18 James Henry Jim Webb Quotes

James Henry Jim Webb quotes

1. I don't believe that right now this country needs a draft. I've proposed a 5% tax break for all people who serve honorably in the military. [...] If you go to the typical income of a veteran, it's about $30-something-thousand, so it's not a high-cost program. And it's targeted to people who've served. And one of the things that that would do is to bring more people from across class lines into the military.

2. George W. Bush: How's your boy? Webb: I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President Bush: That's not what I asked you. How's your boy? Webb: That's between me and my boy, Mr. President.

3. Friends are found on the battlefield, and unfortunately friends are also lost. And where do we find the measure of that sacrifice? How can we account for the value of that loss? Sometimes we can find an answer in our sense of country, at other times in our Corps. But clearly we can see it in the lives that were able to continue due to the acts of others who were not so fortunate.

4. Our country is in the middle of a profound crisis. This crisis has many causes, but much of it has been brought about by poor leadership decisions at every level of government. In addition, our electoral process is dominated by financial interests that are threatened by the very notion of reform.

5. The Navy Cross is presented to James H. Webb, Jr., First Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps, for extraordinary heroism while serving as a Platoon Commander with Company D, First Battalion, Fifth Marines, First Marine Division (Reinforced), Fleet Marine Force, in connection with combat operations against the enemy in the Republic of Vietnam. On 10 July 1969, while participating in a company-sized search and destroy operation deep in hostile territory, First Lieutenant Webb's platoon discovered a well-camouflaged bunker complex which appeared to be unoccupied. Deploying his men into defensive positions, First Lieutenant Webb was advancing to the first bunker when three enemy soldiers armed with hand grenades jumped out. Reacting instantly, he grabbed the closest man and, brandishing his .45 caliber pistol at the others, apprehended all three of the soldiers. Accompanied by one of his men, he then approached the second bunker and called for the enemy to surrender. When the hostile soldiers failed to answer him and threw a grenade which detonated dangerously close to him, First Lieutenant Webb detonated a claymore mine in the bunker aperture, accounting for two enemy casualties and disclosing the entrance to a tunnel. Despite the smoke and debris from the explosion and the possibility of enemy soldiers hiding in the tunnel, he then conducted a thorough search which yielded several items of equipment and numerous documents containing valuable intelligence data. Continuing the assault, he approached a third bunker and was preparing to fire into it when the enemy threw another grenade. Observing the grenade land dangerously close to his companion, First Lieutenant Webb simultaneously fired his weapon at the enemy, pushed the Marine away from the grenade, and shielded him from the explosion with his own body. Although sustaining painful fragmentation wounds from the explosion, he managed to throw a grenade into the aperture and completely destroy the remaining bunker. By his courage, aggressive leadership, and selfless devotion to duty, First Lieutenant Webb upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and of the United States Naval Service.

6. He's not a typical politician. He really has deep convictions.

1. Midshipmen and cadets remain stronger and more aggressive than their male counterparts at civilian schools. They eagerly play sports such as rugby, boxing, karate, lacrosse, and football. They drive fast cars, usually sports cars. They play hard. They drink hard. They are physical, often abusive among each other. They are not trying to prove their manhood: they are celebrating their masculinity. They are competitive, often vulgar, and tough, and every citizen who may someday send a friend or relative into war should rejoice, because combat is competitive, vulgar, and tough, and they will be leading men in combat.

2. “If they didn't want to know, they shouldn't have asked.”

3. “I just look at you and say, ‘that used to be me. But it isn't anymore.”

4. “You know what we’ve lost, William? We’ve lost a sense of responsibility, at least on the individual level. We have too many people like Mark who believe that the government owes them total, undisciplined freedom. If everyone thought that way, there would be no society. We’re so big, so strong now, that people seem to have forgotten that a part of our strength comes from each person surrendering a portion of his individual urges to the common good. And the common good is defined by who wins at the polls, and the policies they make. Like it or lump it.”

5. “The blood feuds of today’s Ulster— and their legacy in the journey of America’s Scots-Irish— have their roots in a decision made in 1610 by King James I of England, who also reigned as James VI of Scotland, to form a Protestant plantation on Irish soil.”

6. “Their bloodline was stained by centuries of continuous warfare along the border between England and Scotland, and then in the bitter settlements of England’s Ulster Plantation in Northern Ireland.”

7. “Finally, in August 1607, the cream of Ulster’s Irish aristocracy, including Hugh O’Neill himself, left Ireland for permanent exile. Other Irish were to follow these hundred or so key leaders until by 1614 “there were 300 Irish students and 3,000 Irish soldiers in Spanish territories alone.”

8. “The complicated formula that allowed these purchases included their assistance in obtaining Con O’Neill’s pardon, his release from prison, and, oddly, a knighthood for O’Neill balanced by a pledge from the two lairds to King James that the land would be “planted with British Protestants.” 6 Almost immediately, Montgomery and Hamilton began arranging the migration of large numbers of lowland Scots into their Ulster lands.”

9. “In such a wild, uncharted place the book of God was vital, for it nourished their spirit and laid boundaries for their conduct. Other subjects simply had no relevance. Trigonometry and calculus would not help them find their way among the mountain trails. Adam Smith's economics were of no consequence in the matter of planting corn and breeding cattle. Nor did they need the essays of Plato or the plays of Shakespeare to teach them how to shoot a rifle, or to make clothes from animal skins, or to clear away the wilderness with their own bare hands.”

10. “They fought the Indians and then they fought the British, comprising 40 percent of the Revolutionary War army. They were the great pioneers— Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark, and Davy Crockett among them— blazing the westward trails into Kentucky , Ohio, Tennessee, and beyond, where other Scots-Irishmen like Kit Carson picked up the slack.”

11. “Philadelphia became the Ulster Scots’ most popular port of entry for two reasons. The first was that the Pennsylvania colony had been created with an eye toward accommodating religious freedom and thus largely welcomed the Ulster dissenters , at least initially. And the second— equally as important—was that the communities in New England and New York wanted nothing to do with them.”

12. “As the American colonies moved toward declaring independence from Great Britain, the Scots -Irish were all but unanimous in their desire to be free of the English government. Although the trained minds of New England’s Puritan culture and Virginia’s Cavalier aristocracy had shaped the finer intellectual points of the argument for political disunion, the true passion for individual rights emanated from the radical individualism of the Presbyterian and, increasingly, Baptist pulpits.”