Jonathan Hennessey Quotes

“Ignorance is ultimately the worst enemy of a people who want to be free.”

“The hardest thing about getting what you want is knowing what to do with it.”

“we sulked and, in the finest tradition of bored soldiers, sat around throwing stones at each other.”

“I couldn't have done 16 months of deployment without a sense of irony. N”

“Violence is temporary, but learning is permanent.”

“What surfaced was the surprising power of our cultural heritage.”

“The British Army has a fine tradition of being so distracted by what it is currently up to it stubbornly refuses to look round the corner, let alone into the future.”

“Good general differ from bad generals only in the degree to which they resist the psychopathology of the very organization they serve. Norman Dixon”

“In fact, second lieutenants were primary-school teachers. Sure, teachers with guns, but a platoon commander was, nonetheless, the guy who sorted out the working day for 30 men under his command, taught their lessons, helped them with their homework, sorted out their petty squabbles and put plasters on their knees when they fell over in the playground.”

“Legend tells us that the High King of Tara, who ruled supreme over all the Kings of Ireland, looked out from his castle one day during the festival of Eostre and saw a fire blazing away on a far hillside. Furious with this obvious disregard for the law, for which the penalty was death, he sent out soldiers to arrest the guilty party. When the soldiers arrived at the hillside they found St Patrick, the patron Saint of Ireland, piling wood onto his fire and immediately seized him. Standing before the King he was asked why he disobeyed the law, and he explained that his fire was a sign that Christ had risen from the dead and was the light of the world. The King so admired Patrick’s courage that he forgave him and became a convert to Christianity!”