“Men do not fight for flag or country, for the Marine Corps or glory or any other abstraction. They fight for one another. [And] if you came through this ordeal, you would age with dignity.”
“Abruptly the poker of memory stirs the ashes of recollection and uncovers a forgotten ember, still smoldering down there, still hot, still glowing, still red as red.”
“It would be inaccurate to say that Churchill and I conversed. Like Gladstone speaking to Victoria, he addressed me as though I were a one-man House of Commons. It was superb.”
“Japanese naval officers in dress whites are frequent guests at [Pearl Harbor's] officers' mess [and] are very polite. They always were. Except, of course, for that little interval there between 1941 and 1945.”
“Our Boeing 747 has been fleeing westward from darkened California, racing across the Pacific toward the sun, the incandescent eye of God, but slowly, three hours later than West Coast time, twilight gathers outside, veil upon lilac veil.”
