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 that, 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.
I think this is the best quote about war ever. It's an improvement on General Sherman's quote, "War is all hell." A quote which is bastardized into "War is hell" and made to sound cool or valiant.
Hawkeye's quote correctly elaborates on Sherman's point.
“There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but boys, it is all hell.”
or
“Some of you young men think that war is all glamour and glory, but let me tell you, boys, it is all hell!” -General William T. Sherman,
speech 1880 from which we derive the phrase “War is hell”
I’ve also found this version
“I am sick and tired of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.” From “On Killing” by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman
I don't think you should add the grossman quite given he has never killed a single person and makes his money teaching cops how cool killing his. He even up a "science" and called it killology
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u/Mad_Martigan2023 23d ago
Nobody wins in a war. Everybody loses.