You can't have this kind of war. There just aren't enough bulldozers to scrape the bodies off the streets.
Interpretation
The devastation of war is so great that it leads to unimaginable loss of life and suffering, which cannot be adequately addressed.
This quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower powerfully emphasizes the horrific consequences of war, suggesting that the scale of destruction and loss is beyond what any effort can remedy. By using the imagery of bulldozers needed to clear the streets after a conflict, Eisenhower conveys the idea that the cost of war is not simply a matter of military strategy, but one that affects countless lives and leaves lasting scars on society.
In practice
During a memorial speech for war veterans, you could quote this to highlight the tragic consequences of conflict.
If a man's associates find him guilty of being phony, if they find that he lacks forthright integrity, he will fail. His teachings and actions must square with each other. The first great need, therefore, is integrity and high purpose.
The libraries of America are and must ever remain the home of free and inquiring minds. To them, our citizens-of all ages and races, of all creeds and persuasions-must be able to turn with clear confidence that there they can freely seek the whole truth, unvarnished by fashion and uncompromised by expediency.
You don't lead by hitting people over the head - that's assault, not leadership.
When pressure mounts and strain increases everyone begins to show the weaknesses in his makeup. It is up to the Commander to conceal his: above all to conceal doubt, fear, and distrust.
Some years ago I became president of Columbia University and learned within 24 hours to be ready to speak at the drop of a hat, and I learned something more, the trustees were expected to be ready to speak at the passing of the hat.
I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.
We come across thirty or so hurried graves with makeshift wooden markers. 'Private Edwards, E.', a number, and that was all. Fourteen days ago he was alive, thinking feeling, hoping... If war was a game of cards, I'd say someone was cheating.
But they (the infantry) had no use for boys of twelve and thirteen, and before I had a chance in another war, the desire to kill people to whom I had not been introduced had passed away.
He once told Allie and I that if he'd had to shoot anybody, he wouldn't've known which direction to shoot in. He said the Army was practically as full of bastards as the Nazis were.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
Like some infernal monster, still venomous in death, a war can go on killing people for a long time after itβs all over.
Smell that? You smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
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