Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
From SabriZain.org : A glance at the map of the East India Islands will convince us that this
region of the globe must, from its natural configuration and locality;
be peculiarly liable to become the seat of piracy.
These islands form an
immense cluster, lying as if it were in the high road which connects
the commercial nations of Europe and Asia with each other, affording a
hundred fastnesses from which to waylay the traveller. A large
proportion of the population is at the same time confined to the coasts
or the estuaries of rivers; they are fishermen and mariners; they are
barbarous and poor, therefore rapacious, faithless and sanguinary.
These
are circumstances, it must be confessed, which militate strongly to
beget a piratical character. It is not surprising, then, that the Malays
should have been notorious for their depredations from our first
acquaintance with them.
Among the tribes of the Indian Islands, the most noted for their
piracies are, of course, the most idle, and the least industrious, and
particularly such as are unaccustomed to follow agriculture or trade as
regular pursuits. The agricultural tribes of Java, and many of Sumatra,
never commit piracy at all; and the most civilized inhabitants of
Celebes are very little addicted to this vice.
Among the most confirmed pirates are the true Malays, inhabiting the
small islands about the eastern extremity of the straits of Malacca, and
those lying between Sumatra and Borneo, down to Billitin and
Cavimattir. Still more noted than these, are the inhabitants of certain
islands situated between Borneo and the Phillipines, of whom the most
desperate and enterprising are the Soolos and Illanoons, the former
inhabiting a well known group of islands of the same name, and the
latter being one of the most numerous nations of the great island of Magindando.
