you cried until you puked? Have you ever had friends who did the same, and took their own lives?
[Sylvia presses a gun against the terrorist's forehead]
Terrorist: Eee...
Sylvia: Did you learn nothing about war at your university?
Terrorist: Obviously not, ya dumb broad!
Sylvia: Have you ever had a limb torn off by an artillery shell?
Terrorist: Huh?
Sylvia: Have you ever heard the sound of bones shattering? Have you ever smelled the reek of rotting flesh?
Terrorist: What are you going on about, lady?
Sylvia: Have you ever found the crushed bodies of your parents and siblings in a pile of rubble that used to be your home? Have you ever discovered a blown-off piece of your lover stuck to a wall? Have you ever been so hungry you tried to eat tree bark? Have you ever stewed human flesh in a pot? Have you ever convinced yourself your enemy was sub-human so you could slaughter them like animals? Have you ever been so haunted by shame and regret afterward that you cried until you puked? Have you ever had friends who did the same, and took their own lives?
[Sylvia presses a gun against the terrorist's forehead]
Terrorist: Eee...
Sylvia: Did you learn nothing about war at your university?
It's good that war is miserable. The fewer people who decide they like it, the better.
— Tanya Degurechaff, paraphrasing Robert E. Lee, The Saga of Tanya the Evil
Comic Books
Listen, you folks at home... Today we won a piece of Sov-Cities' dirt. So what? Three good men died for it — that's what matters. Sometimes war is necessary—but don't ever let creeps like this one tell you it's fun.
War is pointless. War is evil.
WAR IS HELL!
War is pointless. War is evil.
WAR IS HELL!
"You wish to know of war, old man? I saw the blood flow as two worlds snuffed each other out. I saw the black hatred of generations extinguish themselves. My father killed a family of screaming Majesdanians in front of me when I was five. I cried, so I was left with the corpses for three days. I have no innocence. I have no ideals. You wish to see war, old man? I will show you the face of war!"
— Xavin, Runaways
Ironfist: He shot him in the head, Perceptor! In the head! This isn't what being a Wrecker's about... saving lives, yes. Dramatic rescues, yes. And having adventures! What's wrong with just having adventures? But that? Back there? With the laughing and the gun and all the... all the viscera? That was not part of the deal.
Topspin: What's with you? First the blackouts, now this! How's you even land this gig, Ironfist? Pyro, Guzzle, Rotorstorm — we voted them in. Not you... we were just told you were coming along! You're a hanger-on! A tourist! This isn't role-play. People die in stupid, pointless ways. Deal with it.
Topspin: What's with you? First the blackouts, now this! How's you even land this gig, Ironfist? Pyro, Guzzle, Rotorstorm — we voted them in. Not you... we were just told you were coming along! You're a hanger-on! A tourist! This isn't role-play. People die in stupid, pointless ways. Deal with it.
Some have said that war is Hell. War is not Hell... for in Hell, innocence is spared.
— Tai Kaliso, Gears of War Expanded Universe comic books.
Comic Strips
Calvin: Dad, how do soldiers killing each other solve the world's problems?
[awkward silence]
Calvin: [walking away] I think grown-ups just act like they know what they're doing.
[awkward silence]
Calvin: [walking away] I think grown-ups just act like they know what they're doing.
Fan Works
This is not a promotion, it is a burden that you and you alone will shoulder. You will fight, you will struggle, and you will fall. You will see the worst things a man can do to another living being. In this war, that is the truth you will know.
— Kyril Sutherland, to his two apprentices, The Night Unfurls
There was a little girl. Maybe, eight years old? I dunno. She'd lost both her legs. Just kept staring at them. Little stumps, cauterized by fire somehow. A little girl, all alone, looking at where her legs were, not understanding anything. Just... staring. Blank little eyes. Staring.
We forge futures out of pain and grief, Commander. The computers and the communications officers and the EVAs and the displays only serve to isolate us so we can be inhuman. We're monsters, son. Cold, mechanical, rational monsters, and the only way we win is by being colder, more mechanical, and more rational than the next monster moving his little pieces on the screen. That's how war has been fought since Stalin rolled into the Allies a century ago. You point, you click, and they die. It's how it works.
— Colonel Nick Parker, Tiberium Wars "Chapter XVIII"
Cell... you don't get it. I hate this. The vibrations through my fists on contact... the taste of blood in my mouth... the sound of my heart in my ears... I hate it. I always have. But right now... in this moment... the only thing I hate more than it... is you.
— Gohan, Dragon Ball Z Abridged
Films — Animation
Taran: Oh, Dallben, I was just thinking. What of the war's over, and I never had a chance to fight?
Dallben: Hmm... And a good thing, too! War isn't a game. People get hurt!
Dallben: Hmm... And a good thing, too! War isn't a game. People get hurt!
Well, this is what looks like when you've actually fought in battle. It's not glorious, it's not beautiful... it's not even heroic! It's merely doing what's right! And doing it again and again, even if someday you look like this.
— Ezylryb, a.k.a. Lyze Of Kiel, Legend Of The Guardians The Owls Of Ga Hoole
Films — Live-Action
You still think it's beautiful to die for your country. The first bombardment taught us better. When it comes to dying for country, it's better not to die at all..
— Paul Bäumer, All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) (film)
Up at the front you're alive or you're dead, and that's all! You can't fool anybody about that very long. Up there we know we're lost and done for whether we're dead or alive. Three years we've had of it... four years. Every day a year and every night a century. Our bodies are earth and our thoughts are clay, and we sleep and eat with death.
— Paul Bäumer, All Quiet on the Western Front (film)
I was talking to Blackburn the other day, and he asked me "What changed? Why are we going home?" and I said "Nothing." That's not true either; I think everything's changed. I know I've changed... You know a friend of mine asked me before I got here; it's when we were all shipping out. He asked me "Why are you going to fight somebody else's war? What, do you think you're heroes?" I didn't know what to say at the time, but if he'd ask me again I'd say no. I'd say there's no way in hell. Nobody asks to be a hero... It just sometimes turns out that way.
— SSG Matt Eversmann, Black Hawk Down
We were in this bar in Saigon and this kid comes up, this kid carrying a shoe-shine box. And he says "Shine, please, shine!" I said no. He kept askin', yeah, and Joey said "Yeah." And I went to get a couple of beers, and the box was wired, and he opened up the box, fucking blew his body all over the place. And he's laying there, he's fucking screaming. There's pieces of him all over me, just... like this, and I'm tryin' to pull him off, you know, my friend that's all over me! I've got blood and everything and I'm tryin' to hold him together! I'm puttin'... the guy's fuckin' insides keep coming out! And nobody would help! Nobody would help! He's saying, sayin' "I wanna go home! I wanna go home!" He keeps calling my name! "I wanna go home, Johnny! I wanna drive my Chevy!" I said "With what? I can't find your fuckin' legs! I can't find your legs!" I can't get it out of my head. A dream of seven years. Everyday I have this. And sometimes I wake up and I don't know where I am. I don't talk to anybody. Sometimes a day - a week. I can't put it out of my mind.
— John Rambo, First Blood
"Old men start it. Young men fight it. Nobody wins. Everybody in the middle dies. And nobody tells the truth!"
— John Rambo, Rambo IV
Door Gunner: Git some! Git some! Git some! Yeah, yeah, yeah! Anyone who runs is a VC. Anyone who stands still is a well-disciplined VC! You should do a story about me sometime!
Private Joker: Why should we do a story about you?
Door Gunner: 'Cause I'm so fucking good! That ain't no shit either! I done got me 157 Gooks killed and fifty water buffalo too! They were all certified.
Private Joker: Any women or children?
Door Gunner: Sometimes!
Private Joker: How can you shoot women and children?
Door Gunner: Easy, you just don't lead 'em so much! Ain't war hell?
Private Joker: Why should we do a story about you?
Door Gunner: 'Cause I'm so fucking good! That ain't no shit either! I done got me 157 Gooks killed and fifty water buffalo too! They were all certified.
Private Joker: Any women or children?
Door Gunner: Sometimes!
Private Joker: How can you shoot women and children?
Door Gunner: Easy, you just don't lead 'em so much! Ain't war hell?
"I've had my ass in the grass. Can't say I liked it much. Lots of bugs and too dangerous. As it happens, my present duties keep me where I belong. In the rear with the gear."
—Lt. Lockhart, Full Metal Jacket
I've never seen so many men wasted so badly.
