“Instead of a thoughtful progression from prototype to general-issue arm, the M-16’s journey was marked by salesmanship, sham science, cover-ups, chicanery, incompetence, and no small amount of dishonesty by a gun manufacturer and senior American military officers.” — C.J. Chivers Copy Share Image
“The sentence was death. His appeal was rejected. At 7:18 A.M on April 9, 1959, József Tibor Fejes was hanged. He was suspended on… — C.J. Chivers Copy Share Image
“It is said that when men have made up their mind to die they act and speak like gods.” — C.J. Chivers Copy Share Image
“the Russian assault rifle would see its first combat use—both by conventional forces and by insurgents. The United States military, all the while, would misjudge the meaning and significance of the AK-47’s arrival. Beyond dismissing the value of the socialists’ main firearm with parochial superiority, it would develop weapons for its own forces that would fail when it mattered most,… — C.J. Chivers Copy Share
“McNamara’s Pentagon was right on one point. The M-14 was not the best all-purpose rifle for what war had become, especially in a tropical delta or jungle. To compete against guerrillas armed with Kalashnikovs, the United States needed more firepower than the M-14 provided, and in a lighter rifle. It needed, in short, more lethality per pound, more ability to… — C.J. Chivers Copy Share
“In sum, the United States had armed its foes, indirectly but surely. The war echoed edicts of Mao: “Guerrillas must not depend too much… — C.J. Chivers Copy Share Image
“The rules of war established by pen soldiers do not form the basis of actual operations in the field,” he wrote.” — C.J. Chivers Copy Share Image
“If a rifle could not be trusted, its other characteristics were moot. Being a bayonet holder was not enough.” — C.J. Chivers Copy Share Image
“enough weapons had been shown to enough military officers, and distributed to enough armies and navies, that given time even the most stupid of… — C.J. Chivers Copy Share Image
“Within a very few years the Kalashnikov’s attributes—its mechanical characteristics combined with its unprecedented availability—transformed Stalin’s rifle, conceived as a tool of the state,… — C.J. Chivers Copy Share Image
“The M-16 sure is a marvelous gun, and in a god-awful war it provides some keen fun. The bullet it fires appears too small to harm but it makes a big hole and can tear off an arm. Single shot, semi, or full automatic, a real awesome weapon, ’tho in performance sporadic. But listen to Ichord and forget that stuck… — C.J. Chivers Copy Share
“By 1944, three years later, the ordeal and the turnabout had both been spectacular. The Soviet Union had lost as many as 20 million… — C.J. Chivers Copy Share Image
“He gave them nicknames, including a series of people he assigned the name Stupid.” — C.J. Chivers Copy Share Image
