A General Officer with balls.

Found a new quote today. (new to me)

Kinda.

There is disagreement amongst sources as to what was said, but the gist of it is fantastic.

This man was Norman Cota, Major General U.S. Army.  He was 51 when at Omaha beach at D-Day, he was the ranking officer ashore.  He observed his lane of advance was blocked by a machine gun nest, and he ordered a man to try to run past it, the man was shot badly without making any progress.

So he observed his men being slaughtered on the beach, and shouted out, "We're all being killed here, let's go inland and get killed."  Meaning let's at least die making progress against the enemy.

Then he did what I suspect some generals would not.  He picked up a grease gun and he charged the nest.  He made it.  Enough followed him that they got a grenade in the German position, and then all those behind them...

...moved on towards Berlin.