You want to know what it's like to kill a man? Well it's goddamn awful, that's what it is. The only thing worse is getting a medal of valour for killing some poor kid that wanted to "just give up, that's all." Yeah, some scared little gook just like you. I shot him right in the face with that rifle you were holding in there a while ago. There's not a day goes by that I don't think about it. You don't want that on your soul. But I got blood on my hands. I'm soiled.
— Walt Kowalski, Gran Torino
Another two inches? Shrapnel zings by; slices my throat. I'll bleed out like a pig in the sand; nobody'll give a shit. I mean my parents? They'll care, but they don't count, man. Who else? I don't even have a son.
— Sergeant J.T. Sanborn, The Hurt Locker
Betty has gone too far. Killing is wrong. And bad. There should be a new, stronger word for killing, like "badwrong", or "badong". Yes, killing is badong. From this point forward, I shall stand for the opposite of killing... gnodab.
Here is better than home, eh, sir? I mean at home if you kill someone they arrest you, here they'll give you a gun and show you what to do, sir. I mean, I killed fifteen of those buggers. Now at home they'd hang me, here they'll give me a fucking medal, sir.
— Zulu War Soldier, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy, we fought ourselves, and the enemy was in us. The war is over for me now, but it will always be there, the rest of my days. As I'm sure Elias will be, fighting with Barnes for what Rhah called "possesion of my soul." There are times since, I've felt like a child, born of those two fathers. But be that as it may, those of us, who did make it have an obligation to build again. To teach to others what we know, and to try with what's left of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life.
— Chris Taylor, Platoon
Sometimes when people go to Vietnam, they go home to their mommas without any legs. Sometimes they don’t go home at all. That’s a bad thing. That's all I have to say about that.
Great warrior? Hah! Wars not make one great!
— Yoda, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
This great evil. Where does it come from? How'd it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us? Robbing us of life and light. Mockin' us with the sight of what we might've known. Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed through this night?
— Private Edward P. Train, The Thin Red Line
I've killed men. I've heard them dying, I've watched them dying, and there's nothing glorious about it! Nothing poetic! You say you're willing to die for love, but you know nothing about dying and you know nothing about love!
—Hector to Paris, Troy
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
— JOSHUA, WarGames
"War brings out the worst in people."
—Oskar Schindler, Schindler's List
"The year is 1645, England is in the grip of bloody civil war. On the one side stand the Royalist party of King Charles, on the other, Cromwell's Parliamentary party: the Roundheads. The structure of law and order has collapsed. Local Magistrates indulge their individual whims, justice and injustice are dispensed in more or less equal quantities, without opposition. An atmosphere in which the unscrupulous revel, and the likes of Matthew Hopkins take full advantage of the situation. In a time where the superstitions of country folk are still a powerful factor, Hopkins preys upon them, torturing and killing in a supposed drive to eliminate witchcraft from the country, and doing so with the full blessing of what law there is. However, his influence is confined largely to the Eastern Sector of the country: East Anglia, which is held firmly in Cromwell's grasp, but not so firmly that Roundhead cavalry patrols have everything their way. For there persists an ever present threat of the remnants of the Royalist armies, desperately foraging for food, horses and supplies."
Ace: War... is hell. The last thing we want... is a fight.
Ouda: [in the Wachootoo language, subtitled] "I want to fight... so go to hell!"
Ouda: [in the Wachootoo language, subtitled] "I want to fight... so go to hell!"
"I guess we all died a little in that damn war."
— Josey Wales, The Outlaw Josey Wales
"Most of the miseries of the world were caused by wars, and when the wars were over, no one ever knew what they were about."
— Ashley Wilkes, Gone with the Wind
"The enemy? His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is, where he comes from, and if he really was evil at heart. What lies or threats led him on this long march from home, or he would not rather have stayed there... in peace. War will make corpses of us all."
— Faramir, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
"I hoped today might be a good day. Hope is a dangerous thing. That's it for now, then next week, Command will send a different message: "Attack at dawn." There is only one way this war ends: Last man standing."
— Colonel MacKenzie, upon receiving an official order to abort the ongoing attack on the German forces, 1917
Literature
This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.
— All Quiet on the Western Front, epigraph
The silence spreads. I talk and must talk. So I speak to him and say to him: "Comrade, I did not want to kill you. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too. But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony — forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy? If we threw away these rifles and this uniform you could be my brother, just like Kat and Albert. Take twenty years of my life, comrade, and stand up — take more, for I do not know what I can even attempt to do with it now."
— Paul, All Quiet on the Western Front
The morning is grey, it was still summer when we came up, and we were one hundred and fifty strong. Now we freeze, it is autumn, the leaves rustle, the voices flutter out wearily: "One- Two- Three- Four-" and cease at thirty-two. And there is a long silence before the voice asks: "Anyone else?"- and waits and then says softly: "In squads-" and then breaks off and is only able to finish: "Second Company-" with difficulty: "Second Company- March easy!"
A line, a short line trudges off into the morning. Thirty-two men.
A line, a short line trudges off into the morning. Thirty-two men.
Kill the enemy... Dress it up however you want, that's what war is about. If there's glory in there somewhere, I must have missed it.
— Jake, Animorphs
War makes monsters out of men.
— Todd, Monsters of Men
I have marched in many a battle host, but I have also planted seeds and reaped the harvest with my own hands. And I have learned there is greater honor in a field well plowed than in a field steeped in blood.
— Adaon, son of Taliesin, The Chronicles of Prydain
It was war, you dumb kid. Everybody I liked got killed, and most of the folks I'd just as soon have shot made it out with medals on their chests. It wasn't fair and it sure as hell wasn't any fun.
If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they’re fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it’s just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don’t know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they’re fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world...
And the man breaks.
He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them... but he should pity them as well.
And the man breaks.
He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them... but he should pity them as well.
— Septon Meribald, A Feast for Crows
I think Peeta was onto something about us destroying one another and letting some decent species take over. Because something is significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its children's lives to settle its differences. You can spin it any way you like. Snow thought the Hunger Games were an efficient means of control. Coin thought the parachutes would expedite the war. But in the end, who does it benefit? No one. The truth is, no one benefits in a world where these things happen.
— Katniss, The Hunger Games
So did all those kids die thinking of democracy and freedom and liberty and honor and the safety of the home and the stars and stripes forever? You're goddamn right they didn't. They died crying in their minds like little babies. They forgot the thing they were fighting for the things they were dying for. They thought about things a man can understand. They died yearning for the face of a friend. They died whimpering for the voice of a mother, a father, a wife, a child. They died with their hearts sick for one more look at the place where they were born, please god just one more look. They died moaning and sighing for life. They knew what was important. They knew that life was everything and they died with screams and sobs. They died with only one thought in their minds and that was "I want to live I want to live I want to live."
— Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun
I've seen so many young men over the years who think they're running at other young men.
They are not.
They're running at me.
They are not.
They're running at me.
— Death, The Book Thief
We are soldiers from either side of that battle—and are we not equally maimed? The soldiers never win in any battle—only their leaders are victors. The soldiers fight and suffer; some live, some die—many like us don't quite die, but must live on as miserable human wreckage, while our leaders grow old in the luxury we suffered to win for them. Generals and princes live in glory, but the soldier dies in pain.
— Byr, "Lynortis Reprise"
"It is the ruin of this kind land," a woman said. "If the barons live at war, ploughfolk must eat roots."
"It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would rather have stayed there in peace."
"The campaign season begins, and I will be away to Visserine in the morning, to take the city under siege. Skirmishes, sacks and burnings. March and counter-march. Famine and pestilence, naturally. Maim and murder, of course. All with the awful randomness of a stroke from the heavens. Collective punishment. Of everyone, for nothing. War, Shenkt, war. And to think I once dreamed of being an honourable man. Of doing good."
— General Ganmark, Best Served Cold
Live-Action TV
You weren't there. In the final days of the war. You never saw what was born. But if the Time Lock's broken then everything's coming through, not just the Daleks, but the Skaro Degredations. The Horde of Travesties. The Nightmare Child. The Could-Have-Been-King with his army of Meanwhiles and Never-weres. The war turned into hell! And that's what you opened. Right above the Earth. HELL IS DESCENDING!
— The Doctor, Doctor Who, "The End of Time"
Bonnie: You don't understand. You will never understand.
The Doctor: I don't understand? Are you kidding? Me? Of course I understand. I mean, do you call this a war, this funny little thing? This is not a war. I fought in a bigger war than you will ever know! I did worse things than you could ever imagine! And when I close my eyes... I hear more screams than anyone could ever be able to count! And you know what you do with all that pain? Shall I tell you where you put it? You hold it tight, til it burns your hand! And you say this: no one else will ever have to live like this! No one else will ever have to feel this pain! Not on my watch!
