Chris Sajnog adeptly recounts Patton's 1944 Address.

Best Speech Ever Given: Patton’s 1944 Address

Hey, what’s up everybody, in this post, I’m going to be talking about the best speech ever given and how General Patton’s 1944 address captivates with timeless leadership wisdom and unmatched inspiration. Let’s delve into the essence of greatness!

 

GENERAL GEORGE S. PATTON’S SPEECH TO THE THIRD ARMY ON JUNE 5, 1944

I recently read this speech from one of our great leaders and wanted to share it here. It’s a great read and shows a mindset our country had in our past and most of our leaders have lost. To remain the greatest nation on earth, we need to get this type of leadership back. If you are a weak leader, read this and think about your style of leadership. If you work for a weak leader, have him read this and hopefully he will loose some of the yellow in his spine!

Be warned: There is a lot of foul language in his speech. Don’t read as a bedtime story to you kids!

Somewhere in England June 5th, 1944

Be seated.

Genuine Americans embrace the intensity and conflict of battle.

Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle.

You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight. When you, here, every one of you, were kids, you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the toughest boxer, the big league ball players, and the All-American football players. Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American.

You are not all going to die. Only two percent of you right here today would die in a major battle. Death must not be feared. Death, in time, comes to all men. Yes, every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he’s not, he’s a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some, it takes an hour. For some, it takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood.

Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base. Americans pride themselves on being He Men and they ARE He-Men. Remember that the enemy is just as frightened as you are, and probably more so. They are not supermen.

Every soldier should be instilled with a sense of alertness.

All through your Army careers, you men have bitched about what you call “chicken shit drilling.” That, like everything else in this Army, has a definite purpose. That purpose is alertness. Alertness must be bred into every soldier. I don’t give a fuck for a man who’s not always on his toes. You men are veterans or you wouldn’t be here. You are ready for what’s to come. A man must be alert at all times if he expects to stay alive. If you’re not alert, sometime, a German son-of-an-asshole-bitch is going to sneak up behind you and beat you to death with a sock-full of shit! There are four hundred neatly marked graves somewhere in Sicily, all because one man went to sleep on the job. But they are German graves, because we caught the bastard asleep before they did.

An Army is a team. It lives, sleeps, eats, and fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is pure horseshit. The bilious bastards who write that kind of stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don’t know any more about real fighting under fire than they know about fucking! We have the finest food, the finest equipment, the best spirit, and the best men in the world. Why, by God, I actually pity those poor sons-of-bitches we’re going up against. By God, I do.

My men don’t surrender, and I don’t want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he has been hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight back. That’s not just bull shit either. The kind of man that I want in my command is just like the lieutenant in Libya, who, with a Luger against his chest, jerked off his helmet, swept the gun aside with one hand, and busted the hell out of the Kraut with his helmet. Then he jumped on the gun and went out and killed another German before they knew what the hell was coming off. And, all of that time, this man had a bullet through a lung. There was a real man!

Each and every man in this Army contributes significantly.

All of the real heroes are not storybook combat fighters, either. Every single man in this Army plays a vital role. Don’t ever let up. Don’t ever think that your job is unimportant. Every man has a job to do and he must do it. Every man is a vital link in the great chain. What if every truck driver suddenly decided that he didn’t like the whine of those shells overhead, turned yellow, and jumped headlong into a ditch? The cowardly bastard could say, ‘Hell, they won’t miss me, just one man in thousands.’ But, what if every man thought that way? Where in the hell would we be now? What would our country, our loved ones, our homes, even the world, be like? No, Goddamnit, Americans don’t think like that. Every man does his job. Every man serves the whole. Every department, every unit, is important in the vast scheme of this war. The ordnance men are needed to supply the guns and machinery of war to keep us rolling. The Quartermaster is needed to bring up food and clothes because where we are going there isn’t a hell of a lot to steal. Every last man on K.P. has a job to do, even the one who heats our water to keep us from getting the ‘G.I. Shits.’

Explore further into Chris Sajnog’s blog on the Best Speech Ever Given: Patton’s 1944 Address.

Each man must not think only of himself, but also of his buddy fighting beside him. We don’t want yellow cowards in this Army. They should be killed off like rats. If not, they will go home after this war and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the Goddamned cowards and we will have a nation of brave men. One of the bravest men that I ever saw was a fellow on top of a telegraph pole in the midst of a furious fire fight in Tunisia. I stopped and asked what the hell he was doing up there at a time like that. He answered, ‘Fixing the wire, Sir.’ I asked, ‘Isn’t that a little unhealthy right about now?’ He answered, ‘Yes Sir, but the Goddamned wire has to be fixed.’ I asked, ‘Don’t those planes strafing the road bother you?’ And he answered, ‘No, Sir, but you sure as hell do!’ Now, there was a real man. A real soldier. There was a man who devoted all he had to his duty, no matter how seemingly insignificant his duty might appear at the time, no matter how great the odds.

Every individual should consider not only his own well-being but also the comrade fighting alongside him.

And you should have seen those trucks on the rode to Tunisia. Those drivers were magnificent. All day and all night they rolled over those son-of-a-bitching roads, never stopping, never faltering from their course, with shells bursting all around them all of the time. We got through on good old American guts.

Many of those men drove for over forty consecutive hours. These men weren’t combat men, but they were soldiers with a job to do. They did it, and in one hell of a way they did it. They were part of a team. Without team effort, without them, the fight would have been lost. All of the links in the chain pulled together and the chain became unbreakable.

