There is only one 'retirement plan' for terrorists.
Jim MattisRead
There is no room for military people, including our veterans, to see themselves as victims, even if so many of our countrymen are prone to relish that role.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of resilience among military personnel, encouraging them to reject a victim mentality.
Jim Mattis highlights the need for military individuals, including veterans, to maintain a strong and empowered identity rather than viewing themselves as victims. This perspective is a call for strength and self-assertion, contrasting with a societal tendency to embrace victimhood, urging veterans to rise above challenges and take pride in their service and experiences.
In practice
In a speech to veterans, one can use this quote to inspire pride and strength.
There is only one 'retirement plan' for terrorists.
There are hunters, and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience, and alertness, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.
Now from a distance, I look back on what the Corps taught me: to think like men of action, and to act like men of thought!
I believe that many of my young guys lived because I didn't waste their lives because I didn't have the vision in my mind of how to destroy the enemy at least cost to our guys and to the innocents on the battlefields.
For whatever trauma came with service in tough circumstances, we should take what we learned - take our post-traumatic growth - and, like past generations coming home, bring our sharpened strengths to bear, bring our attitude of gratitude to bear.
Policy makers who have never served in the military continue to use the military to lead social change in this country.
You don't develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.
I do not identify as a person with a disability. I'm a disabled person. And I'll be a monkey's disabled uncle if I'm going to apologise for that.
During my New York run, I injured my voice badly. I was getting increasingly hoarse, and it finally gave up. The doctor said I had two choices. Either cancel things, or try my luck and perhaps never speak again. That's not much of a choice.
With the inevitability of a tongue returning to probe a painful tooth, we come back and back and back again to our fears, sitting to talk them over with the eagerness of a hungry man before a full and steaming plate.
Literally falling on the ice and having to pick yourself up in front of thousands of people is not an easy thing to do. The thing that you learn is to pick yourself back up, to learn from your mistakes.
Oh please," said Zacharias Smith, rolling his eyes and folding his arms. "I don't think Expelliarmus is exactly going to help us against You-Know-Who, do you?" "I've used it against him," Harry said quietly. "It saved my life last June.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.