The Doctor: I don't understand? Are you kidding? Me? Of course I understand. I mean, do you call this a war, this funny little thing? This is not a war. I fought in a bigger war than you will ever know! I did worse things than you could ever imagine! And when I close my eyes... I hear more screams than anyone could ever be able to count! And you know what you do with all that pain? Shall I tell you where you put it? You hold it tight, til it burns your hand! And you say this: no one else will ever have to live like this! No one else will ever have to feel this pain! Not on my watch!
"I was a soldier once. All my superiors thought I was brave. I wasn't. I mean, I never ran from a fight, but only because I was afraid all my friends would see I was afraid! That's all I was: a coward, who followed orders. No matter the orders. Burn that village? Fine, I'm your arsonist. Steal that farmer's crops? Good, I'm your thief. Kill those young lads so they won't take up arms against us... I'm your murderer. I remember once, a woman, screaming at us, calling us animals as we dragged her son from their hut. We weren't animals. Animals are true to their nature, and we had betrayed ours. I cut that young boy's throat myself, as his mother screamed, and my friends held her back. That night, I felt shame. Shame was so heavy on me I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. All I could do was stare in that dark sky and listen to that mother screaming her sons's name. I've heard her screaming the rest of my life. Now, I know I can never bring that lad back, all I can do with the time I got left, is bring a little goodness into the world. It's all any of us can do, isn't? Never too late to stop robbing people, to stop killing people, to start helping people. Never too late to come back. And it's not about waiting for the gods to answer your prayers, it's not even about the gods. It's about you, learning you have to answer your prayers yourself."
— The sermon of Septon Ray, Game of Thrones
"Battle is not a simulation. It's blood and screams and funerals."
— Philippa Georgiou, to Michael Burnham, Star Trek: Discovery
"Death, destruction, disease, horror. That's what war is all about, Anan. That's what makes it a thing to be avoided."
— Capt. James T. Kirk, Star Trek: The Original Series, "A Taste of Armageddon"
Hawkeye: War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.
Father Mulcahy: How do you figure, Hawkeye?
Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?
Father Mulcahy: Sinners, I believe.
Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them — little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.
Father Mulcahy: How do you figure, Hawkeye?
Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?
Father Mulcahy: Sinners, I believe.
Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them — little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.
— M*A*S*H
Music
A Hero of War,
Is that what they see?
Just medals and scars,
So damn proud of me.
And I brought home that flag,
Now it gathers dust,
But it's a flag that I love,
The only flag that I trust.
Is that what they see?
Just medals and scars,
So damn proud of me.
And I brought home that flag,
Now it gathers dust,
But it's a flag that I love,
The only flag that I trust.
— Rise Against, "Hero of War"
Kill your enemies, my brothers dead around me
Wounds are hurting, death is creeping for me
Smoke is blinding, hearts are pounding, chaos soon ignites
The call is made, it's one for all! Will I meet the maker?
Over the top! Over the top! Right now it's killing time!
Over the top! Over the top! Right now it's killing time!
Over the top! Over the top! Right now it's killing time!
Over the top! Over the top! The only way out is to DIE!
God has spoken through his conscience
As I scream aim and fire the death toll grows higher
Wounds are hurting, death is creeping for me
Smoke is blinding, hearts are pounding, chaos soon ignites
The call is made, it's one for all! Will I meet the maker?
Over the top! Over the top! Right now it's killing time!
Over the top! Over the top! Right now it's killing time!
Over the top! Over the top! Right now it's killing time!
Over the top! Over the top! The only way out is to DIE!
God has spoken through his conscience
As I scream aim and fire the death toll grows higher
— Bullet for My Valentine, "Scream Aim Fire"
How well I remember that terrible day,
When our blood stained the sand and the water,
And how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay,
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter.
Johnny Turk, he was ready, he'd primed himself well,
He rained us with bullets, and showered us with shell,
And in five minutes flat, he blew us to hell,
Nearly blew us right back to Australia.
And the band played "Waltzing Matilda,"
As we all stopped to bury the slain,
We buried ours, and the Turks buried theirs,
Then it started all over again.
When our blood stained the sand and the water,
And how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay,
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter.
Johnny Turk, he was ready, he'd primed himself well,
He rained us with bullets, and showered us with shell,
And in five minutes flat, he blew us to hell,
Nearly blew us right back to Australia.
And the band played "Waltzing Matilda,"
As we all stopped to bury the slain,
We buried ours, and the Turks buried theirs,
Then it started all over again.
— Eric Bogle, "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda"
The sun, how it shines on the green fields of France
There's a warm summer breeze, makes the red poppies dance
The trenches have vanished, long under the plow,
There's no gas, no barbed wire, there's no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard, it's still no-man's-land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To Man's blind indifference to his fellow man,
To a whole generation that were butchered and damned!
There's a warm summer breeze, makes the red poppies dance
The trenches have vanished, long under the plow,
There's no gas, no barbed wire, there's no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard, it's still no-man's-land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To Man's blind indifference to his fellow man,
To a whole generation that were butchered and damned!
— Eric Bogle, "No Man's Land" (often known as "Green Fields of France" or "Willie McBride")
Where to begin? Let's start with the end
This black and white photo don't capture the skin
When metal is churned. And bodies are burned
Victory earned
This black and white photo don't capture the skin
When metal is churned. And bodies are burned
Victory earned
— Carbon Leaf, "The War Was In Color"
Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
I've witnessed your suffering
As the battle raged higher
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me, my brothers in arms
Baptisms of fire
I've witnessed your suffering
As the battle raged higher
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me, my brothers in arms
As the train pulled in the station and the families gathered 'round
You could hear the first car echo with a loud triumphant sound
But the last car it was silent, they listened close but they couldn't hear
It was laden down with coffins, that didn't speak and couldn't cheer
[...]
Tell their wives that "they fought bravely" as they lay them in their graves...
You could hear the first car echo with a loud triumphant sound
But the last car it was silent, they listened close but they couldn't hear
It was laden down with coffins, that didn't speak and couldn't cheer
[...]
Tell their wives that "they fought bravely" as they lay them in their graves...
— Dropkick Murphys, "Broken Hymns"
Rivers flow with blood
There's nowhere left to hide
It's hard to comprehend
There's anyone left alive
Sick of all the killing
And the reek of death
Will God tell me
What religion is to man
There's nowhere left to hide
It's hard to comprehend
There's anyone left alive
Sick of all the killing
And the reek of death
Will God tell me
What religion is to man
— Iron Maiden, "Mother Of Mercy"
A score and seven soldiers, bloody, hacked and lame,
Returning to the village from their warriors' game,
Once more the drums are beating in the village square,
They tell of those who'll never be returning there...
The captain is dead and all the banners are bloody and torn,
Only these return, there'll be no more to come,
The pipes are keening for the soldiers dead and gone,
Behind them, mothers follow sadly weeping-oh.
Returning to the village from their warriors' game,
Once more the drums are beating in the village square,
They tell of those who'll never be returning there...
The captain is dead and all the banners are bloody and torn,
Only these return, there'll be no more to come,
The pipes are keening for the soldiers dead and gone,
Behind them, mothers follow sadly weeping-oh.
— Andy Irvine, "Blood and Gold"
I can't remember anything
Can't tell if this is true or dream
Deep down inside I feel to scream
This terrible silence stops me
Now that the war is through with me
I'm waking up, I cannot see
That there is not much left of me
Nothing is real but pain now
Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please God, wake me
Can't tell if this is true or dream
Deep down inside I feel to scream
This terrible silence stops me
Now that the war is through with me
I'm waking up, I cannot see
That there is not much left of me
Nothing is real but pain now
Hold my breath as I wish for death
Oh please God, wake me
— Metallica, "One"
Over the deep and the deadly sweep
The fire and the bursting shell
While the very air is a mad despair
The throes of a living hell
The fire and the bursting shell
While the very air is a mad despair
The throes of a living hell
— Phil Ochs, "The Men Behind The Guns"
The war is a taste of hellfire
The war is the downfall of man
The war is the trade of the liar
The war again and again
The war is the downfall of man
The war is the trade of the liar
The war again and again
— Running Wild, "The War"
You're dying in war, but you even can't live in peace.
