Alan G. Poindexter Quotes

I never made a career decision based solely on my desire to be an astronaut. I attended the Naval Academy because I wanted to be a Navy pilot. I majored in math because math had always come pretty easily to me and I liked it.

When Dad looked at football players, he would take them in his own image. That's what he grew up around; that's what he was when he was a master sergeant in the Korean War. That's what I took, and that's what I want on my football team.

There used to be a few 'Great Santinis', but now there's many 'Great Santinis'.

In the Marine Corps, you meet this really broad segment of the country; you're working with people from all kinds of backgrounds. And it exposes you to the American military, particularly the American military at war.

I'm probably more comfortable inside a Marine Corps rifle company than I am anywhere in my life.

I did 22 years in the military. I went through Paris Island. I'm a Marine. I will never not be one.

I am a West Point graduate and an Army veteran.

Engineering didn't take to me. And what saved me and kept me in college was I ran into ROTC cadets who were in a fraternity called The Pershing Rifles. And I found my place. I found discipline. I found structure. I found people that were like me and I liked.

JROTC students make a commitment to serve their communities at an early age, and they learn the discipline and habits to be future leaders.

For over 20 years, I was in the Army, and it's given me a real love of history.

When I went in to Seattle, I had eight veterans who were in the league over six or seven years. That was a plus for me, to teach me how to respect somebody.

I had a lot of veteran guys who taught me things.

When a recruiter first told me about the Navy SEALs, I knew it was the right fit.

The dedication it must take to be part of R.O.T.C. was always interesting to me.

I know from my experience as a Navy SEAL that barriers work.

I absolutely loved working with the players at Navy. There are no better young men to coach than those you find at a service academy. I really enjoyed going to work every day because I loved being around those midshipmen.

I learnt to be courageous in my career decision through my association with Dev sahab.

You don't spend twenty years of your life in the service and not have a warm, nostalgic feeling left in you. It's a small service, and there's a lot of esprit de corps.

No matter what your passion is, you really can find it within the Army. The opportunities really are endless and the sky is not the limit.

My father was a World War II Marine who became a high school principal. He always had a heart for students who maybe were underprivileged or had difficulty of some sort.

Military service might sound like a totally different environment, but every experience you fall back on later, it makes you smarter. Why wouldn't that be true of the military, too?

The likes of Harry Kane, Raheem Sterling - they give you all the confidence you need. They give you little pats on the back, tell you you're doing well.

At my school, when kids went into the army at 16, they didn't do it in a gung-ho, Tom Cruise, 'Born on the Fourth of July' way. They were generally - and I hope this doesn't offend them - the more vulnerable members of the class. They enlisted seeking family, and they didn't always find it.

I went to the Naval Academy in Annapolis and then I went right into the Navy after that.

My teammate Torii Hunter taught me how to lead and provide encouragement to the locker room.