Character
Because of his incredibly powerful voice, which matched his 5'11" 200-pound frame, Diamond was once dubbed "The Honker." Many of his comrades at Guadalcanal considered him "a human air-raid warning system."
Even while on active duty, Diamond lived informally, often going hatless and wearing dungarees in open defiance of military dress regulations. (He even accepted one of his decorations in dungarees.) Self-confidence, even cockiness, was one of his outstanding characteristics. He considered anybody with less than ten years in the Corps a "boot". While he bawled out recruits who sometimes instinctively saluted him, he frequently failed, himself, to salute less than a field grade officer.
Diamond rejected opportunities to apply for a commission — that is, become an officer — saying "nobody can make a gentleman out of me."
Read more about this topic: Lou Diamond
Famous quotes containing the word character:
“Divine persons are character born, or, to borrow a phrase from Napoleon, they are victory organized.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“For character too is a process and an unfolding ... among our valued friends is there not someone or other who is a little too self confident and disdainful; whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with commonness; who is a little pinched here and protruberent there with native prejudices; or whose better energies are liable to lapse down the wrong channel under the influence of transient solicitations?”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.”
—Katharine Hepburn (b. 1909)