Military staffer’s comments… STILL true, if not truer today! 🙁
“Please don’t laugh. This is my job.” Maj (EUCOM) from Protocol, explaining in great detail the approved procedures for dropping off VIPs
“If we wait until the last minute to do it, it’ll only take a minute.” MAJ (EUCOM)
“The only reason that anything ever gets done is because there are pockets of competence in every command. The key is to find them…and then exploit the hell out of ’em.” CDR (CENTCOM)
“We are condemned men who are chained and will row in place until we rot.” LtCol (CENTCOM) on life at his Command
“Right now we’re pretty much the ham in a bad ham sandwich…” GO/FO (EUCOM)
“Let’s face it: Africa sucks…” DOS representative (Bureau of African Affairs) at a conference on Africa
“I’ll be right back. I have to go pound my nuts flat…” Lt Col (EUCOM) after being assigned a difficult tasker
“OK, this is too stupid for words.” LTC (JS)
“When you get right up to the line that you’re not supposed to cross, the only person in front of you will be me!” CDR (CENTCOM) on his view of the value of being politically correct in today’s military
“There’s nothing wrong with crossing that line a little bit, it’s jumping over it buck naked that will probably get you in trouble…” Lt Col (EUCOM) responding to the above
“I may be slow, but I do poor work…” MAJ (USAREUR)
“Don’t ever be the first…don’t ever be the last…and don’t ever volunteer to do anything….” CDR (EUCOM) relating an ancient Navy truism
“Hey, somebody should really do that…” CDR (CENTCOM) on the CENTCOM tasking process
“Cynicism is the smoke that rises from the ashes of burned out dreams.” Maj (CENTCOM) on the daily thrashings delivered to AOs at his Command
“WE are the reason that Rumsfeld hates us…” LTC (EUCOM) doing some standard, Army self-flagellation
“South of the Alps and East of the Adriatic, paranoia is considered mental equilibrium…”
“The chance of success in these talks is the same as the number of “R’s” in “fat chance…”” GS-15 (SHAPE)
“His knowledge on that topic is only power point deep…” MAJ (JS)
“We have no position on that issue. In fact, your position IS our position. Could you tell us what our position is?” CDR (TRANSCOM) at a policy SVTC
“Ya know, in this Command, if the world were supposed to end tomorrow, it would still happen behind schedule.” CWO4 (ret) (EUCOM)
“Never pet a burning dog.” LTC (Tennessee National Guard)
“I need intelligence, not information.” Maj (EUCOM)
“‘Status quo,’ as you know, is Latin for ‘the mess we’re in…'” Attributed to former President Ronald Reagan
“We are now past the good idea cutoff point…” MAJ (JS) on the fact that somebody always tries to “fine tune” a COA with more “good ideas”
“Nobody ever said you had to be smart to make 0-6.” Col (EUCOM)
“Accuracy and attention to detail take a certain amount of time.”
“No need to tip our hand as to how responsive we can be.” CDR (EUCOM) in a passdown to his replacement
“I seem to be rapidly approaching the apex of my mediocre career.” MAJ (JS)
“I just realized that this War on Terror might take a little longer than we thought, so I am developing a new system of hanging charts on walls to solve our problem and win the war.” LTC (EUCOM) after a review of long range Counter Terrorism (CT) plans
“Much work remains to be done before we can announce our total failure to make any progress.”
“None of us is as dumb as all of us.” Excerpted from a brief (EUCOM)
“It’s not a lot of work unless you have to do it.” LTC (EUCOM)
“Creating smoking holes gives our lives meaning and enhances our manliness.” LTC (EUCOM) at a CT conference
“Everyone should have an equal chance, but not everyone is equal.”
“I am so far down the food chain that I’ve got plankton bites on my butt.”
“Once you accept that a dog is a dog, you can’t get upset when it barks.” Lt Col (USSOCOM), excerpts
“That guy just won’t take ‘yes’ for an answer.” MAJ (EUCOM)
“When all else fails, simply revel in the absurdity of it all.” LCDR (CENTCOM)
“Never attribute to malice that which can be ascribed to sheer stupidity.” LTC (CENTCOM)
“I hear so much about Ft. Bragg. Where is it?” “It’s in the western part of southeastern North Carolina.” LCDR and CPT (EUCOM)
“I’ve become the master of nodding my head and acting like I give a sh!t, and then instantly forgetting what the hell a person was saying the moment they walk away.” Flag-level Executive A$$istant
“Mark my words, this internet thing is gonna catch on someday.” LTC (EUCOM)
“You’re not a loser. You’re just not my kind of winner…” GS-14 (OSD)
“He who strives for the minimum rarely attains it.” GS-12 (DOS)
“I’m tired of waiting on somebody who I know is just going to ignore me once they arrive.” Lt Col (EUCOM), while waiting to start a brief for a visiting VIP
“If I’d had more time, I’da written a shorter brief…” Derived from the writings of Mark Twain
“You only know as much as you don’t know.” GO (EUCOM)
“Hello gentlemen. Are we in today or are you just ignoring my request?” GS-15 (DSCA) in an email to EUCOM staffers
“After seeing the way this place works, I bet that Mickey Mouse wears a EUCOM watch.” Maj (EUCOM)
“That’s FUBIJAR.” COL (CENTCOM), Fu–ed Up, But I’m Just a Reservist…
“As far as I’m concerned, I’m the only one that matters in here.” COL (CENTCOM)
“This is all happening because we had the sympathetic detonation of a stress grenade.” Maj (EUCOM) after an insignificant issue became a theater focus because somebody used the “Reply all” function
“Nothing is too good for you guys…and that’s exactly what you’re gonna get…” LTC (EUCOM) describing the way Army policy is formulated
“The only thing that sucks worse than being me is being you…” LTC (EUCOM)
“I have to know what I don’t know…” Col (CENTCOM) during a shift changeover briefing
“No. Now I’m simply confused at a higher level…” Foreign GO/FO when asked if he had any questions following a transformation brief at JFCOM
“‘Leaning forward’ is really just the first phase of ‘falling on your face.'” Col (MARFOREUR)
“We’ve got to start collaborating between the collaboration systems.”
“We’re from the nuke shop, sir. We’re the crazy aunt in the closet that nobody likes to talk about …” Lt Col to GO/FO (EUCOM) in briefings
“We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much for so long with so little, that we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.” Anonymous, but classic…
“The ‘L’ in CENTCOM stands for leadership…”
“At this Command, we have written in large, black letters: DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) on the back of our security badges.” Maj (CENTCOM)
“He cloaked himself in an impenetrable veneer of terminology.” Lt Col (JFCOM) describing the Jiffiecom alpha male
“Transformation has long been the buzzword for those that are dispossessed, dispirited and disillusioned…” Chaplain (EUCOM), allegedly talking about the Disciples…
