Rick Atkinson

In battle, topography is fate.

— Rick Atkinson

“fractious, four-legged children of Satan,”

— Rick Atkinson

“The West Point Story,”

— Rick Atkinson

“Lincoln had inelegantly called “the tired spot that can’t be got at.”

— Rick Atkinson

If I've vividly laid out the narrative, the reader will come to his own conclusions.

— Rick Atkinson

“Amantium irae amoris integratio est.’” Lovers’ quarrels are a part of love.”

— Rick Atkinson

If Ive vividly laid out the narrative, the reader will come to his own conclusions.

— Rick Atkinson

“As required by the unwritten rules of military calamity, the initial attack went well.”

— Rick Atkinson

“One halfhearted effort had already been made in late March to force Fondouk Pass.”

— Rick Atkinson

“Now arrogance and error would reap the usual dividends”

— Rick Atkinson

I was a foreign correspondent in Berlin in the mid-'90s.

— Rick Atkinson

“I suffer from the usual difficulty that besets the higher commander—things can be ordered and started, but actual execution at the front…

— Rick Atkinson

“They’re not shooting at us, they’re not shooting at us,” one infantry commander insisted, even as French artillery plastered his battalion.”

— Rick Atkinson

“The balance of the campaign—indeed, the balance of the war—would require learning not only how to fight but how to rule.”

— Rick Atkinson

“Proverbially, no military plan survives contact with the enemy. That is never truer than when there is no plan to begin with.”

— Rick Atkinson

“The more stars you have, the higher you climb the flagpole, the more of your ass is exposed,”

— Rick Atkinson

“In a dinner toast at one base, Patton declared, “Here’s to the wives. My, what pretty widows you’re going to make.”

— Rick Atkinson

The American army between world wars after World War I had virtually disintegrated. It was a very small force, given largely to…

— Rick Atkinson

“CASABLANCA provided Vichy with its best anchorage south of Toulon, and the French navy had chosen to defend the Moroccan port with…

— Rick Atkinson

That was a pretty fine Army that we had in 1965. By 1973, it was in tatters. It was a disgrace to…

— Rick Atkinson

“To his brother Edgar he confided, “I suffer from the usual difficulty that besets the higher commander—things can be ordered and started,…

— Rick Atkinson

“Like any army moving from war to peace, this Army was entering a period in which it would search high and low…

— Rick Atkinson

“Brooke’s deputy, General Sir John Kennedy, observed of Churchill: “He is difficult enough when things are going badly, more difficult when nothing…

— Rick Atkinson

Almost everything about American society is affected by World War II: our feelings about race; our feelings about gender and the empowerment…

— Rick Atkinson

“Tanks beached at X and Z were to race inland before dawn in a pincer movement to help capture two airfields south…

— Rick Atkinson

“All the confusion that characterized the cargo loading now attended the convergence of 34,000 soldiers on Hampton Roads. Troop trains with blinds…

— Rick Atkinson

“an infantry captain addressed his men: “We do not pray for victory, nor even for our individual safety. But we pray for…

— Rick Atkinson

“Terry Allen and a larger portion of his 1st Division descended on Oran from the sandstone hills above St. Cloud, a key…

— Rick Atkinson

“Even Colonel Lang, watching the Americans from the other side of Djebel Naemia, had been surprised by their timid initial approach to…

— Rick Atkinson

“Allen left the academy, graduated from Catholic University, and took a commission in 1912. Wounded at Saint-Mihiel in 1918 and carried from…

— Rick Atkinson

“TWENTY-SEVEN acres of headstones fill the American military cemetery at Carthage, Tunisia. There are no obelisks, no tombs, no ostentatious monuments, just…

— Rick Atkinson

“Matthew Ridgway to command the XVIII Airborne Corps, Gavin had taken over the 82nd in mid-August. At thirty-seven he would be not…

— Rick Atkinson

“fifty-six, his hour had come round. He was a paradox and would always remain one, a great tangle of calculated mannerisms and…

— Rick Atkinson

“Draconian censorship was soon imposed, with correspondents advised that no dispatches would be allowed that made people at home feel unhappy. Equally…

— Rick Atkinson

“K of the 18th Infantry killed an Arab civilian, who tumbled down a hillside with his robes flying about him. Soldiers from…

— Rick Atkinson

“Captain Evelyn Waugh of the British Army wrote of the Stuka, “Like all things German, it is very efficient and goes on…

— Rick Atkinson

Global war is a clash of systems, not just battalions biffing one another in some godforsaken forest.

— Rick Atkinson

“A forward patrol reported capturing a French headquarters near La Sénia, five miles south of Oran, but the office safe yielded only…

— Rick Atkinson

I think I may try and write something about my pretty extraordinary experience with the 101st in Iraq.

— Rick Atkinson

“An enterprising shortwave radio operator managed to pick up the Army–Notre Dame football game and broadcast it to the 16th Infantry Regiment…

— Rick Atkinson