What is your favorite inspirational military speech from a movie or tv show?

My favorite wasn't a line, it was an action: in "Pearl Harbor", when FDR demands a retaliatory strike, a military advisor says it can't be done, so FDR gets out of his wheelchair, stands up on his own and says, "Do not tell me it can't be done."

A close second is Bill Pullman's speech from "Independence Day". It still gives me goosebumps.

I have to go with Patton's first because he said it and it was his speech word for word. He didn't sugar coat it. He laid it out and lead his troops as best the politicians would let him do it.

Second would our Pal Gunny Ermy in Full Medal Jackit! He preached it just like my DI did in 74. Well except he put it in Army terms. My Drill Sergeant Andies was a soldier to the end. We were his last cycle before he retired and even though he could have skated a little if he wanted to he didn't. From day one until I packed and left for AIT he soldiered.

When Forrest Gump gets on stage in DC.

I'll bet the best part of you dripped down the crack of your mothers ass and ended up a brown stain on the mattresss....Full Metal Jacket

There are many good ones. The first that comes to mind is Joshua Chamberlain (Jeff Daniels, Gettysburg) speaking to the men from Maine who were arrested for mutiny.

Not quite a military speech, but a great one nonetheless:


Al Pacino's "Inch By Inch" speech from Any Given Sunday

I don't know what to say really.
Three minutes
to the biggest battle of our professional lives
all comes down to today.
Either
we heal
as a team
or we are going to crumble.
Inch by inch
play by play
till we're finished.
We are in hell right now, gentlemen
believe me
and
we can stay here
and get the shit kicked out of us
or
we can fight our way
back into the light.
We can climb out of hell.
One inch, at a time.

Now I can't do it for you.
I'm too old.
I look around and I see these young faces
and I think
I mean
I made every wrong choice a middle age man could make.
I uh....
I pissed away all my money
believe it or not.
I chased off
anyone who has ever loved me.
And lately,
I can't even stand the face I see in the mirror.

You know when you get old in life
things get taken from you.
That's, that's part of life.
But,
you only learn that when you start losing stuff.
You find out that life is just a game of inches.
So is football.
Because in either game
life or football
the margin for error is so small.
I mean
one half step too late or to early
you don't quite make it.
One half second too slow or too fast
and you don't quite catch it.
The inches we need are everywhere around us.
They are in ever break of the game
every minute, every second.

On this team, we fight for that inch
On this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us
to pieces for that inch.
We CLAW with our finger nails for that inch.
Cause we know
when we add up all those inches
that's going to make the fucking difference
between WINNING and LOSING
between LIVING and DYING.

I'll tell you this
in any fight
it is the guy who is willing to die
who is going to win that inch.
And I know
if I am going to have any life anymore
it is because, I am still willing to fight, and die for that inch
because that is what LIVING is.
The six inches in front of your face.

Now I can't make you do it.
You gotta look at the guy next to you.
Look into his eyes.
Now I think you are going to see a guy who will go that inch with you.
You are going to see a guy
who will sacrifice himself for this team
because he knows when it comes down to it,
you are gonna do the same thing for him.

That's a team, gentlemen
and either we heal now, as a team,
or we will die as individuals.
That's football guys.
That's all it is.
Now, whattaya gonna do?


http://youtu.be/_b7bgtu2O4E

LTC Hal Moore speech in We Were Soldiers.

The last line: "I can't promise you that I will bring you all home alive. But this I swear, before you and before Almighty God, that when we go into battle, I will be the first to set foot on the field, and I will be the last to step off, and I will leave no one behind. Dead or alive, we will all come home together. So help me, God."

Also Joe Galloway at the end of the movie.

"Some had families waiting. For others, their only family would be the men they bled beside. There were no bands, no flags, no Honor Guards to welcome them home. They went to war because their country ordered them to. But in the end, they fought not for their country or their flag, they fought for each other."

"We who have seen war, will never stop seeing it. In the silence of the night, we will always hear the screams. So this is our story, for we were soldiers once, and young."

Lunch with COL Jessup

http://youtu.be/YacNxNWDZPk

IT WASNT REALLY A SPEECH BUT IT SHOULD HAVE WON CHARLES WHITMORE AN OSCAR FOR HIS 1958 PORTRAYAL OF AN 101ST AIRBORNE SOLDIER OF BASTOGNE WHO MARCHES HIS DECIMATED PLATOON PAST A FRESHLY GREEN UNIT AS HE LIMPS ALONG CALLING CADENCE(BATTLEGROUND)HE CHARLES WHITMORE WAS A WORLD WAR 2 MARINE SEMPER FI MY BROTHER...
PATTONS SPEECH WOULD BE NUMBER 2
MEL GIBSON IN WE WERE SOLDIERS WHEN HE SAID HE WILL BE THE FIRST ON THE BATTLE FIELD AND THE LAST MAN OFF HOOAH...

"St Crispin's Day" (AKA "Band of Brothers") speech from Henry the V. The Kenneth Branagh version of course!