— Running Wild, "War and Peace"
Thousands of machine guns
Kept on firing through the night
Mortars blazed and wrecked the scene
Guns in the fields that once were green
Still a deadlock at the frontline
Where the soldiers die in mud
Roads and houses since long gone
Still no glory has been won
Know that many men has suffered
Know that many men has died
Six miles of ground has been won
Half a million men are gone
And as the men crawled the general called
And the killing carried on
And on
What was the purpose of it all?
What's the price of a mile?
Thousands of feet march to the beat, it's an army on the march
Long way from home, paying the price in young men's lives
Thousands of feet march to the beat, it's an army in despair
Knee-deep in mud, stuck in the trench with no way out
[...]
Young men are dying!
They pay the price!
O how they suffer!
So tell me, What is the price of a mile?
Kept on firing through the night
Mortars blazed and wrecked the scene
Guns in the fields that once were green
Still a deadlock at the frontline
Where the soldiers die in mud
Roads and houses since long gone
Still no glory has been won
Know that many men has suffered
Know that many men has died
Six miles of ground has been won
Half a million men are gone
And as the men crawled the general called
And the killing carried on
And on
What was the purpose of it all?
What's the price of a mile?
Thousands of feet march to the beat, it's an army on the march
Long way from home, paying the price in young men's lives
Thousands of feet march to the beat, it's an army in despair
Knee-deep in mud, stuck in the trench with no way out
[...]
Young men are dying!
They pay the price!
O how they suffer!
So tell me, What is the price of a mile?
— Sabaton, "The Price Of A Mile"
Has man gone insane?
A few will remain
Who'll find a way
To live one more day
Through decades of war
It spreads like disease
There's no sign of peace
Religion and greed
Cause millions to bleed
Three decades of war
A few will remain
Who'll find a way
To live one more day
Through decades of war
It spreads like disease
There's no sign of peace
Religion and greed
Cause millions to bleed
Three decades of war
— Sabaton, "A Lifetime Of War"
Gallipoli
Left their letters in the sand
Such waste of life
Gallipoli
Dreams of freedom turned to dust
How many wasted lives?
How many dreams did fade away?
Broken promises
They won't be coming home
Left their letters in the sand
Such waste of life
Gallipoli
Dreams of freedom turned to dust
How many wasted lives?
How many dreams did fade away?
Broken promises
They won't be coming home
—Sabaton, Cliffs of Gallipoli
The sky is raining fire, we dance between the bombs
The curtain falls tonight over the ruins and tombs
We dance to celebrate our history and fate
We're shining to exist, injustice and hatred will make us fall in the night
The curtain falls tonight over the ruins and tombs
We dance to celebrate our history and fate
We're shining to exist, injustice and hatred will make us fall in the night
—Myrath, "Dance"
War!
HUNH!
Good God, y'all!
What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!
HUNH!
Good God, y'all!
What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!
— Edwin Starr, "War"
They were crying when their sons left
All young men must go
He's come so far to find the truth
He's never going home
All young men must go
He's come so far to find the truth
He's never going home
— System of a Down, "Soldier Side"
End this war... bring them homes... bring them back... alive
Take control... force the end... overwhelm them... with might
The onslaught... the carnage... will scar them... for life
Their innocence... their youth... was lost... forever
Take control... force the end... overwhelm them... with might
The onslaught... the carnage... will scar them... for life
Their innocence... their youth... was lost... forever
— Immolation, "A Thunderous Consequence"
Wi' yer drums 'n' guns, and guns 'n' drums, the enemy nearly slew ye
Oh, darlin', dear, ye look so queer, Johnny, I hardly knew ye...
Oh, darlin', dear, ye look so queer, Johnny, I hardly knew ye...
— "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye," traditional Irish folk song
And when the battle is over, what about the pain
Of knowing that I'll never see my little boy again
His duty has been done at last, despite my growing fears
That knowing as a parent, I've wasted all these years
How could they do this?
How could they kill my son?
Of knowing that I'll never see my little boy again
His duty has been done at last, despite my growing fears
That knowing as a parent, I've wasted all these years
How could they do this?
How could they kill my son?
— Legend, "Song for a Soldier"
Look at your young men fighting
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they've always done before
Look at the hate we're breeding
Look at the fear we're feeding
Look at the lives we're leading
The way we've always done before
My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can't deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars.
Look at your women crying
Look at your young men dying
The way they've always done before
Look at the hate we're breeding
Look at the fear we're feeding
Look at the lives we're leading
The way we've always done before
My hands are tied
The billions shift from side to side
And the wars go on with brainwashed pride
For the love of God and our human rights
And all these things are swept aside
By bloody hands time can't deny
And are washed away by your genocide
And history hides the lies of our civil wars.
— Guns N' Roses, "Civil War"
Ain't found a way to kill me yet
Eyes burn with stinging swear
Seems every path leads me to nowhere
Wife and kids and household pet
Army green was no safe bet
The bullet screamed to me from somewhere
Walking tall, machinegun man
They spit on me in my homeland
Gloria send me pictures of my boy
Got my pills 'gainst mosquito death
My buddy's breathing his dying breath
Oh God please won't you help me make it through?
Eyes burn with stinging swear
Seems every path leads me to nowhere
Wife and kids and household pet
Army green was no safe bet
The bullet screamed to me from somewhere
Walking tall, machinegun man
They spit on me in my homeland
Gloria send me pictures of my boy
Got my pills 'gainst mosquito death
My buddy's breathing his dying breath
Oh God please won't you help me make it through?
— Alice in Chains, "Rooster"
March, the grave will find you soon
One million voices strong, the angry voice of doom
March, you colonizing fools
The endless call of war, your life is just the fuel
One million voices strong, the angry voice of doom
March, you colonizing fools
The endless call of war, your life is just the fuel
— The Shodown, "The Graveyard of Empires"
Where dead men lies I'm paralyzed
My brother's eyes are gone
And he shall be buried here
Nameless marks his grave
Mother home, get a telegram
And shed a tear of grief
Mud and blood in a foreign land
Trying to understand
Where is this greatness I've been told?
This is the lies that we've been sold
Is this a worthy sacrifice?
My brother's eyes are gone
And he shall be buried here
Nameless marks his grave
Mother home, get a telegram
And shed a tear of grief
Mud and blood in a foreign land
Trying to understand
Where is this greatness I've been told?
This is the lies that we've been sold
Is this a worthy sacrifice?
And as the end draws near
November dawn
With losses so severe
Cease fire, their forces withdrawn
November 11th, settling the score
From 15 to 20 million
Almost half of the dead civilian
A new world will dawn from empires fallen
The end of the war to end war
November dawn
With losses so severe
Cease fire, their forces withdrawn
November 11th, settling the score
From 15 to 20 million
Almost half of the dead civilian
A new world will dawn from empires fallen
The end of the war to end war
— Sabaton , "The End of the War to End All Wars"
"There are children standing here, arms outstretched into the sky
Tears drying on their face
He has been here
Brothers lie in shallow graves, fathers lost without a trace
A nation blind to their disgrace
Since he's been here
And I see no bravery
No bravery in your eyes anymore, only sadness
[...]
Houses burnt beyond repair, the smell of death is in the air
A woman weeping in despair says:
He has been here
Tracer lighting up the sky, it's another family's turn to die
A child afraid to even cry out says:
He has been here
[...]
There are children standing here, arms outstretched into the sky
But no one asks the question why he has been here
Old men kneel to accept their fate, wives and daughters cut and raped
A generation drenched in hate says:
He has been here"
Tears drying on their face
He has been here
Brothers lie in shallow graves, fathers lost without a trace
A nation blind to their disgrace
Since he's been here
And I see no bravery
No bravery in your eyes anymore, only sadness
[...]
Houses burnt beyond repair, the smell of death is in the air
A woman weeping in despair says:
He has been here
Tracer lighting up the sky, it's another family's turn to die
A child afraid to even cry out says:
He has been here
[...]
There are children standing here, arms outstretched into the sky
But no one asks the question why he has been here
Old men kneel to accept their fate, wives and daughters cut and raped
A generation drenched in hate says:
He has been here"
— James Blunt, "No Bravery"
And the ANZAC legends didn't mention mud and blood and tears.
And the stories that my father told me never seemed quite real.
I caught some pieces in my back that I didn't even feel.
God help me, I was only 19.
And the stories that my father told me never seemed quite real.
I caught some pieces in my back that I didn't even feel.
God help me, I was only 19.
— Redgum, "I Was Only 19"
Big fucking ditches in the middle of the road
You pay a hundred dollars just for filling in the hole
Listen to the general every goddamn word
How many ways can you polish up a turd?!
