Who said this?

It seems everybody says this, with slight variations on the words. It's classified as an "old adage" - which means it's probably not attributable to anyone.

Good luck with it anyway.

I can find a reference to Micheal Herr writing in Dispatches during the Vietnam War, but he might have just been repeating what seems to be a saying for soldiers. So you may never be able to attribute it to anyone. It just seems to be one of those sayings that people just repeat, with slight variations.

http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/War/fragging.htm

If it helps in your search this quote was made popular during the Vietnam War, Artwohl &. Christensen, 1997, p. 25. Perhaps if you look through books in that time period someone will say who first said it.

brutus said:

Can anyone tell me who said: "War is long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror." Or something like that...

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I thought that was the description of baseball.

Shadow_Ferret said:

I thought that was the description of baseball.

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So very, very true. (I'm married to a baseball fanatic.)

Shadow_Ferret said:

I thought that was the description of baseball.

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lmfao


rofl


ahahahahahahahaha

Shadow_Ferret said:

I thought that was the description of baseball.

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Cricket is much like baseball, without the moments of terror.

caw

This is the only thing I can find on it.

"This is a broadcast we had planned to bring to you a few weeks ago but an awful lot of breaking news intervened. I'm going to butcher this quote, but it goes something like this: war is long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. That pretty well sums it up. There are hours, sometimes days, where nothing happens. Living conditions usually aren't great, whether the soldiers are out in the field or in a town or city. And then, when something does happen, the adrenaline pumps, and things get pretty serious. Tonight and, news permitting, tomorrow night too, you're going to see what really are snapshots of a tour of duty in Iraq. There is news from Iraq every day of course, but these shows take you a level deeper.

A soldier from a military intelligence unit shot more than 200 hours of tape during the 13 months he was in Iraq. He starts taping when his National Guard unit gets the word and begins their training to go over, one of the first lessons being fairly graphic first aid instruction. He shot his unit's living conditions, their reactions when firing broke out, and being in intelligence, he filmed their work, interrogating Iraqi prisoners. His unit's job was to question suspects and decide if they should be released, or sent onto Abu Ghraib or other prisons. Now, there is nothing like the abuses seen in those infamous photos, but he did shoot interrogations that range from the calmest of conversations to more heated confrontations.

Tonight and tomorrow, he will be Ted's guest on Nightline. We'll show short clips of what he shot. It's tough to pull just a few minutes out of all of those hours of tape, but we tried to find elements that are representative of the whole. And he and Ted will talk about his tapes, and his experiences. We hope that these broadcasts will give you all yet another glimpse into what is going on over in Iraq. If you're not over there, it's just about impossible to share that experience, but I hope you'll join us these next two nights to share small glimpses of his tour of duty.

Leroy Sievers and the Nightline Staff
Nightline Offices
ABC News Washington Bureau


Added: Dated 09-22-2004

I know I read it in Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory, but I'm pretty sure he was quoting someone else.

Here's a roughly similar quotation in a 1922 collection of World War I journalism.

He might not have said it first, and it wasn't about war, but...

From:

Simpson’s Contemporary Quotations, compiled by James B. Simpson. 1988.

NUMBER: 1892
AUTHOR: John Casey, NYC police officer
QUOTATION: It’s 90 percent boredom and 10 percent sheer terror.
ATTRIBUTION: On Emergency Service Unit, quoted in NY Times 11 Feb 85
SUBJECTS: The World: Law: Criminology

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Found this:

"Flying is hours and hours of boredom sprinkled with a few seconds of sheer terror."

- Maj. Gregory ''Pappy'' Boyington (commander of a Corsair squadron in South Pacific, WWII)

I've also heard that one before.
Didn't Picard say that about the Borg?
Um, just kidding.

(skulks away to hide in the nerd closet, once again...)

Shadow_Ferret said:

I thought that was the description of baseball.

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I thought the baseball one was:

Long hours of boredom, and then you get a beer.

So the earliest we've found right now is the article from 1922, I guess.

Still, that writer seems to be using it as a familiar tag, so it must have an older pedigree.

I said it. Me. Yesterday.
But I was talking about doing laundry.
btw, never ... NEVER

reach into the washer while the drum is still spinning.

moron