General Patton Quote on Eve of D-Day Normandy Invasion

"There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you WON’T have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, ‘Well, your Granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana.'” ~ General George S. Patton, Jr. to his troops on June 5, 1944, the day before the D-Day invasion.

General George Patton was never one to mince words. He peppered his comments to his troops with profane words and brutal images designed to appeal the to the warrior in his men. This is from an address that Patton gave to his men on the eve of the Normandy Invasion. Patton's role was to make himself as public as possible, as he and his command were not going in on D-Day (which galled him to no end), but the plan was to fool the Germans into believing that Patton's 7th Army was the force they had to watch.