- Pillage, then burn.
- A Sergeant in motion outranks a Lieutenant who doesn’t know what’s going on.
- An ordnance technician at a dead run outranks everybody.
- Close air support covereth a multitude of sins.
- Close air support and friendly fire should be easier to tell apart.
- If violence wasn’t your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.
- If the food is good enough, the grunts will stop complaining about the incoming fire.
- Mockery and derision have their place. Usually, it’s on the far side of the airlock.
- Never turn your back on an enemy.
- Sometimes the only way out is through. . . through the hull.
- Everything is air-droppable at least once.
- A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head.
- Do unto others.
- “Mad Science” means never stopping to ask “what’s the worst thing that could happen?”
- Only you can prevent friendly fire.
- Your name is in the mouth of others: be sure it has teeth.
- The longer everything goes according to plan, the bigger the impending disaster.
- If the officers are leading from in front, watch out for an attack from the rear.
- The world is richer when you turn enemies into friends, but that’s not the same as you being richer.
- If you’re not willing to shell your own position, you’re not willing to win.
- Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Take his fish away and tell him he’s lucky just to be alive, and he’ll figure out how to catch another one for you to take tomorrow.
- If you can see the whites of their eyes, somebody’s done something wrong.
- The company mess and friendly fire should be easier to tell apart.
- Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a big gun.
- If a manufacturer’s warranty covers the damage you did, you didn’t do enough damage.
- “Fire and Forget” is fine, provided you never actually forget.
- Don’t be afraid to be the first to resort to violence.
- If the price of collateral damage is high enough, you might be able to get paid for bringing ammunition home with you.
- The enemy of my enemy is my enemy’s enemy. No more. No less.
- A little trust goes a long way. The less you use, the further you’ll go.
- Only cheaters prosper.
- Anything is amphibious if you can get it back out of the water.
- If you’re leaving tracks, you’re being followed.
- If you’re leaving scorch-marks, you need a bigger gun.
- That which does not kill me has made a tactical error.
- When the going gets tough, the tough call for close air support.
- There is no “overkill.” There is only “open fire” and “reload.”
- What’s easy for you can still be hard on your clients.
- There is a difference between spare parts and extra parts.
- Not all good news is enemy action.
- “Do you have a backup?” means “I can’t fix this.”
- “They’ll never expect this” means “I want to try something stupid.”
- If it’s stupid and it works, it’s still stupid and you’re lucky.
- If it will blow a hole in the ground, it will double as an entrenching tool.
- The size of the combat bonus is inversely proportional to the likelihood of surviving to collect it.
- Don’t try to save money by conserving ammunition.
- Don’t expect the enemy to cooperate in the creation of your dream engagement.
- If it ain’t broke, it hasn’t been issued to the infantry.
- Every client is one missed payment away from becoming a target and every target is one bribe away from becoming a client.
- If it only works in exactly the way the manufacturer intended, it is defective.
- Let them see you sharpen the sword before you fall on it.
- The army you’ve got is never the army you want.
- The intel you’ve got is never the intel you want.
- It’s only too many troops if you can’t pay them.
- It’s only too many weapons if they’re pointing in the wrong direction.
- Infantry exists to paint targets for people with real guns.
- Artillery exists to launch large chunks of budget at an enemy it cannot actually see.
- The pen is mightiest when it writes orders for more swords.
- “Two wrongs is probably not going to be enough.”
- Any weapon’s rate of fire is inversely proportional to the number of available targets.
- Don’t bring big grenades into small rooms.
- Anything labeled “This end toward enemy” is dangerous at both ends.
- The brass knows how to do it by knowing who can do it.
- An ounce of sniper is worth a pound of suppressing fire.
- After the toss, be the one with the pin, not the one with the grenade.
- Necessity is the mother of deception.
- If you can’t carry cash, carry a weapon.
- Negotiating from a position of strength does not mean you shouldn’t also negotiate from a position near the exits.
- Sometimes rank is a function of firepower.
- Failure is not an option – it is mandatory. The option is whether or not to let failure be the last thing you do.