Anyone
who has ever viewed the motion picture PATTON will never forget
the opening: George C. Scott, portraying Patton, standing in
front of an immensely huge American flag, delivers his version
of Patton's "Speech to the Third Army" on June 5th, 1944, the
eve of the Allied invasion of France, code-named "Overlord."
What follows
below is an exact reproduction of the speech that Patton gave to
the 3rd Army. This is not the cleaned up version that George
Scott used in the movie about Patton. Patton sprinkled a great
deal of profanity on his speeches. He was a soldier's General
and had he been given the opportunity, he could have ended the
war quicker, without having to contend with decisions that gave
Allied commanders priority, decisions that caused unnecessary
deaths and failure as depicted in the history which the movie
A
Bridge Too Far was based on.
Let the faint hearted beware: there are many and varied cuss
words in what follows, some quite offensive. Do not read beyond this point if
you are offended by profanity.
The Setting:
Patton strode down the incline and then straight to the stiff
backed "Guard of Honor." He looked them up and down. He peered
intently into their faces and surveyed their backs. He moved
through the ranks of the statuesque band like an avenging wraith
and, apparently satisfied, mounted the platform with Lieutenant
General Simpson and Major General Cook, the Corps Commander, at
his side.
Major General Cook then introduced Lieutenant General Simpson,
whose Army was still in America, preparing for their part in the
war.
"We are here," said General Simpson," to listen to the words of
a great man. A man who will lead you all into whatever you may
face with heroism, ability, and foresight. A man who has proven
himself amid shot and shell. My greatest hope is that someday
soon, I will have my own Army fighting with his, side by side."
General Patton arose and strode swiftly to the microphone. The
men snapped to their feet and stood silently. Patton surveyed
the sea of brown with a grim look. "Be seated," he said. The
words were not a request, but a command. The General's voice
rose high and clear.
The Speech:
"Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America
wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of
bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real
Americans love the sting and clash of battle. You are here today
for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your
homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own
self respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else.
Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men
like to fight. When you, here, everyone of you, were kids, you
all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the
toughest boxer, the big league ball players, and the
All-American football players. Americans love a winner.
Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards.
Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in
hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have
never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing
is hateful to an American."
The General paused and looked over the crowd. "You are not all
going to die," he said slowly. "Only two percent of you right
here today would die in a major battle. Death must not be
feared. Death, in time, comes to all men. Yes, every man is
scared in his first battle. If he says he's not, he's a liar.
Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or
they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are
just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights
even though he is scared. Some men get over their fright in a
minute under fire. For some, it takes an hour. For some, it
takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of death
overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his
innate manhood. Battle is the most magnificent competition in
which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best
and it removes all that is base. Americans pride themselves on
being He Men and they ARE He Men. Remember that the enemy is
just as frightened as you are, and probably more so. They are
not supermen."
"All through your Army careers, you men have bitched about what
you call "chicken shit drilling." That, like everything else in
this Army, has a definite purpose. That purpose is alertness.
Alertness must be bred into every soldier. I don't give a fuck
for a man who's not always on his toes. You men are veterans or
you wouldn't be here. You are ready for what's to come. A man
must be alert at all times if he expects to stay alive. If
you're not alert, sometime, a German son-of-an-asshole-bitch is
going to sneak up behind you and beat you to death with a
sockfull of shit!"
The men roared in agreement.
Patton's grim expression did not change.
"There are four hundred neatly marked graves somewhere in
Sicily," he roared into the microphone, "All because one man
went to sleep on the job." He paused and the men grew silent.
"But they are German graves, because we caught the bastard
asleep before they did." The General clutched the microphone
tightly, his jaw out-thrust, and he continued, "An Army is a
team. It lives, sleeps, eats, and fights as a team. This
individual heroic stuff is pure horse shit. The bilious bastards
who write that kind of stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don't
know any more about real fighting under fire than they know
about fucking!"
The men slapped their legs and rolled in glee. This was Patton
as the men had imagined him to be, and in rare form, too. He
hadn't let them down. He was all that he was cracked up to be,
and more. He had IT!
"We have the finest food, the finest equipment, the best spirit,
and the best men in the world," Patton bellowed. He lowered his
head and shook it pensively. Suddenly he snapped erect, faced
the men belligerently and thundered, "Why, by God, I actually
pity those poor sons-of-bitches we're going up against. By God,
I do." The men clapped and howled delightedly. There would be
many a barracks tale about the "Old Man's" choice phrases. They
would become part and parcel of the Third Army's history and
they would become the bible of their slang.
"My men don't surrender", Patton continued, "I don't want to
hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he
has been hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight back.
That's not just bull shit either. The kind of man that I want in
my command is just like the lieutenant in Libya, who, with a
Luger against his chest, jerked off his helmet, swept the gun
aside with one hand, and busted the hell out of the Kraut with
his helmet. Then he jumped on the gun and went out and killed
another German before they knew what the hell was coming off.
And, all of that time, this man had a bullet through a lung.
There was a real man!"
Patton stopped and the crowd waited. He continued more quietly,
"All of the real heroes are not storybook combat fighters,
either. Every single man in this Army plays a vital role. Don't
ever let up. Don't ever think that your job is unimportant.
Every man has a job to do and he must do it. Every man is a
vital link in the great chain. What if every truck driver
suddenly decided that he didn't like the whine of those shells
overhead, turned yellow, and jumped headlong into a ditch? The
cowardly bastard could say, 'Hell, they won't miss me, just one
man in thousands.' But, what if every man thought that way?