You pay a hundred dollars just for filling in the hole
Listen to the general every goddamn word
How many ways can you polish up a turd?!
— Tom Waits, "Hell Broke Luce"
Empires built upon the bones of those who stood beside us
The sun has set eternally into the dark
And we have seen the fields of war steal the lives of sons and brothers
The iron heart of glory beats a hollow dirge
The gods of battle rise and fall, but the thirst for blood lives on
The Wolves of Winter rise and howl for honor's debt
The sands forever greedily consume the blood of friends and fathers
The gates of Hood will open wide with dreams of death.
The sun has set eternally into the dark
And we have seen the fields of war steal the lives of sons and brothers
The iron heart of glory beats a hollow dirge
The gods of battle rise and fall, but the thirst for blood lives on
The Wolves of Winter rise and howl for honor's debt
The sands forever greedily consume the blood of friends and fathers
The gates of Hood will open wide with dreams of death.
— Caladan Brood, "Echoes of Battle"
Time to fight
Have to kill
Havin' to see blood spill
So this is what it's all about
It's not John Wayne in a movie
There are no parades for these heroes
And all I can line up are the widows
War is real
Death is made of steel
I don't want to see
I cannot believe it
Have to kill
Havin' to see blood spill
So this is what it's all about
It's not John Wayne in a movie
There are no parades for these heroes
And all I can line up are the widows
War is real
Death is made of steel
I don't want to see
I cannot believe it
— Minutemen, "No Parade"
This pair of sweet young lovers
Shot and fallen side by side on this day
Leaving all these ridiculous earthly stances and views behind together finally
I seem to hear the wind singing this song again:
Love, building on what you believe
Be it sweet or bitter on the road, they held on to each other
Love, is never meant to be separated by religions
Has no place for ethnic conflicts
Always would rather love you from life until death
Shot and fallen side by side on this day
Leaving all these ridiculous earthly stances and views behind together finally
I seem to hear the wind singing this song again:
Love, building on what you believe
Be it sweet or bitter on the road, they held on to each other
Love, is never meant to be separated by religions
Has no place for ethnic conflicts
Always would rather love you from life until death
— Sammi Cheng, "Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo" (original song in Cantonese here
)
)"Ash in the snow, falling so slow
Like fragile broken hearts with no place to go
Little soldier boy, taken from home
Forced to fight a war that was not his own
Little soldier boy, cold and alone
Brave soldier boy, never made it home"
Like fragile broken hearts with no place to go
Little soldier boy, taken from home
Forced to fight a war that was not his own
Little soldier boy, cold and alone
Brave soldier boy, never made it home"
—Rainaeiry, "Leaves from the Vine"
I gazed around and saw the slain who knew no glory, only pain;
How different now my triumph seemed as dying soldiers screamed.
What glory in the bow or blade? What honor can through death be made
When children are the sacrifice and innocence the price?
Away I ran, and to this day, my husband works, my children play;
I thirst no longer for the fight, nor envy squire nor knight.
My son will never know the sword, my girl for sweetness find reward,
My husband’s hands will know the stain of earth, and not the slain.
And I will reap what I will sow, and take my joy when green things grow
Let others who hold life too cheap their so-called glory reap.
How different now my triumph seemed as dying soldiers screamed.
What glory in the bow or blade? What honor can through death be made
When children are the sacrifice and innocence the price?
Away I ran, and to this day, my husband works, my children play;
I thirst no longer for the fight, nor envy squire nor knight.
My son will never know the sword, my girl for sweetness find reward,
My husband’s hands will know the stain of earth, and not the slain.
And I will reap what I will sow, and take my joy when green things grow
Let others who hold life too cheap their so-called glory reap.
Poetry
A wise hero must realize
how terrible it will be,
when all the wealth of this world
lies wasted,
as now in various places
throughout this world
walls stand,
blown by the wind,
covered with frost,
storm-swept the buildings.
The halls decay,
their lords lie
deprived of joy,
the whole troop has fallen,
the proud ones, by the wall.
how terrible it will be,
when all the wealth of this world
lies wasted,
as now in various places
throughout this world
walls stand,
blown by the wind,
covered with frost,
storm-swept the buildings.
The halls decay,
their lords lie
deprived of joy,
the whole troop has fallen,
the proud ones, by the wall.
The Wanderer, Trans to Modern English (Sean Miller).
I have eaten your bread and salt.
I have drunk your water and wine.
The deaths ye died I have watched beside,
And the lives ye led were mine.
Was there aught that I did not share
In vigil or toil or ease,
One joy or woe that I did not know,
Dear hearts across the seas?
I have written the tale of our life
For a sheltered people's mirth,
In jesting guise - but ye are wise,
And ye know what the jest is worth.
I have drunk your water and wine.
The deaths ye died I have watched beside,
And the lives ye led were mine.
Was there aught that I did not share
In vigil or toil or ease,
One joy or woe that I did not know,
Dear hearts across the seas?
I have written the tale of our life
For a sheltered people's mirth,
In jesting guise - but ye are wise,
And ye know what the jest is worth.
— Rudyard Kipling, "Prelude"
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.note
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.note
— Wilfred Owen, "Dulce Et Decorum Est"
Squire nagged and bullied till I went to fight,
(Under Lord Derby's scheme). I died in hell -
(They called it Passchendaele). My wound was slight,
And I was hobbling back; and then a shell
Burst slick upon the duckboards: so I fell
Into the bottomless mud, and lost the light.
(Under Lord Derby's scheme). I died in hell -
(They called it Passchendaele). My wound was slight,
And I was hobbling back; and then a shell
Burst slick upon the duckboards: so I fell
Into the bottomless mud, and lost the light.
— Siegfried Sassoon, "Memorial Tablet"
And when he gets to heaven
to St. Peter he will tell:
"One more marine reporting, sir!
I've served my time in hell!"
to St. Peter he will tell:
"One more marine reporting, sir!
I've served my time in hell!"
— "The Soldier's Poem"
First came the Greycoats to eat all my swine,
Next came the Bluecoats to make my sons fight,
Next came the Greencoats to make my wife whore,
Next came the Browncoats to burn down my home.
I have naught but my life, now come the Blackcoats to rob me of that.
Next came the Bluecoats to make my sons fight,
Next came the Greencoats to make my wife whore,
Next came the Browncoats to burn down my home.
I have naught but my life, now come the Blackcoats to rob me of that.
—Anonymous poem from the Thirty Years War
Vowed to wipe out the Xiongnu regardless of cost
Five thousand elites lost in the barbarian dust
Have pity on the white skeletons on the Wuding River bank
For they are now only in the dreams of young women back home.
Five thousand elites lost in the barbarian dust
Have pity on the white skeletons on the Wuding River bank
For they are now only in the dreams of young women back home.
—Chen Tao, "Journey to Longxi" (from the 9th century)
" (from the 9th century) Pro Wrestling
Hey! ...War is dumb.
Radio
"Oh that is typical. They're always firing shells at us. I hate this."
"It's horrible here — really horrible."
"I know it is."
"It's muddy and smelly and just really dangerous. I hate the way everyone gets killed."
"It's horrible here — really horrible."
"I know it is."
"It's muddy and smelly and just really dangerous. I hate the way everyone gets killed."
Tabletop Games
Firestorms. Mass eviscerations. Assaults from live-stone monsters. Curtains made from living skin. Consors and ghouls locked in mass warfare. Castles blown to shards. Towns burned, their people drained of blood. Dragons set loose in the Carpathian hills. Innards ripped magically from within living skin. And torture - so much torture that even our medieval cousins were horrified. In later years, Hermetic mages would refer to the First Massassa war as our Vietnam. No side truly won, both were devastated, and neither would ever be the same. This March raged for over a century. When we finally limped off claiming victory, our Order stood at less than 100 Awakened members combined. The Tremere, we hoped, had suffered similar losses. But vampires breed more quickly than mages Awaken...
—Mage: The Ascension - Tradition Book: Order Of Hermes (Revised)
To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.
What tumbles from the sky in war-torn lands, killing brothers, sisters, friends, parents? What pounds upon the door in the middle of the night, howling orders or kicking it to splinters, dragging Daddy off to the Scream Hotel? What buzzes in the corner like an insect full of shrapnel and a voice like a thousand thunders? The children of Belfast, of Sarajevo, of Somalia and East L.A. know the monster's name. It is War.
