Rorke Denver · 304 pages
Rating: (2.2K votes)
“Read. You can always talk with another reader.”
― Rorke Denver, quote from Damn Few: Making the Modern SEAL Warrior
“What we teach is pure SEAL. The lessons are simple, clear, and well-defined: They come right out of our basic values. Winning pays. Losing has consequences. Nothing substitutes for preparation. Life isn’t fair and neither is the battlefield. Even the smallest detail matters. We are a brotherhood. Our success depends on our team performance. And we will not fail.”
― Rorke Denver, quote from Damn Few: Making the Modern SEAL Warrior
“We gotta haul ass so that clown doesn’t catch us,” Trey said. “What?” “That clown on the bicycle. He’s gaining on us. I don’t want that sucker to catch us.” Four days into Hell Week, and Trey truly believed that a clown on a bicycle on the Bay of San Diego was going to catch us in our IBS. He couldn’t let that happen.”
― Rorke Denver, quote from Damn Few: Making the Modern SEAL Warrior
“I like working the day shift,” I told Ro and Rolex as they put their sniper rifles down and we climbed off the roof. “Any shift,” Ro said. It didn’t take long for word to spread across Anbar. A new group of predators were in town now, and they were working around the clock.”
― Rorke Denver, quote from Damn Few: Making the Modern SEAL Warrior
“In summer months, the concrete gets so blisteringly hot, instructors have to hose it down so the recruits won’t singe their hands doing push-ups. The Grinder is where SEAL graduations are held and where, like a constant taunt, the SEAL exit bell hangs. A famous sign is also there: THE ONLY EASY DAY WAS YESTERDAY.”
― Rorke Denver, quote from Damn Few: Making the Modern SEAL Warrior
“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time. —LEO TOLSTOY”
― Rorke Denver, quote from Damn Few: Making the Modern SEAL Warrior
“You’re going to see him quit and some of you are going to say, ‘If he can’t make it, I can’t make it.’ Don’t praise false idols. I promise you—one has nothing to do with the other.”
― Rorke Denver, quote from Damn Few: Making the Modern SEAL Warrior
“Whatever might happen, I always knew my brother had my back.”
― Rorke Denver, quote from Damn Few: Making the Modern SEAL Warrior
“It was like learning life lessons from your big brother or your crazy uncle. How to handle yourself in a bar fight: “Hit first. Hit hard. And be ready to move.” How to behave around women: “Date strippers. Don’t marry strippers.” Some of the advice was sage.”
― Rorke Denver, quote from Damn Few: Making the Modern SEAL Warrior
Rorke Denver
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“I swear to God, it never ends!” Ethan roared.
“Not when you’re immortal,” Malik agreed. “That’s actually the point.”
― Chloe Neill, quote from Biting Bad
“Lamenting the vagaries of fate may leave us with a galling sense of helpless frustration, which many escape by transforming the tragedy of the human condition into the specific sins of specific societies. This turns an insoluble problem of cosmic justice into an apparently manageable issue of social justice. Since the sins of human beings are virtually inexhaustible, there is seldom a lack of examples of wrongdoing to which intergroup differences can be attributed, rightly or wrongly. Where the quest for injustice is over-riding, among the things it over-rides are logic and evidence.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Black Rednecks and White Liberals
“We healed each other,” Lexi said, without removing her attention from her husband. “We were both lost and knocked down, but we held on tight, and raised each other from the ashes. He brought me my rainbow, Elsie,” she huffed a loving laugh and said, “he brought me the stars.”
I didn’t know what that reference meant, but I could feel the magnitude of what he meant to her. Lexi slipped out of the car and I did too. I walked to the back gate, staying out of sight. I glanced back, seeing Austin, with his gang tattoos and intimidating stature, taking Lexi in his arms and pressing a soft kiss on her mouth.”
― Tillie Cole, quote from Sweet Soul
“On trial were two men, one in a plaid shirt, and the other with a long, ZZ Top-style beard. They looked intimated by the crowd that had turned out, even though Plaid Shirt stood six foot four. He was the main perpetrator, charged with animal cruelty. He had brought his young son along during the bear killing for which he was on trial.
The main reason the state managed to bring charges is that the hunters had made a videotape of their gruesome acts. The state trooper who confiscated the video couldn’t even testify at the time of the trial, he was so emotionally overcome.
Then they showed the video in court, and I understood why. ZZ Top and Plaid Shirt cornered the bear cub. In order to preserve the integrity of the pelt, they attempted to kill the cub by stabbing it in the eyes.
It was absolutely gut-wrenching to watch. The bear struggled for its life, but Plaid Shirt kept thrusting his knife, moving back as the animal twisted frantically away, then moving forward to stab again. The bear cub screamed, and it sounded eerily as though the bear was actually crying “Mama,” over and over. Plaid Shirt and ZZ Top sat unfazed in court. The bear screamed, “Mama, mama, mama.” From my place in the gallery, I watched as a towering man in a police uniform burst into tears and walked out of the courtroom. At the end of the video, Plaid Shirt brought his nine-year-old son over to stand triumphantly next to the dead bear cub.
“Clearly, you deserve jail,” the judge told Plaid Shirt as he stood for sentencing. “Unfortunately, the jails are filled with people even more heinous than you: rapists, murderers, and armed robbers. So I am going to sentence you to three thousand hours of community service.”
I approached the judge after the trial, furious that this man might end up collecting a bit of rubbish along the highway as his penance.
“I want him,” I said, referring to Plaid Shirt. I said that I ran a wildlife rehabilitation facility and could use a volunteer.
The first day Plaid Shirt showed up, he actually looked scared of me. He cleaned cages, fed animals, and worked hard. He liked the bobcat I was taking care of, “Bobby.” He said it was the biggest one he had ever seen. It would make a prize trophy.
I asked him every question I could think of: where he hunted, how he hunted, why he hunted. Whether he had any kind of shirt other than plaid. I felt as though I was in the presence of true evil.
For months he helped. He had some skills, like carpentry, and he could lift heavy things. He fulfilled his community service. In the end, I couldn’t tell if I had made any difference or not. I was only slightly encouraged by his parting words.
“You know,” Plaid Shirt said, “I never knew cougars purred.”
― Terri Irwin, quote from Steve & Me
“Gotta have my make up, in case I run into Joey and he wants to beat the shit out of me. Gotta look my best! Maybe he'll punch me repeatedly in the kidneys and the stomach so it doesn't mark up my face. He's so thoughtful!”
― George Carlin, quote from When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?
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