This is a three part document that talks
about the famous speech given by General George Patton.
Part I:
Introduction by Bill Moore, Major General, US Army, Retired
Part II: The Background research
Part III: The Speech
Part III: The Speech
"Be seated."
"Men, this stuff that some sources sling around
about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight,
is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally.
All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. You are
here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to
defend your homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here
for your own self respect, because you would not want to be
anywhere else. Third, you are here because you are real men
and all real men like to fight. When you, here, everyone of
you, were kids, you all admired the champion marble player,
the fastest runner, the toughest boxer, the big league ball
players, and the All-American football players. Americans love
a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans
despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't
give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why
Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the
very idea of losing is hateful to an American."
"You are not all going to die. Only two percent
of you right here today would die in a major battle. Death must
not be feared. Death, in time, comes to all men. Yes, every
man is scared in his first battle. If he says he's not, he's
a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the
brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching
men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero
is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some men get
over their fright in a minute under fire. For some, it takes
an hour. For some, it takes days. But a real man will never
let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty
to his country, and his innate manhood. Battle is the
most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge.
It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base.
Americans pride themselves on being He Men and they ARE He Men.
Remember that the enemy is just as frightened as you are, and
probably more so. They are not supermen."
"All through your Army careers, you men have
bitched about what you call "chicken shit drilling." That, like
everything else in this Army, has a definite purpose. That purpose
is alertness. Alertness must be bred into every soldier. I don't
give a fuck for a man who's not always on his toes. You men
are veterans or you wouldn't be here. You are ready for what's
to come. A man must be alert at all times if he expects to stay
alive. If you're not alert, sometime, a German son-of-an-asshole-bitch
is going to sneak up behind you and beat you to death with a
sockful of shit!"
"There are four hundred neatly marked graves
somewhere in Sicily, all because one man went to sleep on the
job. But they are German graves, because we caught the bastard
asleep before they did."
"An Army is a team. It lives, sleeps, eats,
and fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is
pure horse shit. The bilious bastards who write that kind of
stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don't know any more about
real fighting under fire than they know about fucking!"
"We have the finest food, the finest equipment,
the best spirit, and the best men in the world. Why, by God,
I actually pity those poor sons-of-bitches we're going up against.
By God, I do."
"My men don't surrender, and I don't want to
hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he
has been hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight back.
That's not just bullshit either. The kind of man that I want
in my command is just like the lieutenant in Libya, who, with
a Luger against his chest, jerked off his helmet, swept the
gun aside with one hand, and busted the hell out of the Kraut
with his helmet. Then he jumped on the gun and went out and
killed another German before they knew what the hell was coming
off. And, all of that time, this man had a bullet through a
lung. There was a real man!"
"All of the real heroes are not storybook combat
fighters, either. Every single man in this Army plays a vital
role. Don't ever let up. Don't ever think that your job
is unimportant. Every man has a job to do and he must do it.
Every man is a vital link in the great chain. What if every
truck driver suddenly decided that he didn't like the whine
of those shells overhead, turned yellow, and jumped headlong
into a ditch? The cowardly bastard could say, 'Hell, they won't
miss me, just one man in thousands.' But, what if every man
thought that way? Where in the hell would we be now? What would
our country, our loved ones, our homes, even the world, be like?
No, Goddamnit, Americans don't think like that. Every man does
his job. Every man serves the whole. Every department, every
unit, is important in the vast scheme of this war. The
ordnance men are needed to supply the guns and machinery of
war to keep us rolling. The Quartermaster is needed to bring
up food and clothes because where we are going there isn't a
hell of a lot to steal. Every last man on K.P. has a job
to do, even the one who heats our water to keep us from getting
the 'G.I. Shits'. Each man must not think only of himself, but
also of his buddy fighting beside him. We don't want yellow
cowards in this Army. They should be killed off like rats. If
not, they will go home after this war and breed more cowards.
The brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the Goddamned
cowards and we will have a nation of brave men.
One of the bravest men that I ever saw was
a fellow on top of a telegraph pole in the midst of a furious
fire fight in Tunisia. I stopped and asked what the hell he
was doing up there at a time like that. He answered, 'Fixing
the wire, Sir.' I asked, 'Isn't that a little unhealthy right
about now?' He answered, 'Yes Sir, but the Goddamned wire has
to be fixed.' I asked, 'Don't those planes strafing the road
bother you?' And he answered, 'No, Sir, but you sure as hell
do!' Now, there was a real man. A real soldier. There was a
man who devoted all he had to his duty, no matter how seemingly
insignificant his duty might appear at the time, no matter how
great the odds. And you should have seen those trucks on the
rode to Tunisia. Those drivers were magnificent. All day
and all night they rolled over those son-of-a-bitching roads,
never stopping, never faltering from their course, with shells
bursting all around them all of the time. We got through on
good old American guts. Many of those men drove for over forty
consecutive hours. These men weren't combat men, but they were
soldiers with a job to do. They did it, and in one hell of a
way they did it. They were part of a team. Without team effort,
without them, the fight would have been lost. All of the links
in the chain pulled together and the chain became unbreakable."
"Don't forget, you men don't know that I'm
here. No mention of that fact is to be made in any letters.
The world is not supposed to know what the hell happened to
me. I'm not supposed to be commanding this Army. I'm not even
supposed to be here in England. Let the first bastards to find
out be the Goddamned Germans. Some day I want to see them raise
up on their piss-soaked hind legs and howl, 'Jesus Christ, it's
the Goddamned Third Army again and that son-of-a-fucking-bitch
Patton'. We want to get the hell over there. The quicker
we clean up this Goddamned mess, the quicker we can take a little
jaunt against the purple pissing Japs and clean out their nest,
too. Before the Goddamned Marines get all of the credit."
"Sure, we want to go home. We want this war
over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to go get
the bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the
quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin
and Tokyo. And when we get to Berlin, I am personally going
to shoot that paper hanging son-of-a-bitch Hitler. Just like
I'd shoot a snake!"
"When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he
just stays there all day, a German will get to him eventually.
The hell with that idea. The hell with taking it. My men don't
dig foxholes. I don't want them to. Foxholes only slow
up an offensive. Keep moving. And don't give the enemy time
to dig one either. We'll win this war, but we'll win it only
by fighting and by showing the Germans that we've got more guts
than they have; or ever will have. We're not going to just shoot
the sons-of-bitches, we're going to rip out their living Goddamned
guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going
to murder those lousy Hun cock suckers by the bushel-fucking-basket."
"War is a bloody, killing business. You've
got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them
up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When shells are hitting
all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize
that instead of dirt it's the blood and guts of what once was
your best friend beside you, you'll know what to do!"
"I don't want to get any messages saying, 'I
am holding my position.' We are not holding a Goddamned thing.
Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly and we
are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy's
balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living shit
out of him all of the time. Our basic plan of operation is to
advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have
to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go
through him like crap through a goose; like shit through a tin
horn!"
"From time to time there will be some complaints
that we are pushing our people too hard. I don't give a good
Goddamn about such complaints. I believe in the old and sound
rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The
harder WE push, the more Germans we will kill. The more
Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing
means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that."
"There is one great thing that you men will
all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once
again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you
are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee
and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you
WON'T have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, 'Well,
your Granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana.' No, Sir, you can
look him straight in the eye and say, 'Son, your Granddaddy
rode with the Great Third Army and a Son-of-a-Goddamned-Bitch
named Georgie Patton!'"
"That is all."
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