Quotes by R. Ermey

• You'd be surprised how many kids and young people come to the website and send me email that they are actually going into the Marine Corp because of something that I said or did.
• Kubrick ate it up. He loved it. He just let me go crazy.
• There was a huge, tremendous amount of disabled veterans and the Veteran's Administration just wasn't geared up for it. I know for a fact that it's getting better and better.
• Without discipline, there is no Marine Corp.
• When you try to find funding for a VVA function, it doesn't seem like it's any trouble at all. People come out of the woodwork with their money to help out because we went over and fought a war.
• It's been a pretty fun ride, to tell you the truth.
• There's a lot of whiners in every crowd.
• There have been a lot of changes in recruit training in the past twenty years.
• The drill instructor must have total and complete control. Mindless obedience is what he's after.
• The biggest problem was the politicians knew nothing about fighting a war.
• The best part about the movie, and everybody seems to rave about it, is the boot camp part.
• That's all I cared about too, was getting it right.
• Kubrick's films have life - they just never die.
• It's my firm conviction that when Uncle Sam calls, by God we go, and we do the best that we can.
• The bad news motivated the drill instructors that much more.
• We had times in '66 and '67 when we would pick up a platoon of privates out of the receiving barracks the week before we even graduated the platoon that we were on!
• Even though I disagree with many of the changes, when I see the privates graduate at the end of the day, when they walk off that drill field at the end of the ceremony, they are still fine privates; outstanding, well motivated privates.
• I've never had to spend any time in the VA hospital, so I really can't speak for those guys.
• I was stationed at a marine recruit depot in San Diego from 1965 to 1967.
• I honestly do feel that I am a role model for young people.
• I got to write most of everything I said.
• I got space from Travis Air Force Base, went back to the Philippine Islands and made it a point to meet the only American casting director in the Philippines. I was off and running.
• I go the VA Hospital when I have a problem and the doctor jumps on me.
• America's trying to do the best for its veterans.
• Everybody respects the Vietnam Veterans of America.
• I don't have any respect at all for the scum-bags who went to Canada to avoid the draft or to avoid doing their fair share.
• Drill instructors worked seven days a week, fifteen to seventeen hours a day in many cases, with no time off in between platoons.
• Back in those days intimidation was the greatest tool the drill instructor had. Without that tool, he would not have had control.
• Back in the old Corp, we weren't training those privates to infiltrate into the peacetime Marine Corp. We were training those privates to go to Vietnam.
• I disagree with a lot of those changes, however at the end of the day - I go down to recruit graduation at least once or twice a year.