War makes the air too thick to breathe, makes fathers choke on their own blood while mothers cower under soldiers' blows. War makes the night explode with screams and makes the market dance into flying bits of glass and bodies. War makes your belly howl and grinds your fingertips to bloody shreds as tanks rumble by. Worst of all, War grows inside you, scraping your soul until one day you feed the War with broken bodies. This is perhaps the saddest, meanest spirit in the Tellurian - the child's dream of War in all its glory
In the Land of Nod, the War descends from above, like a great black cloud settling down upon the landscape. More a storm than a monster, it ravages an area, then move on. The War begins and as a darkening, then dry winds and the distant sounds of sirens fill the air. In moments, the area swarms with soldiers. A red haze builds from the ground up, a bloody fog that clings to the skin and turns the stomach. Horror begin, pain without measure, without substance, without reason. Soon enough, it subsides. Subsides into the stillness of death, and the promise of more to come.
—Mage: The Ascension - The Book Of Worlds
Video Games
There's no mercy in war. People live and people die - that's all there is to it.
— Solo Wing Pixy, Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War
I find no solace in the purpose behind of all this senseless violence that surrounds me. Young men die at a rate unheard of in centuries of warfare. Shelling. Machine guns. Mustard gas. Rip, pierce, and burn their flesh. Men soak gauze in their own urine to stop the insidious gas. The hospital cannot cope with the torrent of wounded...
— Peter Jacob, Eternal Darkness
War...
War never changes.
The Romans waged war to gather slaves and wealth. Spain built an empire from its lust for gold and territory. Hitler shaped a battered Germany into an economic superpower.
War never changes.
The Romans waged war to gather slaves and wealth. Spain built an empire from its lust for gold and territory. Hitler shaped a battered Germany into an economic superpower.
But war never changes.
In the 21st century, war was still waged over the resources that could be acquired. Only this time, the spoils of war were also its weapons: Petroleum and Uranium. For these resources, China would invade Alaska, the US would annex Canada, and the European Commonwealth would dissolve into quarreling, bickering nation-states, bent on controlling the last remaining resources on Earth.
In 2077, the storm of world war had come again. In two brief hours, most of the planet was reduced to cinders. And from the ashes of nuclear devastation, a new civilization would struggle to arise.
A few were able to reach the relative safety of the large underground vaults. Your family was part of that group that entered Vault Thirteen. Imprisoned safely behind the large Vault door, under a mountain of stone, a generation has lived without knowledge of the outside world.
Life in the Vault is about to change.
Life in the Vault is about to change.
— Fallout
Petals far too young, blown away by the black winds
Stranded on the shores of a sea of silence
For how much longer will we have to wait for the storms to pass?
Stranded on the shores of a sea of silence
For how much longer will we have to wait for the storms to pass?
— "Elegy of Winds", Fuga: Melodies of Steel
Captain's report-February 4th, 2531.
Five years, five long years. That's how long it took us to get Harvest back. At first, it was going well. Then setback after setback...loss after loss...made what was going to be a quick and decisive win...into five years of hell... Of course, that's all Harvest is today...it's hell down there... But now it's ours again.
Five years, five long years. That's how long it took us to get Harvest back. At first, it was going well. Then setback after setback...loss after loss...made what was going to be a quick and decisive win...into five years of hell... Of course, that's all Harvest is today...it's hell down there... But now it's ours again.
— Captain James Cutter, Halo Wars
War is an atrocity committed in the name of survival. A lesson I wish I had never learned.
— Javik, Prothean Avatar of Vengeance, Mass Effect 3
I was a fool. I wanted to be a soldier. But war is ugly... There's nothing glamorous about it.
— Meryl Silverburgh, Metal Gear Solid
War has changed. It's no longer about nations, ideologies, or ethnicity. It's an endless series of proxy battles, fought by mercenaries and machines. War - and its consumption of life - has become a well-oiled machine. War has changed. ID-tagged soldiers carry ID-tagged weapons, use ID-tagged gear. Nanomachines inside their bodies enhance and regulate their abilities. Genetic control, information control, emotion control, battlefield control. Everything is monitored and kept under control. War has changed. The age of deterrence has become the age of control, all in the name of averting catastrophe from weapons of mass destruction, and he who controls the battlefield, controls history. War has changed. When the battlefield is under total control, war becomes routine.
— Solid (Old) Snake, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
War is never really won by anyone who participates in it. War simply rearranges the way things were and steals the promise of tomorrow from each side. To succeed at war you have to lose a part of your humanity. After you win enough wars, you have no humanity left because you lost a piece of it each time you killed someone.
— Major Leon James, Kell Hounds, MechWarrior 2
Five years ago, I lost 30,000 men in the blink of an eye, and the world just fucking watched. Tomorrow there will be no shortage of volunteers, no shortage of patriots. I know you understand.
— General Shepherd, Modern Warfare 2
In a recent battle Player X completely destroyed Player Y's ship. The moment Player Y tried to flee he was vaporized by Player X's shots.
War Is Hell.
War Is Hell.
— GNN, Pardus
War is not a joke. Find someone else to bother!
Make no mistake. War is coming. With all its glory. And with all its horror.
— Arcturus Mengsk, Starcraft II
I hear trench warfare is as bad as it gets. Cowering in a dirty hole, hoping a bombardment doesn't hit too close, or penned in with dozens of others desperately fighting with nowhere to go...
—Mako's comment on seeing the Republic trenches on Balmorra, Star Wars: The Old Republic
My first day as a member of the 501st... It was hot, it was sandy, chaotic. Nothing at all like the simulations on Kamino. Of course that's pretty much the way it was for all of us, wasn't it? All that breeding, all those years of training... it doesn't really prepare you for the all the screaming or the blood, does it? Frankly I'm still amazed we ever made it through the first hour, nevermind the first day.
—501st Legion Clone Trooper Diary, Star Wars: Battlefront II
What follows is frontline combat. You are not expected to survive.
None of this is good, Vector. That's why it's called "war".
— Knuckles, Sonic Forces
"I have stood knee deep in mud and bone, and filled my lungs with mustard gas. I have seen two brothers fall. I have lain with holy wars and copulated with the autumnal fallout. I have dug trenches for the refugees; I have murdered dissidents where the ground never thaws, and starved the masses into faith. A child's shadow burnt into the brickwork. A house of skulls in the jungle. The innocent, the innocent, Mandus, trod and bled and gassed and starved and beaten and murdered and enslaved. This is your coming century! They will eat them Mandus! They will make pigs of you all! And they will bury their snouts into your ribs and they will eat. your. hearts!
Aim, shoot, kill, reload. The cycle repeats to no end. I cared less and less that the shots were aimed at other living beings...
...I have to stop seeing them note as people. Wouldn't have been able to do it otherwise...
...I have to stop seeing them note as people. Wouldn't have been able to do it otherwise...
— Piotr Kowalski, Land of War - The Beginning
"War without rule or restraint isn't a pretty sight. Even if you win, you'll never be the same again."
— Gunmaster Duncan on total war, Legacy of a Thousand Suns
"Hungry for more, the war was not yet over. Its appetite was... infinite."
"Brutally difficult and entirely unforgiving."
"Great leaders draw their power from conviction. Their armies, however, march forward only under the power of Energon. This terrible war will reach its end. Not because all have finally become one. But simply, I fear, because all have become none."
"Do you feel like a hero yet?"
— Colonel John Konrad, Spec Ops: The Line
"Jeremy. Someday, people will tell you about your father. For that, I'm sorry. I love you."
— Colonel John Konrad in a letter to his son, Spec Ops: The Line
"The US military does not condone the killing of unarmed combatants. But this isn't real, so why should you care?"
The insanity of war, it's like a dust storm. You can be the person caught in it, resisting, holding onto your ideals until it breaks you down, saps your strength and strips your flesh from your bones.
War has consumed many this way.
You can be that person, or you can be the dust.
War has consumed many this way.
You can be that person, or you can be the dust.
— Startup Screen, Receiver 2
Katherine Bishop: Now, there's just one last question I'd like to ask you. It's subjective, so, take your time
Nathan MacDade: Sure - fire away
Katherine Bishop: In your opinion, who's most to blame for all the suffering in Oreokastro? NATO? The guerrillas? CSAT? The Altis Armed Forces? Or, I don't know, something else?
Nathan MacDade: I'd have to say - y'know I'm not sure. I mean, I don't think it's quite so 'black and white'. It's more... black and grey. Hell, grey and grey, y'know? No one side can be held accountable for the bloodshed here. No one action got us where we are now. I dunno. What can we do? Just... double-down on our efforts. Heal the wounds... And the folks here in Oreokastro? They're the ones that've suffered. This is the reality. This is war.
