General George S. Patton rouses the US Third Army, June 5, 1944
Patton was renowned for his stirring, vigorously vulgar remarks to his troops. What became known as “The Speech,” was later made memorable in the movie Patton.
“Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. . . . My men don’t surrender. . . . 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. . . . 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! . . . There is one great thing you will be able to say when this war is over. Twenty years from now when your grandson asks what you did in the great World War II, you can look him straight in the eye and say, ‘Your Granddaddy rode with the Great Third Army and a Son-of-a-Goddamned-Bitch named Georgie Patton!’”