10 GREAT WAR MOVIE QUOTES

Well, Memorial Day is upon us: a time to reflect on all those who fought for our country.  Try to fit some time for that into your three-day weekend… maybe in between screenings of Terminator Salvation and Star Trek. 

After all, war is, as the saying goes, hell… but war movie dialogue totally blows us away! (Oh yes we did!!) Yeah…watching guys get shot up into less grotesque versions of the "Real Housewives of New York City" is awesome, but some of the high caliber conversation from war flicks sticks with you longer than a Vietnam flashback.

Here are some of our favorite lines from war flicks that have left the biggest scars on our memories…

“I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn’t find one of ‘em, not one stinkin’ dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like…victory. Someday this war’s gonna end…” – Apocalypse Now (1979)
 

Robert Duvall as Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore, expressing his enchanting fondness for the adorable chemical that turns terrain into toast and human flesh into kebob to surfing superstar Pvt. Lance B. Johnson during a pitched firefight and just before he orders him into the water to shred some awesome waves!

Apocalypse Now Speech – Watch more Movie Trailers

“Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.” – Patton (1970)

George C. Scott as General George Patton addressing his pants-stained troops before sending them into battle.

“Are you smoking this sh*t so’s to escape from reality? Me, I don’t need this sh*t I am reality. There’s the way it ought to be, and there’s the way it is. – Platoon (1986)

Tom Berenger as scary Sgt. Barnes who burst into a bigass hash party in a GI camp on frontlines back in the ‘NAM, man!!! 

Platoon Speech – Watch more Movie Trailers

“Stanley, see this? This is this. This ain’t something else. This is this. From now on, you’re on your own.” – The Deer Hunter (1978)

Robert DeNiro as “Michael,” one of the war buddies set to ship off to Vietnam while on a hunting trip with their pals. The recipient of this enduring piece of knowledge is “Stanley” played by the late John Casale…who could have used it when he was “weak and stupid” brother Fredo in The Godfather.  Not so fun fact! He died shortly after this film was released.

Speech The Deer Hunter – Watch more Movie Trailers
 

“War is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought.”  – Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Sterling Hayden as psycho General Jack D. Ripper as he regales the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Presidential War room about the obvious merits of  nuking the Soviet Union into a puddle of borscht. 

Dr. Stranglove Speech – Watch more Funny Videos

“You will be a minister of death praying for war. But until that day you are pukes. You are the lowest form of life on Earth. You are not even human, fucking beings. You are nothing but unorganized grabastic pieces of amphibian shit… I am hard but I am fair. There is no racial bigotry here. I do not look down on niggers, kikes, wops or greasers. Here you are all equally worthless.” – Full Metal Jacket (1987)

R. Lee Ermey as Gunnery Sgt. Hartman doing his best to offer a warm welcome to his newest beloved troops on the first day of boot camp where he will break them down…to break them down some more.

R Lee Ermeys Speech from Full Metal Jacket – Watch more Movie Trailers

"Only two kinds of people are gonna stay on this beach: those that are already dead and those that are gonna die. Now get off your butts. You guys are the Fighting 29th." The Longest Day (1967)

Robert Mitchum as Brigadier Gen. Norman Cota as he addresses his men as they are about hit the shore at Normandy on D-Day…and walk into a beach blanket made out of bullets.

“We’re not here to do the decent thing, we’re here to follow f***ing orders!” – Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Tom Hanks as Captain Miller, artfully explaining to his corporal why he doesn’t have the time to take a lost kid to the next town to find her family and get out of harm’s way. 

Saving Private Ryan – Hanks Speech – Watch more Movie Trailers

“When I go home people will ask me, ‘Hey Hoot, why do you do it man? What, you some kinda war junkie?’ You know what I’ll say? I won’t say a goddamn word. Why? They won’t understand. They won’t understand why we do it. They won’t understand that it’s about the men next to you, and that’s it. That’s all it is.”  – Black Hawk Down (2001)

Eric Bana as Norman "Hoot" Hooten, loads up his weapon to go on the rescue mission to help pull a squad of Army Rangers out of a huge pile of shit in Somalia. Thanks for the help, President Clinton! 

Black Hawk Down Speech – Watch more Movie Trailers

“And what are you? So full of hate you want to go out and fight everybody! Because you’ve been whipped and chased by hounds. Well that might not be living, but it sure as hell ain’t dying. And dying’s been what these white boys have been doing for going on three years now! Dying by the thousands! Dying for *you*, fool! I know, ’cause I dug the graves. And all this time I keep askin’ myself, when, O Lord, when it’s gonna be our time?”  – Glory (1989)

Morgan Freeman as Sgt. Major John Rawlins as he tries to motivate the former slave troops to fight side-by-side with guys that would crap their pants if they found out The United States would have a black President.

Glory – Morgan Freeman Speech – Watch more Funny Videos

– MIKE HAMMER

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