Nathan MacDade: Sure - fire away
Katherine Bishop: In your opinion, who's most to blame for all the suffering in Oreokastro? NATO? The guerrillas? CSAT? The Altis Armed Forces? Or, I don't know, something else?
Nathan MacDade: I'd have to say - y'know I'm not sure. I mean, I don't think it's quite so 'black and white'. It's more... black and grey. Hell, grey and grey, y'know? No one side can be held accountable for the bloodshed here. No one action got us where we are now. I dunno. What can we do? Just... double-down on our efforts. Heal the wounds... And the folks here in Oreokastro? They're the ones that've suffered. This is the reality. This is war.
"You remember, during the war... we did some bad things and bad things happened to us. War is where the young and stupid are tricked by the old and bitter into killing each other."
— Niko Bellic, Grand Theft Auto IV
Visual Novels
Thrown abruptly into a rain-soaked hell without adequate food. Unable to imagine what tomorrow will bring, your physical and emotional strength are slowly whittled down - The ones wobbling on their feet have a week. The ones sitting, five days. The ones lying down, three. The ones that can't speak, two. And the ones that can't blink will be dead before the sun sets. At some point, you've lost the energy to dig graves for your companions. You sleep next to the rotting corpses of your friend.
Hell on earth.
— Yuuji, The Fruit of Grisaia
Web Animation
Radio: In other news, Russia has begun an invasion of Ukraine, saying it plans to "de-Nazify" the country. NATO allies have begun a series of sanctions against Russia.
Russian neighbor: But… but why?
Ukrainian neighbor: I dunno. Some complicated geopolitical bulls**t that's going to ruin your life and mine.
Russian neighbor: Well, I know I'm supposed to hate you now, but… take care.
Ukrainian neighbor: And I know I'm supposed to blame you for what your government is doing, but… thanks.
Russian neighbor: But… but why?
Ukrainian neighbor: I dunno. Some complicated geopolitical bulls**t that's going to ruin your life and mine.
Russian neighbor: Well, I know I'm supposed to hate you now, but… take care.
Ukrainian neighbor: And I know I'm supposed to blame you for what your government is doing, but… thanks.
Here's how trench warfare works: two opposing lines of trenches with no man's land in between. One side would pummel the other with hundreds of thousands of artillery shells, sometimes for days at a time. This had a huge psychological effect on the soldiers, leaving many shell-shocked. Then, the attacking troops would leave their trenches and rush across no man's land, a muddy, wet mess of shell craters and barbed wire. The defending trench would unleash machine-gun fire on the attackers, inflicting thousands of casualties. The attackers would send wave after wave until either they gave up or the opposing trench was finally overrun. There would be months of fighting and the deaths of thousands in order to gain a few meters or kilometers of land.
Living in the trenches was hard work, too. Corpses, mud that could swallow you whole, pools of poisonous water, rats, disease, the smell... It's insane that millions of soldiers put up with these conditions, and commanders ordered them to do so for years.
Living in the trenches was hard work, too. Corpses, mud that could swallow you whole, pools of poisonous water, rats, disease, the smell... It's insane that millions of soldiers put up with these conditions, and commanders ordered them to do so for years.
—- Oversimplified, World War One (Part 1)
Web Comics
This isn't the dungeon. In a war, people on the winning side still die. You might want to consider taking it somewhat seriously.
— O-Chul, The Order of the Stick
Dejah: This war really can't end for us, can it?
Miranda: I invite you to name any war that has "ended well", Dejah.
Miranda: I invite you to name any war that has "ended well", Dejah.
Web Original
It was just after dawn on the twentieth day, when Karl tore out his own throat and continued to rant and rave, that Lars' nerve finally broke. Whatever evils nature hid in the woods, they could not match what he had seen and heard in the past weeks on the battlefield. Soldiers screaming as they were torn apart by invisible hands. The howling of men blown in half by an artillery volley, howling that never ceased. He had to get out. He would run all the way back to Bavaria, if necessary. Just away.
the conflicted supersoldier stares over the horizon as he smokes a cigarette. "war is the most fucked up thing ever." he takes a sip of beer
— dril
Web Videos
Western Animation
War is stupid.
— Doug
No such thing as a good war, kiddo.
— Greg Universe, Steven Universe
Optimus: Let's just say I have a much better appreciation for what you went through back in the day and why you don't wanna remember it.
Ratchet: It's not that I don't want to remember. I have to remember... for those who can't.
Ratchet: It's not that I don't want to remember. I have to remember... for those who can't.
Mikey: When will you ever learn?! War is not a game! War is not a game!
Other Kids: Really? I thought it was a game. A really fun game.
Other Kids: Really? I thought it was a game. A really fun game.
— Recess
Ma'ah: You fought the Dominion? Ah, the Shapeshifters sent many warriors to Sto'vo'kor. I wish I could've seen it.
Mariner: No, you do not! There was no honor, just massacres...
Ma'ah: But! In the end, you were victorious!
Mariner: Starfleet is supposed to be about puzzling together the mysteries of life, not fighting wars! I don't wanna be a general! I don't wanna send my friends off to die!
— Star Trek: Lower Decks, "The Inner Fight"
Real Life
In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons.
— Herodotus
"The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war."
— General Douglas MacArthur
There's no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war. Except its ending.
Now arms, however beautiful, are instruments of evil omen, hateful, it may be said, to all creatures. Therefore they who have the Tao do not like to employ them.
The superior man ordinarily considers the left hand the most honourable place, but in time of war the right hand. Those sharp weapons are instruments of evil omen, and not the instruments of the superior man; he uses them only on the compulsion of necessity. Calm and repose are what he prizes; victory (by force of arms) is to him undesirable. To consider this desirable would be to delight in the slaughter of men; and he who delights in the slaughter of men cannot get his will in the kingdom.
On occasions of festivity to be on the left hand is the prized position; on occasions of mourning, the right hand. The second in command of the army has his place on the left; the general commanding in chief has his on the right; his place, that is, is assigned to him as in the rites of mourning. He who has killed multitudes of men should weep for them with the bitterest grief; and the victor in battle has his place (rightly) according to those rites.
The superior man ordinarily considers the left hand the most honourable place, but in time of war the right hand. Those sharp weapons are instruments of evil omen, and not the instruments of the superior man; he uses them only on the compulsion of necessity. Calm and repose are what he prizes; victory (by force of arms) is to him undesirable. To consider this desirable would be to delight in the slaughter of men; and he who delights in the slaughter of men cannot get his will in the kingdom.
On occasions of festivity to be on the left hand is the prized position; on occasions of mourning, the right hand. The second in command of the army has his place on the left; the general commanding in chief has his on the right; his place, that is, is assigned to him as in the rites of mourning. He who has killed multitudes of men should weep for them with the bitterest grief; and the victor in battle has his place (rightly) according to those rites.
— Laozi
"You will often be afraid when you see your enemies coming towards you with lowered lances to run you through and with drawn swords to cut you down. Bolts and arrows come at you and you do not know how best to protect yourself. You see people killing each other, fleeing, dying and being taken prisoner and you see the bodies of your dead friends lying before you. But your horse is not dead, and by its vigorous speed you can escape in dishonour. But if you stay, you will win eternal honour. Is he not a great martyr, who puts himself to such work?"
—Geoffroi de Charny, 14th-century French Knight in Shining Armor
Glory is just memory putting a brave face on horror.
— Anonymous veteran of The Napoleonic Wars
Nothing but a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.
Since my youth I have wielded arms for the fatherland and grew grey therin; I have seen death in his most terrible form and still see him before my eyes daily; I have seen hovels smoke and their inhabitants leave naked and bare, and I could not help. Such are the doings and ragings of men in their passionate state. But the better man yearns to leave that wild press, and I bless the hour when I can remove myself with good, true brothers to those higher regions where a clear, bright light shines upon us. Holy therefore is freemasonry to me, to her I shall adhere unto death, and every brother shall be dear and worthy to my heart.
— General Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, speech delivered at the lodge in Bautzen, 18 September 1813
You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it … Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth — right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail.
— William Tecumseh Sherman, speaking to a friend that was an eager secessionist and quite accurately describing the narrative of the American Civil War to come.
Every attempt to make war easy and safe will result in humiliation and disaster.
— William Tecumseh Sherman
Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.
