Title: Marines Not Taught to Hate
Category: Speech
Author/Presenter: General David M. Shoup, USMC
Commandant of the Marine Corps

Date: January 1962
Event/Occurrence: Presented to the Committee on Armed Services

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?General Shoup. We teach these boys when they come in. We find that they do not have the same love of country, for example, that I had, that I think I had when I was a boy, that I was taught in my school by my teachers, by my history books. We teach them what there is in this country that is worth living for, worth fighting for, that is worth giving your life for.

I might state right here that inasmuch as there has been some controversy over this, Mr. Chairman, I would like to proceed to tell you again that we do not teach them hate?.

Hate I consider is an internal sin and hate is closely associated with fear. I think fear breeds defeatism and that is a disease that we cannot afford in this country if we are going to maintain our position in the family of freedom-loving people.

I also observed that hate is not what sustained the prisoners in Korea, but it was faith and confidence; faith in their Nation and confidence in the way of life in America.

That is why some of them did not break, because they had this faith and confidence. It was not because they hated the people that were questioning them.

I think this is the thing that we emphasize?ability to tangle with any enemy. I would like to go back a little bit in history.

It so happened that as early 1912, my brother said to me, ?We are going to have to fight the Japanese some day.? I came into the Marine Corps and many times in our schools, we were studying the Japanese, and this was long before 1940, because we thought, in our planning and thinking, some day we would have to fight them.

We were gathering information. Never once did I hear anyone say to learn to hate them and I think we did a pretty good job against the Japs?.