Don’t forget, you men don’t know that I’m here. No mention of that fact is to be made in any letters. The world is not supposed to know what the hell happened to me. I’m not supposed to be commanding this Army. I’m not even supposed to be here in England. Let the first bastards to find out be the Goddamned Germans. Someday I want to see them raise up on their piss-soaked hind legs and howl, ‘Jesus Christ, it’s the Goddamned Third Army again and that son-of-a-fucking-bitch Patton.’ We want to get the hell over there.” The quicker we clean up this Goddamned mess, the quicker we can take a little jaunt against the purple pissing Japs and clean out their nest, too. Before the Goddamned Marines get all of the credit.

Sure, we want to go home. We want this war over with. The quickest way to get it over with is to go get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin and Tokyo. And when we get to Berlin, I am personally going to shoot that paper hanging son-of-a-bitch Hitler. Just like I’d shoot a snake!

Of course, the desire is to return home and bring an end to this war.

When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all day, a German will get to him eventually. The hell with that idea. The hell with taking it. My men don’t dig foxholes. I don’t want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don’t give the enemy time to dig one either. We’ll win this war, but we’ll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans that we’ve got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We’re not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we’re going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We’re going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket.

War is a bloody, killing business. You’ve got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt it’s the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you’ll know what to do!

I don’t want to get any messages saying, ‘I am holding my position.’ We are not holding a Goddamned thing. Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy’s balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all of the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap through a goose; like shit through a tinhorn!

Concerns about exerting excessive pressure on our soldiers.

From time to time there will be some complaints that we are pushing our people too hard. I don’t give a good Goddamn about such complaints. I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The harder WE push, the more Germans we will kill. The more Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that.

There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you WON’T have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, ‘Well, your Granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana.’ No, Sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say, ‘Son, your Granddaddy rode with the Great Third Army and a Son-of-a- Goddamned-Bitch named Georgie Patton!’

That is all.

Alright, so that is it for today. I hope you got some value out of this best speech ever given and found inspiration that resonates in your life. Please share and comment on this post if you haven’t already, and keep paving your path to perfection!

 


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9 Comments

  1. That was like a house that was closed up for a long time having all the windows opened wide and thecurtains pulled down, on a very windy day (to me).

    “I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood”. I know it’s not in context but nevertheless I think of the puIling of soldiers from Iraq when I read that. I believe or like to think, that the General would not have left until the job was done – regardless of the amount of time, sweat or whatever it took . I believe that he would also have wanted the soldiers to have been able to do that job without their hands tied and pissing in the wind – for the press and what the world thinks. How can soldiers ever do a job when their hands are partially tied, because they have to upset the rest of the world as little as possible.

    So the ounce of sweat to save a gallon of blood applies here to me because Iran is laughing while the rest of the world and many Americans say “about time they come home”. WTF!

    Anyway, this is the stuff of wars and the stuff of real men (and women) and the stuff of a country which is finding itself on it’s knees because of stupid people who are the cowards the General I believe is speaking about. Soft, spoilt, displeased and hateful people who want not peace but control. People who have lost the plot. People who are in a world where many dictators have not lost theirs.

    Yes Americans are fighters – from their earliest days. I wonder why people are thinking now that fighting is a dreadful thing. Maybe white robes and everyone doped up is their submimal ideal. Who’d know.

    Meanwhile, because I’m rushing and damned angry at why fighters need to almost excuse themselves and so happy to have read that, that I wll add something more that’s niggled me for ages. That’s the ever increasing number of men who are saying “I’m a lover, not a fighter”. O

  2. Sorry, I pushed something on this keyboard & didn’t finish.

    Yes, more & more men are saying that. “I’m a lover, not a fighter”. So, I look at them with disdain. A lover? huh ahum. So, it’s more important to be a lover. That’s the value the guy has. And I reckon that’s part of the problem.

    What man worth his salt would rather be a lover than fight for what he thinks, believes, wants and needs? My answer to my own question is – he ain’t a man.

    ps I’m not American but God help us all if America loses that spirit. Iran & others sure aren’t going to lose theirs!

    (Of course Iran, soldiers being pulled etc – my own opinion only)

  3. Sorry.. three times & you’re out!

    I get the Center Mass Group Updates delivered right to my mailbox – that’s quite a long way btw 😉 Anyway, I read that incredible speech again.

    I should have said calling back the ‘troops’ not soldiers per se. General Patton being an Army Officer and referring to soldiers probably had me doing the same.

    Thanks.

    1. Angelika,

      Thank you for your AWESOME comments! I wish we had an award section for the best comments. There are still a lot of REAL men in America. The problem is they are busy fighting for our county and freedom around the globe, while the “lovers” are back here complaining.

      Cheers,
      Chris

  4. General Patton: a spine like iron, honesty unheard of today, dedication and patriotism of a sort that is unparalled. All the talk we hear of our forefathers and what they would think of what has become of our country is great, but I thank you for this post because I’d not thought about this speech for too long, and I challenge all to take a minute after reading it to think about what the old salty dog would have done today.

    Huah General !!!

  5. I have not checked in here for some time since I thought it was getting boring, but the last few posts are good quality so I guess I’ll add you back to my daily bloglist. You deserve it my friend 🙂

  6. We someone with the balls to say exactly what we need to hear without sugar coating, so we all can come together as one entity as a country, a Great Nation that we r and be proud to say we’re Americans

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