:35:01
but I'd always been a little embarrassed
by my job at the hotel...
:35:04
and I wanted to do something redeeming.
:35:07
War is the only chance a man has
to do something redeeming.
:35:11
- That's why war is so attractive.
- War's very handsome, I agree.
:35:14
At any rate, I turned down
Adm. Jessup's offer...
:35:17
and I enlisted in the Marines as a private.
:35:19
I even applied for combat service.
:35:21
My wife, to all appearances
a perfectly sensible woman...
:35:24
encouraged me in this idiotic decision.
:35:27
Seven months later, I found myself
invading the Solomon Islands.
:35:31
There I was splashing away
in the shoals of Guadalcanal.
:35:35
It occurred to me a man could get killed
doing this kind of thing.
:35:39
Fact is, most of the men
splashing along with me...
:35:42
were screaming in agony
and dying like flies.
:35:44
Those were brave men dying there.
:35:47
Peacetime, they'd all been
normal, decent cowards...
:35:49
frightened of their wives,
trembling before their bosses...
:35:52
terrified of the passing of the years.
:35:54
But war had made them gallant.
:35:55
They had been greedy men.
Now they were self-sacrificing.
:35:58
They had been selfish.
Now they were generous.
:36:02
War isn't hell at all. Man at his best.
:36:05
The highest morality he's capable of.
:36:07
Never mind all that.
What's this about a wife?
:36:09
That night,
I sat in the jungles of Guadalcanal...
:36:13
waiting to be killed, sopping wet.
:36:15
It was then I had my blinding revelation.
:36:19
I discovered I was a coward.
:36:21
That's my new religion.
I'm a big believer in it.
:36:23
Cowardice will save the world.
It's not war that's insane, you see.
:36:27
It's the morality of it. It's not greed
and ambition that makes wars.
:36:31
It's goodness.
:36:32
Wars are always fought
for the best of reasons...
:36:34
for liberation or manifest destiny...
:36:36
always against tyranny
and always in the interest of humanity.
:36:40
So far this war
we've managed to butcher...
:36:42
some 10,000,000 humans
in the interest of humanity.
:36:44
Next war, it seems we'll have
to destroy all of man...
:36:47
in order to preserve his damn dignity.
:36:49
It's not war that's unnatural to us.
It's virtue.
:36:52
As long as valor remains a virtue
we shall have soldiers.
:36:55
So I preach cowardice.
:36:57
Through cowardice, we shall all be saved.
:36:59
That was exalting, Commander.
Absolutely occult.