“Do nothing but be prepared to do anything.”

“Your job is to be the hardest motherfucker in your platoon," he said while pointing at me across the desk. "Do that, and everything else will fall into place."He added that I was assigned to Bravo Company, call sign Hitman, and wished me luck.”

“VJ had gone to the Naval Academy, where he competed as a powerlifter and developed a distaste for military customs such as short hair and addressing people by rank.”

“Hardness," I was learning, was the supreme virtue among recon Marines. The greatest compliment one could pay to another was to say he was hard. Hardness wasn't toughness, nor was it courage, although both were part of it. Hardness was the ability to face an overwhelming situation with aplomb, smile calmly at it, and then triumph through sheer professional pride.”

“The way to be nothing is to do nothing”

“To do nothing is the way to be nothing.”

“Do anything, save to lie down and die!”