"I finally figured out that when a Turkish officer tells you, "It's no problem," he means, for him." Maj (EUCOM) "Never in the history of the US Armed Forces have so many done so much for so few..." MAJ (Task Force Warrior) on the "success" of the Free Iraqi Forces (FIF) Training Program, where 1100 Army troops trained 77 Iraqi exiles at the cost of, well, way too much... "Our days are spent trying to get some poor, unsuspecting third world country to pony up to spending a year in a sweltering desert, full of pissed off Arabs who would rather shave the back of their legs with a cheese grater than submit to foreign occupation by a country for whom they have nothing but contempt." LTC (JS) on the joys of coalition building "OSD will continue to drive this cart into the ground long after the wheels have been sold on E-bay." MAJ (JS) on the progress of FIF "Please don't laugh. This is my job." Maj (EUCOM) from Protocol, explaining in great detail the approved procedures for dropping off VIPs "I guess the next thing they'll ask for is 300 US citizens with Hungarian last names to send to Iraq..." MAJ (JS) on the often-frustrating process of building the Iraqi coalition for Phase IV "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) "Working with Hungary is like watching a bad comedy set on auto repeat..." LCDR (EUCOM) "Between us girls, would it help to clarify the issue if you knew that Hungary is land-locked?" CDR to MAJ (EUCOM) on why a deployment from Hungary is likely to proceed by air vice sea "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) "One of the secrets to maintaining my positive attitude in this job is this: I complete no tasker before its time..." MAJ (EUCOM) "It is nothing for US soldiers to be in the desert for a year without a woman. It is different for us, though, because we are Latin..." LTC (LATAM country) on one of the differences between Latin American soldiers and their US counterparts "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) "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 "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) "Even if Al-Qaeda nuked this place, the Chief of Staff would approve a 4-star visitor the very next day!" GS-12 (EUCOM) "Never pet a burning dog." LTC (Tennessee National Guard) "It's basically announcing to the world that I've completely given up." LT (USN F-14 squadron) on his initial feelings behind the wheel of his brand new minivan "A staff action is like getting an out of state check, countersigned by a fraud on a phony ID: some of the time it clears, but most of the time, you're screwed." Lt Col (USAF) "I need intelligence, not information." Maj (EUCOM) "Ah, the joys of Paris: a unique chance to swill warm wine and be mesmerized by the dank ambrosia of unkempt armpits..." LCDR (NAVEUR) "The hardest thing about having a third child is switching from 1-on-1 to a zone defense." MAJ (EUCOM) "Nobody ever said you had to be smart to make 0-6." Col (EUCOM) "I haven't complied with a darn thing and nothing bad has happened to me yet." "Whatever happened to good old-fashioned military leadership? Just task the first two people you see." "The first question I ask myself when tasked to do something that's not obviously and overwhelmingly in my own best interest is, 'Exactly what happens if I don't do it?'" "No need to tip our hand as to how responsive we can be." CDR (EUCOM) in a pass down to his replacement "I seem to be rapidly approaching the apex of my mediocre career." MAJ (JS) "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) "Things are looking up for us here. In fact, Papua-New Guinea is thinking of offering two platoons: one of Infantry (headhunters) and one of engineers (hut builders). They want to eat any Iraqis they kill. We've got no issues with that, but State is being anal about it." LTC (JS) on OIF coalition-building "It's not a lot of work unless you have to do it." LTC (EUCOM) "I'm gonna have to leave work early today and probably stay home tomorrow. I'm fighting off a cold and I want to beat it before I start my leave in two days." MAJ (EUCOM) "Creating smoking holes gives our lives meaning and enhances our manliness." LTC (EUCOM) at a CT conference "Interagency is a process, not a noun." Anonymous (EUCOM) "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." "You can get drunk enough to do most anything, but you have to realize going in that there are some things that, once you sober up and realize what you have done, will lead you to either grab a 12-gauge or stay drunk for the rest of your life." "That guy just won't take 'yes' for an answer." MAJ (EUCOM) "Let's just call Lessons Learned what they really are: institutionalized scab picking." "I can describe what it feels like being a Staff Officer in two words: distilled pain." CDR (NAVEUR) "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 "Vision without funding is hallucination." Maj (EUCOM) "I work at EUCOM. I know bullsh!t when I see it." LTC (EUCOM) in a game of office poker "You only know as much as you don't know." GO (EUCOM) "I'm just livin' the dream..." EUCOM staffer response to the question, "How's it going?" or, "What are you doing?" "I'm just ranting...I have nothing useful to say." LTC (EUCOM) "Why would an enemy want to bomb this place and end all the confusion?" GS-14 (EUCOM) "How soon before we can give this guy a medal, a good OER, and send him on his way?" GS-12 (EUCOM) referring to his boss "Other than the fact that there's no beer, an early curfew and women that wear face coverings for a reason, Kabul is really a wonderful place to visit." LTC (CENTCOM) "It was seen, visually." LTC (EUCOM) during a Reconnaissance briefing "USCENTCOM commanders announced today that they intend to maintain their presence in Qatar "until the sun runs out of hydrogen," thus committing the US to the longest duration deployment in human history. When asked how they planned to maintain the presence in Qatar for a projected length of 4 to 5 billion years, planners said "we're working on a plan for that. We don't have one yet, but not having a plan or an intelligent reason to do something has never been much of an impediment for us in the past; we don't foresee it being a big show stopper for us in the future either." Among the options that were being discussed was an innovative program to "interbreed" the deployed personnel. "We are going to actively encourage the military members in Qatar to intermarry and raise children that will replace them in the future. Sure, it may be a little hard on some of our female service members, since there currently are about 8 men for every woman over there, but we expect that to be OBE as the sex ratios will even out in a generation or two. In any case the key to the plan is to make these assignments not only permanent, but inheritable and hereditary. For example, if you currently work the JOC weather desk, so will your children, and their children, and their children, ad infinitum. We like to think of it as job security." CPT (CJTF-180) "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) "I keep myself confused on purpose, just in case I am captured and fall into enemy hands!" GO/FO (CENTCOM) "Cheese-dickery abounds at this Command." LtCol (EUCOM) "Does anybody around here remember if I did anything this year?" LTC (EUCOM) preparing his Officer Evaluation Report support form "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) "Why should I worry? Nobody here outranks me by that much." MAJ (SOCEUR) briefing a group of 0-6s "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) "I've heard of 'buzzwords' before but I have never experienced a 'buzz sentence' or a 'buzz paragraph' until today." Maj (EUCOM) after listening to a JFCOM trainer/mentor "We've got to start collaborating between the collaboration systems." "Did you hear that they're canning Bob Edwards on NPR?" "Why? Did they catch him standing up for the National Anthem or something??" COL to CDR (EUCOM) "Not to be uncooperative, but we're just being uncooperative." CDR (EUCOM) in an email response to a request for information "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 "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... "There are more disconnects on this issue than CENTCOM has staff officers." GO/FO (EUCOM) "Is that a Navy or a Marine admiral?" MAJ (EUCOM)