A Quote by Jason Kander

To me, serving wasn't uncommon, and my service paled in comparison to so many of my friends who had done so much more. In my world - as a citizen soldier - I was surrounded by other soldiers just doing their jobs.
Sometimes the enormity of war overwhelms the truth that all great struggles are just the sum of individual stories. Each is more than just the story of one soldier's service and sacrifice. Their service ripples across their families, friends and their communities. Memorial Day reminds us it is the noble sacrifice of many that makes us who we are.
I have a lot of friends who served in the regular army for a long time. Quite a few of my friends from that time went on to become full-time soldiers. But you live in a world that is entirely army. Your whole world is pretty much that military service, and it's very hard to do other things and to break out of that environment.
The soldier is the Army. No army is better than its soldiers. The Soldier is also a citizen. In fact, the highest obligation and privilege of citizenship is that of bearing arms for one’s country
We kids feared many things in those days - werewolves, dentists, North Koreans, Sunday School - but they all paled in comparison with Brussels sprouts.
What's the use of dying in a ward surrounded by a lot of groaning and croaking incurables? Wouldn't it be much better to throw a party with that twenty-seven thousand and take poison and depart for the other world to the sound of violins, surrounded by lovely drunken girls and happy friends?
In the end, the only events of my life worth telling are those when the imperishable world erupted into this transitory one All other memories of travels, people and my surroundings have paled beside these interior happenings But my encounters with the 'other' reality, my bouts with the unconscious, are indelibly engraved on my memory. In that realm there has always been wealth in abundance, and everything else has lost importance by comparison.
He told me that once, in the war, he’d come upon a German soldier in the grass with his insides falling out; he was just lying there in agony. The soldier had looked up at Sergeant Leonard, and even though they didn’t speak the same language, they understood each other with just a look. The German lying on the ground; the American standing over him. He put a bullet in the soldier’s head. He didn’t do it with anger, as an enemy, but as a fellow man, one soldier helping another.
A sense of beauty is every hindrance to a soldier; yet there would be no soldiers - or none such soldier had not men dead and living cherished and handed on the sacred fire.
I remember it made me feel better because so many of my friends at school. Were doing that stuff and doing that stuff on sleep overs. But I just didn't feel ready. It wasn't like I had any judgment of it being two women. It would have scared me as much if not more. I was like a three month period in which all the words sleep over was code for was "let's get together and touch each other's vaginas." and I was. Haunted. And I remember going home and feeling like I couldn't tell my mother even though she would've understood and probably laughed.
I read "Women Heroes of World War I" and was absolutely astonished. When we imagine women serving in the First World War, mostly we think of Red Cross nurses, but here I was reading about women serving as front-line soldiers, women serving as war journalists . . . and women who worked undercover as spies.
I had an incredibly full life with my imagination: I used to have all sorts of trolls and things; I had a wonderful world around my toys and invented people. I don't mean I had imaginary friends; I just had this big imagination thing going on. I didn't need any imaginary friends, because I had so much other stuff going on.
Why did I become a Canadian citizen? Not because I was rejecting being a U.S. citizen. At the time when I became a Canadian citizen, you couldn't be a dual citizen. Now you can. So I had to be one or the other. But the reason I became a Canadian citizen was because it simply seemed so abnormal to me not to be able to vote.
It's not just lip service when I say I'm going to fight for the people. I've done that as a citizen already.
My Army reserve service was in the 1990s. It was, more than anything else, an opportunity for me to express gratitude. My understanding of and admiration for the American armed forces is deeper, better informed as a result. I'm among those who believe that military or other citizen service should be an expected part of every American's life.
I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon - if I can. I seek opportunity - not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed... It is my heritage...to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, and to face the world boldly and say, this I have done.
Refusing further service as a Roman soldier: I am a soldier of Christ: combat is not permitted to me.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!