Where in the hell would we be now? What would our country, our
loved ones, our homes, even the world, be like? No, Goddammit,
Americans don't think like that. Every man does his job. Every
man serves the whole. Every department, every unit, is important
in the vast scheme of this war. The ordnance men are needed to
supply the guns and machinery of war to keep us rolling. The
Quartermaster is needed to bring up food and clothes because
where we are going there isn't a hell of a lot to steal. Every
last man on K.P. has a job to do, even the one who heats our
water to keep us from getting the 'G.I. Shits'."
Patton paused, took a deep breath, and continued, "Each man must
not think only of himself, but also of his buddy fighting beside
him. We don't want yellow cowards in this Army. They should be
killed off like rats. If not, they will go home after this war
and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men.
Kill off the Goddamned cowards and we will have a nation of
brave men. One of the bravest men that I ever saw was a fellow
on top of a telegraph pole in the midst of a furious fire fight
in Tunisia. I stopped and asked what the hell he was doing up
there at a time like that. He answered, "Fixing the wire, Sir."
I asked, "Isn't that a little unhealthy right about now?" He
answered, "Yes Sir, but the Goddamned wire has to be fixed." I
asked, "Don't those planes strafing the road bother you?" And he
answered, "No, Sir, but you sure as hell do."
Now, there was a real man. A real soldier. There was a man who
devoted all he had to his duty, no matter how seemingly
insignificant his duty might appear at the time, no matter how
great the odds. And you should have seen those trucks on the
road to Tunisia. Those drivers were magnificent. All day and all
night they rolled over those son-of-a-bitching roads, never
stopping, never faltering from their course, with shells
bursting all around them all of the time. We got through on good
old American guts. Many of those men drove for over forty
consecutive hours. These men weren't combat men, but they were
soldiers with a job to do. They did it, and in one hell of a way
they did it. They were part of a team. Without team effort,
without them, the fight would have been lost. All of the links
in the chain pulled together and the chain became unbreakable."
The General paused and stared challengingly over the silent
ocean of men. One could have heard a pin drop anywhere on that
vast hillside. The only sound was the stirring of the breeze in
the leaves of the bordering trees and the busy chirping of the
birds in the branches of the trees at the General's left.
"Don't forget," Patton barked, "you men don't know that I'm
here. No mention of that fact is to be made in any letters. The
world is not supposed to know what the hell happened to me. I'm
not supposed to be commanding this Army. I'm not even supposed
to be here in England. Let the first bastards to find out be the
Goddamned Germans. Some day I want to see them raise up on their
piss-soaked hind legs and howl, 'Jesus Christ, it's the
Goddamned Third Army again and that son-of-a-fucking-bitch
Patton'."
"We want to get the hell over there," Patton continued, "The
quicker we clean up this Goddamned mess, the quicker we can take
a little jaunt against the purple pissing Japs and clean out
their nest, too. Before the Goddamned Marines get all of the
credit."
The men roared approval and cheered delightedly. This statement
had real significance behind it. Much more than met the eye and
the men instinctively sensed the fact. They knew that they
themselves were going to play a very great part in the making of
world history. They were being told as much right now. Deep
sincerity and seriousness lay behind the General's colorful
words. The men knew and understood it. They loved the way he put
it, too, as only he could.
Patton continued quietly, "Sure, we want to go home. We want
this war over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to
go get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are
whipped, the quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is
through Berlin and Tokyo. And when we get to Berlin," he yelled,
"I am personally going to shoot that paper hanging
son-of-a-bitch Hitler. Just like I'd shoot a snake!"
"When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all
day, a German will get to him eventually. The hell with that
idea. The hell with taking it. My men don't dig foxholes. I
don't want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep
moving. And don't give the enemy time to dig one either. We'll
win this war, but we'll win it only by fighting and by showing
the Germans that we've got more guts than they have; or ever
will have. We're not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches,
we're going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them
to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those
lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket. War is a
bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or
they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the
guts. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the
dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt it's the
blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you,
you'll know what to do!"
"I don't want to get any messages saying, "I am holding my
position." We are not holding a Goddamned thing. Let the Germans
do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested
in holding onto anything, except the enemy's balls. We are going
to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all of
the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep
on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or
through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap
through a goose; like shit through a tin horn!"
"From time to time there will be some complaints that we are
pushing our people too hard. I don't give a good Goddamn about
such complaints. I believe in the old and sound rule that an
ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The harder WE push,
the more Germans we will kill. The more Germans we kill, the
fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing means fewer casualties.
I want you all to remember that."
The General paused. His eagle like eyes swept over the hillside.
He said with pride, "There is one great thing that you men will
all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once
again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you
are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and
he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you WON'T
have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, "Well, your
Granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana." No, Sir, you can look
him straight in the eye and say, "Son, your Granddaddy rode with
the Great Third Army and a Son-of-a-Goddamned-Bitch named
Georgie Patton!"
- - - - -
Note: This speech can be found online at the Patton Society
website - http://www.pattonhq.com/homeghq.html
Major Green's personal Post Script: For the record, the men I
served with in Vietnam were the kind of men that Patton spoke
of... men that believed in winning, men who were ready to
sacrifice their lives for their fellow soldiers and men who
believed in winning. I do not know where all the REMFs came from
that came back to the states, whining and crying about the war
in Vietnam. Personally
those cowardly scumbags I rate lower than the draft dodging
cowards that fled to Canada. Of the
men that served in the Black Widows Combat Assault
Helicopter a.k.a. Charlie Company, 101st Aviation Battalion, I
have the highest respect.
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