Quotes by Rick Atkinson - Page 1

In battle, topography is fate.
Rick Atkinson / Author
Battle
Fate
Topography
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I was a foreign correspondent in Berlin in the mid-'90s.
Rick Atkinson / Author
Berlin
Correspondent
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If Ive vividly laid out the narrative, the reader will come to his own conclusions.
Rick Atkinson / Author
Conclusion
Narrative
Reader
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If I've vividly laid out the narrative, the reader will come to his own conclusions.
Rick Atkinson / Author
Narrative
Reader
Conclusions
Laid
Vividly
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Global war is a clash of systems, not just battalions biffing one another in some godforsaken forest.
Rick Atkinson / Author
War
Clash
Forests
Battalions
Forest
Global War
Systems
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I think I may try and write something about my pretty extraordinary experience with the 101st in Iraq.
Rick Atkinson / Author
Extraordinary
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The American army between world wars after World War I had virtually disintegrated. It was a very small force, given largely to practicing cavalry charges on western outposts.
Rick Atkinson / Author
War
Army
Cavalry
Western
World
World War I
War World American
Charges
Wars
Disintegrated
Largely
Virtually
World War
World Wars
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There were almost 11,000 American soldiers killed in Germany in April of 1945, the last full month of the war. Thats almost as many as died in June, 1944. Right to the very end, it was absolutely brutal.
Rick Atkinson / Author
War
June
Soldier
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There were almost 11,000 American soldiers killed in Germany in April of 1945, the last full month of the war. That's almost as many as died in June, 1944. Right to the very end, it was absolutely brutal.
Rick Atkinson / Author
April
Brutal
Died
Germany
June
American Soldiers
Month
Soldiers
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I'm going to leave WWII. I considered and rejected doing something on the Pacific. Fourteen years is enough. I'd like to take on a different challenge and probably a different era. But it will be another war. It's what I do.
Rick Atkinson / Author
War
Challenges
Fourteen
Pacific
Rejected
Wwii
Years
Considered
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There is something within our biological structure that screams out and says it is morally wrong for the old to outlive the young. This is one of the times when God doesn’t seem to make sense. This is the worst that life gets.
Rick Atkinson / Author
Scream
Structure
Young
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The U.S. Army records alone for World War II weigh 17,000 tons, and even the best historians have not done more than just scratch the surface. The story is such that 500 years from now people will be writing and reading about it.
Rick Atkinson / Author
War
Army
Reading
Records
World War Ii
Writing
Historians
Scratch
Tons
Weigh
World War
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There are a number of World War II historians I admire: Cornelius Ryan, Mark Stoler, Antony Beevor, to name a few. As for generals, there are those I admire as combat leaders and others I admire because they're great fun to write about.
Rick Atkinson / Author
War
Combat
Fun
Mark
World War Ii
Writing
War Great World
Generals
Great Fun
Historians
Ryan
World War
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I was born in Munich, and my father was stationed in Salzburg. For the first three years of my life, I lived in Austria back when the American Army was still in Austria. I grew up subsequently in posts around the country around veterans.
Rick Atkinson / Author
Thank You
Memorial Day
Army
Austria
Country
Father
Posts
Life Father My Life
Subsequently
Veterans
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Hitler had a police state of the first order. And those who showed any sign of being weak-kneed faced prison or often summary execution. That prevented a lot of people who knew that the war was not going to turn out well for Germany from giving up.
Rick Atkinson / Author
War
Execution
Germany
Giving Up
Order
Police State
Summary
Sign
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American audiences tend to underappreciate the British, but 240 years ago they were us: They were the most powerful nation on Earth. Their mercantile empire spanned the planet. They had the most potent and experienced army and navy the world had ever seen.
Rick Atkinson / Author
Army
Most Powerful
Navy
American Audiences
Empire
Experienced
Mercantile
Potent
Powerful Nation
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Almost everything about American society is affected by World War II: our feelings about race; our feelings about gender and the empowerment of women, moving women into the workplace; our feelings about our role in the world. All of that comes in a very direct way out of World War II.
Rick Atkinson / Author
War
American Society
Direct
Empowerment
Gender
Moving
Race
Workplace
World War Ii
Almost Everything
Direct Way
World War
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It's my belief that by demonizing Saddam, by raising the stakes in this war to the point where we're talking about a great moral crusade, that Bush in fact planted the seeds of discontent in the country, because this was fundamentally a limited war with limited objectives and with limited gains.
Rick Atkinson / Author
Belief
Discontent
Gains
Objectives
Saddam
Seeds
Stakes
Bush
Crusade
Fundamentally
War Great Country
Planted
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I was with the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq, really in the middle of nowhere, about 80 miles south of Baghdad. And it was almost midnight, and I got a computer message from the home office of the Washington Post asking me to call them. I did call them and was told that I'd won the Pulitzer Prize.
Rick Atkinson / Author
Home
Asking
Baghdad
Division
Iraq
Midnight
Miles
Office
Prize
Nowhere
Message
Post
Pulitzer
Washington Post
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In searching for a rationale to go to war, Bush settled on the notion of Saddam as an incarnation of evil, basically, and convinced himself that Saddam was fundamentally Adolf Hitler reborn. I think his feelings towards Saddam were in fact quite genuine and quite legitimately hostile. He was not play acting.
Rick Atkinson / Author
Genuine
Hostile
Incarnation
Notion
Rationale
Reborn
Saddam
Adolf
Bush
Fundamentally
Searching
Settled
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That was a pretty fine Army that we had in 1965. By 1973, it was in tatters. It was a disgrace to the country and to itself, to its own heritage, really. So it's, you know, the Army belongs to all 307 million of us. It is our common possession, it's our common heritage. As goes the Army, so goes the republic.
Rick Atkinson / Author
Army
Disgrace
Heritage
Possession
Republic
Belongs
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The people who write official histories for the Army believe that a generation needs to pass before you can tackle the official history. It's useful to have some distance. Sources become available. Passions cool. It allows an opportunity to make some real assessments and judgments about personalities and characters.
Rick Atkinson / Author
Army
Available
Believe
Distance
Real
Useful
Generation
Histories
Judgments
Official
Pass
Passions
Personalities
Sources
Tackle
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The spring of 1942 was given over to a very impassioned, strategic debate about where we should first attack in counterpunching against the Germans and Italians. The British argued very persuasively on the part of Winston Churchill, prime minister, that this was a very green American Army, green soldiers, green commanders.
Rick Atkinson / Author
Army
Debate
Green
Impassioned
Prime Minister
Soldier
Spring
Strategic
Argued
Attack
Churchill
Germans
Italians
Minister
Soldiers
Winston
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I conduct very few interviews with veterans. The contemporaneous, or near-contemporaneous, record for WWII is so spectacularly deep that latter-day recollections are largely unnecessary for a historian. Of course, in considering any account, I'm looking for additional sources that can confirm or enlarge that version of events.
Rick Atkinson / Author
Considering
Historian
Unnecessary
Wwii
Account
Additional
Version
Confirm
Largely
Sources
Veterans
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I think the Bush Administration had basically inherited a policy toward Iraq from the Reagan/Bush Administration that saw Iraq as a kind of fire wall against Iranian fundamentalism. And as it developed over the 1980s, it became a real political run-a-muck... even though the Iraqis were known to be harboring Palestinian terrorists.
Rick Atkinson / Author
Administration
Fire
Fundamentalism
Iranian
Palestinian
Wall
Bush
Bush Administration
Developed
Inherited
Iraqis
Terrorists
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Rick Atkinson Quotes - Page 1

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