Daniel Daly - "Do You Want To Live Forever?" Quote

"Do You Want To Live Forever?" Quote

Daly is popularly attributed in Marine Corps lore as yelling, "Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?" during the Battle of Belleau Wood. Daly later told a Marine Corps historian that his words were "For Christ's sake men—come on! Do you want to live forever?" The Chicago Tribune correspondent Floyd Gibbons, who was at Belleau Wood, reported hearing the words in his 1918 memoir And They Thought We Wouldn't Fight, which he attributed to an unnamed gunnery sergeant (Daly was a first sergeant at the time). Gibbons was attached to elements of Major Benjamin S. Berry's battalion (3rd Battalion 5th Marines) during the battle, but Daly was the first sergeant of the 73rd Machine Gun Company, a part of 3rd Battalion 6th Marines under the command of Major Berton W. Sibley. Sibley's battalion attacked south of Berry's and were on the outskirts of Lucy-le-Bocage when Daly made the cry. Additionally, 6th Marines commander Colonel Albertus W. Catlin implied in his memoir that the yell came from an unnamed sergeant in Berry's battalion.

An earlier use of a similar phrase is attributed to Frederick the Great: "Men, would you live forever?" (German: Kerle, wollt ihr ewig leben?), addressing retreating Prussian troops at the 1747 Battle of Kolín