Raymond T. Odierno Quotes

Morale is good; troops are confident; leaders are capable.

I am a general. My soldiers are the keys and I have to command them.

Where are they now that we, the men whom they sent off to war, have returned? These are commanders who have deserted their troops, and there is no more serious crime in the law of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded. The Marines say they never leave even their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They have left the real stuff of their reputation bleaching behind them in the sun in this country.

To ensure victory the troops must have confidence in themselves as well as in their commanders.

You need a lot of things in any organization, but one of the critical things is trust. When you lose trust and you feel betrayed, and it's not a matter of judgment.

Trust is the glue that holds an org together & the lubricant that moves it forward.

Why wouldn't female Marines come forward? Because they don't trust us. They don't trust the command. They don't trust the leadership.

War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.

A steady hand in military affairs is more requisite than in peace, because an error committed in war may prove irremediable.

It undermines what this military stands for and it undermines what the Marine Corps stands for when sexual assault takes place within our units. And that’s why we are going to work together -- all of us --to stop these crimes of sexual assault, and uphold the honor and the integrity that defines the finest military on Earth. And that message is coming all the way from the top..

I joined the Marines, passed Special Forces selection, and became a young leader in the military.

I try and relate my writing to something I know about, and I had a primary experience of being in a competitive, military environment and being part of a squadron.

Business is a battlefield. You need to be able to go to battle with your team members. Like the military. Know them, trust them, and know who you're working with.

Read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus, Turenne, Eugene and Frederic. ... This is the only way to become a great general and master the secrets of the art of war.

Marines have a cynical approach to war. They believe in three things; liberty, payday and that when two Marines are together in a fight, one is being wasted. Being a minority group militarily, they are proud and sensitive in their dealings with other military organizations. A Marine's concept of a perfect battle is to have other Marines on the right and left flanks, Marine aircraft overhead and Marine artillery and naval gunfire backing them up.

When orders are consistently trustworthy and observed, the relationship of a commander with his troops is satisfactory.

The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them.

The Republic can count on me to battle its enemies... Offensive war suits the passionate character of the French, but it is the responsibility of the man in charge of leading them to prepare with caution and wisdom everything that leads to victory.

Leaders must live by higher standards than their followers.

In this country we find it pays to shoot an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.

When a leader encourages the culture of impunity, the society is lost and it makes the work harder for the rest of us.

Why does soldiers leave the protection of his trench hole in the ground and go forward in the face of shot and shell? It is because of the leader who is in front of him and his comrades who are around him. Comradeship makes a man feel warm and courageous when all his instincts tend to make him cold and afraid.

Few things are more damaging to our democracy than a military officer who doesn't have the moral courage to stand up for what's right or the moral fiber to step aside when circumstances dictate.

Good commanders look after their troops, and good troops look after their commanders.

The only way to form an army to be confided in, was a systematic discipline, by which means all men may be made heroes.