I shall never forget the overwhelming impression made on me by the mountaineers in Novorossiisk Bay, where about seventeen thousand of them were gathered on the shore. The late, inclement and cold time of the year, the almost complete absence of means of subsistence and the epidemic of typhus and smallpox raging among them made their situation desperate. And indeed, whose heart would be touched on seeing, for example, the already stiff corpse of a young Circassian woman lying in rags on the damp ground under the open sky with two infants, one struggling in his death-throes while the other sought to assuage his hunger at his dead mother's breast? And I saw not a few such scenes.
—Adolph Petrovich Berzhe (1863)
On the road our eyes were met with a staggering image: corpses of women, children, elderly persons, torn to pieces and half- eaten by dogs; deportees emaciated by hunger and disease, almost too weak to move their legs, collapsing from exhaustion and becoming prey to dogs while still alive.
—Ivan Drozdov (May 1864)
O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle - be Thou near them! With them - in spirit - we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it - for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
"My memories of the last war haunted my dreams for years. Military service, to be plain, includes the threat of every temporal evil; pain and death which is what we fear from sickness; isolation from those we love which is what we fear from exile; toil under arbitrary masters, injustice, humiliation which is what we fear from slavery; hunger, thirst and exposure which is what we fear from poverty. I'm not a pacifist. If it's got to be then it's got to be. But the flesh is weak and selfish and I think death would be much better than to live through another war."
—C. S. Lewis, letter to Bede Griffiths, 1939
Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.
We were all Orcs in the Great War.
— Attributed to J. R. R. Tolkien
I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen two hundred limping exhausted men come out of line-the survivors of a regiment of one thousand that went forward forty-eight hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.
"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."
— Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech before the Canadian Club, January 10th, 1946
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
As far as casualties were concerned I think there were more casualties in the first attack on Tokyo with incendiaries than there were with the first use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The fact that it's done instantaneously, maybe that's more humane than incendiary attacks, if you can call any war act humane. I don't, particularly, so to me there wasn't much difference. A weapon is a weapon and it really doesn't make much difference how you kill a man. If you have to kill him, well, that's the evil to start with and how you do it becomes pretty secondary. I think your choice should be which weapon is the most efficient and most likely to get the whole mess over with as early as possible.
— Curtis "Bombs Away" LeMay, The World at War
"A true revolution of values will lay a hand on the world order and say of war 'this way of settling differences is not just'. This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nations homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples most normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love"
—Martin Luther King Jr., Beyond Vietnam speech, 1967
Every senator in this chamber is partly responsible for sending 50,000 young Americans to an early grave. This chamber reeks of blood. Every senator here is partly responsible for that human wreckage at Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval and all across our land - young men without legs, or arms, or genitals, or faces or hopes.
There are not very many of these blasted and broken boys who think this war is a glorious adventure. Do not talk to them about bugging out, or national honor or courage. It does not take any courage at all for a congressman, or a senator, or a president to wrap himself in the flag and say we are staying in Vietnam, because it is not our blood that is being shed. But we are responsible for those young men and their lives and their hopes. And if we do not end this damnable war those young men will some day curse us for our pitiful willingness to let the Executive carry the burden that the Constitution places on us.
There are not very many of these blasted and broken boys who think this war is a glorious adventure. Do not talk to them about bugging out, or national honor or courage. It does not take any courage at all for a congressman, or a senator, or a president to wrap himself in the flag and say we are staying in Vietnam, because it is not our blood that is being shed. But we are responsible for those young men and their lives and their hopes. And if we do not end this damnable war those young men will some day curse us for our pitiful willingness to let the Executive carry the burden that the Constitution places on us.
— George McGovern, speech in the Senate, 1970
War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.
— Jimmy Carter, Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, December 10, 2002
In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.
— Jose Narosky
Reason dictates we should hate this man. But it's hard to get angry at Josephus. What, after all, did he do? A few soldiers were tricked into suicide. Some demoralizing claptrap was shouted at a beleaguered army. A wife was distressed. (She survived, incidentally, and Josephus divorced her for a Roman heiress.) And sundry other crimes were committed, all of which pale by comparison to what the good men did. For it was the loyal, the idealistic and the brave who did the real damage. The devout and patriotic leaders of Jerusalem sacrificed tens of thousands of lives to the cause of freedom. Vespasian and Titus sacrificed tens of thousands more to the cause of civil order. Even Agrippa II, the Roman client king of Judea who did all he could to prevent the war, ended by supervising the destruction of half a dozen of his cities and the sale of their inhabitants into slavery. How much better for everyone if all the principal figures of the region had been slithering filth like Josephus.
— P.J. O'Rourke, "The Two-Thousand-Year-Old Middle East Policy Expert" from Give War A Chance
War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
Wars don't end happily. Not ever.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
— George Santayana, Soliloquy #25, "Tipperary" note
You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
— A bumper sticker
"Is there literally nothing that can shame you? Is there no act of barbarism against civilians, no execution of a child, that gets under your skin? That just creeps you out a little bit? Is there nothing you will not lie about or justify?"
—Samantha Power, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, on the Syrian government and its allies' actions in the Battle of Aleppo
"War is wretched beyond description, and only a fool or a fraud could sentimentalize its cruel reality."
— John McCain, speech to the American Red Cross, 1999
Those who celebrate war never participate in it. Those who participate in war never celebrate it.
— Anonymous
Men die of mud as they die from bullets, but more horribly.
Mud swallows a man and - what is worse - his soul.
Mud hides the stripes of rank. There are only poor suffering beasts.
Hell is not fire, that would not be the ultimate suffering. Hell is mud!
Mud swallows a man and - what is worse - his soul.
Mud hides the stripes of rank. There are only poor suffering beasts.
Hell is not fire, that would not be the ultimate suffering. Hell is mud!
—Excerpts from a French soldier's writing in the March 26, 1917 edition of the trench newspaper Le Bochofage
"It is good that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it."
— Robert E. Lee
What the world is seeing now in Afghanistan is what the world chose to ignore for far too long. War is hell. It always has been. And it always will be. Its currency is death, dismemberment, desperation, and fear. It doesn’t end in parades. It ends in caskets.
There is no purgatory for war criminals. They go straight to hell, ambassador.
— Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukrainian representative to the UN, towards his Russian counterpart, Vasily Nebenzya, over the 2022 invasion
"As there was no compulsion towards a conflict which, in despite of the apparent bitterness of parties, took so long to engage and needed so much assiduous blowing to fan the flame, so no right was vindicated by its ragged end. The war solved no problem. Its effects, both immediate and indirect, were either negative or disastrous. Morally subversive, economically destructive, socially degrading, confused in its causes, devious in its course, futile in its result, it is the outstanding example in European history of meaningless conflict. The overwhelming majority in Europe, the overwhelming majority in Germany, wanted no war; powerless and voiceless, there was no need even to persuade them that they did. The decision was made without thought of them. Yet of those who, one by one, let themselves be drawn into the conflict, few were irresponsible and nearly all were genuinely anxious for an ultimate and better peace. Almost all—one excepts the King of Sweden—were actuated rather by fear than by lust of conquest or passion of faith. They wanted peace and they fought for thirty years to be sure of it. They did not learn then, and have not since, that war breeds only war."
— Cicely Vivienne Wedgwood, The Thirty Years War
"How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dugout? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried the bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?"
— Smedley Butler, War Is a Racket
"The War is Over. We've all had a bellyfull. The lights are on again. Some day when I'm older, someone may read a part of this diary, — a son, a daughter or their children. War is a blasted stinking show for a cause which is sooon forgotten, and which is fed by propaganda and fanned by hysteria. The bugles blow and the bands play, but that is not the true picture YOU see. War is for the Generals and THEY see the glory, but not the honor and hardship of their field troops. Medals are never given deservedly to many — many who should be recognized — and a medal bestowed is from then on to be hidden, and bow your head if you ever show one when that war is over.
The code of men who really know and see is silence, because of a civilian ignorance and misunderstanding. All wars are the same and cannot be reported by anyone. Who can, if he is caught in the terrific noise and confusion, the filth, disease, cold — and then so hot you stink like a dirty animal, — scared — wondering when, and not asking why?
Don't look for glamour. There is none. Correspondents can write and pick their spots. We can't."
The code of men who really know and see is silence, because of a civilian ignorance and misunderstanding. All wars are the same and cannot be reported by anyone. Who can, if he is caught in the terrific noise and confusion, the filth, disease, cold — and then so hot you stink like a dirty animal, — scared — wondering when, and not asking why?
Don't look for glamour. There is none. Correspondents can write and pick their spots. We can't."
—Diary entry of unnamed U.S. Army Lieutenant, November 11, 1918
