Читать книгу The Rise of the G.I. Army, 1940-1941 - Paul Dickson - Страница 8

EPIGRAPH

So sorry was the state of the U.S. Army in 1939 that had Pancho Villa been alive to raid the southwestern United States it would have been as ill-prepared to repulse or punish him as it had been in 1916.

—Carlo D’Este, Patton: A Genius for War

World War II was the largest and most violent armed conflict in the history of mankind. However, the half century that now separates us from that conflict has exacted its toll on our collective knowledge. While World War II continues to absorb the interest of military scholars and historians, as well as its veterans, a generation of Americans has grown to maturity largely unaware of the political, social, and military implications of a war that, more than any other, united us as a people with a common purpose.

—Michael P. Stone, Secretary of the Army, 1992

Far-flung ordinary men, unspectacular but free, rousing out of their habits and their homes, got up early one morning, flexed their muscles, learned (as amateurs) the manual of arms, and set out across perilous plains and oceans to whop the bejesus out of the professionals.

—Norman Corwin, On a Note of Triumph, his hour-long CBS Radio broadcast after victory in Europe, May 8, 1945