Quotes From British Military Annual Personnel Reports.
1. His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of curiosity.
2. I would not breed from this Officer.
3. This man is depriving a village somewhere of its idiot.
4. This officer can be likened to a small puppy - he runs around excitedly, leaving little messes for other people to clean up.
5. This Officer is really not so much of a has-been, more of a definitely won't-be.
6. When she opens her mouth, it seems only to change whichever foot was previously in there.
7. Couldn't organise 50% leave in a 2 man submarine.
8. He has carried out each and every one of his duties to his entire satisfaction.
9. He would be out of his depth in a car park puddle.
10. Technically sound, but socially impossible.
11. The occasional flashes of adequacy are marred by an attitude of apathy and indifference.
12. When he joined my ship, this Officer was something of a granny; since then he has aged considerably.
13. This Medical Officer has used my ship to carry his genitals from port to port, and my officers to carry him from bar to bar.
14. This Officer reminds me very much of a gyroscope, always spinning around at a frantic pace, but not really going anywhere.
15. Since my last report he has reached rock bottom, and has started to dig.
16. She sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them.
17. He has the wisdom of youth, and the energy of old age.
18. This Officer should go far, and the sooner he starts, the better.
19. In my opinion this pilot should not be authorised to fly below 250 feet.
20. The only ship I would recommend for this man is citizenship.
21. Couldn't organise a woodpecker's picnic in Sherwood Forest.
22. Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap.
23. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
24. Gates are down, the lights are flashing, but the train isn't coming.
25. Has two brains; one is lost and the other is out looking for it.
26. If he were any more stupid, he'd have to be watered twice a week.
27. Got into the gene pool while the lifeguard wasn't watching.
28. If you stand close enough to him, you can hear the ocean.
29. It's hard to believe that he beat 1,000,000 other sperm.
30. A room temperature IQ.
31. Got a full 6-pack, but lacks the plastic thingy to hold it all together.
32. A gross ignoramus, 143 times worse than an ordinary ignoramus.
33. He has a photographic memory but has the lens cover glued on.
34. He has been working with glue too long.
35. When his IQ reaches 50, he should sell.
36. This man hasn't got enough grey matter to sole the flip-flop of a one legged budgie.
37. If two people are talking, and one looks bored, he's the other one.
38. One-celled organisms would out score him in an IQ test.
39. He donated his body to science before he was done using it.
40. Fell out of the stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down.
41. He's so dense, light bends around him.
42. If brains were taxed, he'd get a rebate.
43. Some drink from the fountain of knowledge; he only gargled.
44. Takes him 1.1/2 hours to watch 60 minutes.
45. Wheel is turning, but the hamster is long gone.
ππ
On June 6, 1944, a 56-year-old general with a secret walked onto Utah Beach under fire, armed with a cane and a pistol.
The secret: his heart was failing. He had hidden it from the army doctors so they wouldn't pull him from the mission.
His name was Theodore Roosevelt Jr. Son of the President. He had begged three separate times to lead the first wave ashore at Normandy before his commanders finally said yes.
When his landing craft drifted 2,000 yards off course, every instinct said redirect the following waves to the correct zone. Instead, Roosevelt walked the beach himself, alone, under artillery fire, cane in hand, reading the terrain.
His verdict: "We'll start the war from right here."
He then stood on that beach and personally greeted every regiment that landed after him, pointing them inland, cracking jokes under shellfire, steadying 18-year-olds who had never seen combat. He did this for hours.
Years later, Omar Bradley was asked to name the single most heroic act he had ever witnessed in combat.
His answer, without hesitation: "Ted Roosevelt on Utah Beach."
Roosevelt's son, Captain Quentin Roosevelt II, also landed at Normandy that same morning. He was named after his uncle, Quentin Roosevelt, who had been shot down as a fighter pilot over France in World War I.
Three generations. Three wars. One family.
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. died in his sleep 36 days later. Heart attack. The thing he had been hiding finally won. He never learned he had been awarded the Medal of Honor.
He was buried at the Normandy American Cemetery.
In 1955, his family had his brother Quentin, killed in WWI, exhumed from where he fell in France and reinterred right beside him. Quentin is the only World War I soldier buried there.
Two brothers. Two world wars. The same French soil.
Their father had once said: "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
Both of his sons did exactly that.
June 6th, 1944.
The English Channel is angry and half the men in the landing craft are seasick. Diesel fumes mix with saltwater and vomit while rifles are checked for the fifth or sixth time by hands that need something to do. Nobody talks much anymore because the jokes have all been told and the bravado has finally burned away somewhere behind the English coast.
You are nineteen years old and carrying more weight than youβve ever carried in your life. You donβt know it yet, but itβs the most weight you will EVER carry in this life. However long or short it may be.
Your rifle rests across your knees. Your life hangs from a few pounds of steel, wood, and training. Somewhere beyond the gray horizon sits a continent that has spent five years tearing itself apart, and in a few minutes you are going to step into the middle of it.
Across from you sits another kid. He canβt be much older than you. His jaw is clenched. His knuckles are white around his weapon. Neither of you says a word because there is nothing left to say.
Then your eyes drift toward his shoulder.
That red numeral catches your eye: β1β.
Youβve seen it a thousand times before. In barracks hallways, on training fields, in motor pools, and on long marches. It never meant much beyond belonging to the same outfit.
Now it means everything.
Because in a few minutes the world is going to ask something terrible of both of you, and there is comfort in knowing that whatever waits on that beach, neither of you will face it alone.
The historians will eventually reduce this day to arrows on maps and casualty figures. Politicians will give speeches. Journalists will write books. None of that exists inside the landing craft.
What exists is fear, and duty.
What exists is the understanding that courage was never the absence of fear. Courage was always charging into the maelstrom anyway.
The shoreline emerges through the smoke. You can see flashes now. You can hear the distant percussion of artillery. Men stop checking their equipment because there is no point anymore. Whatever mistakes were made are already made. Whatever prayers were going to be said have already been said.
The coxswain throttles down.
The boat grinds forward.
The ramp is about to drop.
Into the abyss.
Overlord.