"I have only two men out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold."
1stLt. Clifton B. Cates, USMC
in Belleau Wood, 19 July 1918

"They told (us) to open up the Embassy, or "we'll blow you away." And then they looked up and saw the Marines on the roof with these really big guns, and they said in Somali, "Igaralli ahow," which means "Excuse me, I didn't mean it, my mistake."
Karen Aquilar, in the U.S. Embassy; Mogadishu, Somalia, 1991

"The deadliest weapon in the world is a Marine and his rifle."
Gen. John "Black Jack" Pershing, U.S. Army
Commander of American Forces in World War I