Col. Andy Tanner Quotes in Red Dawn (1984)

Col. Andy Tanner: [Describing the invasion] West Coast. East Coast. Down here is Mexico. First wave of the attack came in disguised as commercial charter flights same way they did in Afghanistan in '80. Only they were crack Airborne outfits. Now they took these passes in the Rockies.

Jed Eckert: So that's what hit Calumet.

Col. Andy Tanner: I guess so. They coordinated with selective nuke strikes and the missiles were a helluva lot more accurate than we thought. They took out the silos here in the Dakotas, key points of communication.

Darryl Bates: Like what?

Col. Andy Tanner: Oh, like Omaha, Washington, Kansas City.

Darryl Bates: Gone?

Col. Andy Tanner: Yeah. That's right. Infiltrators came up illegal from Mexico. Cubans mostly. They managed to infiltrate SAC bases in the Midwest, several down in Texas and wreaked a helluva lot of havoc, I'm here to tell you. They opened up the door down here, and the whole Cuban & Nicaraguan armies come walking right through, rolled right up here through the Great Plains.

Robert: How far did they get?

Col. Andy Tanner: Cheyenne, across to Kansas. We held them at the Rockies and the Mississippi. Anyway, the Russians reinforced with 60 divisions. Sent three whole army groups across the Bering Strait into Alaska, cut the pipeline, came across Canada to link up here in the middle, but we stopped their butt cold. The lines have pretty much stabilized now.

Robert: What about Europe?

Col. Andy Tanner: I guess they figured twice in one century was enough. They're sitting this one out. All except England, and they won't last very long.

Col. Andy Tanner: ...The Russians need to take us in one piece, and that's why they're here. That's why they won't use nukes anymore; and we won't either, not on our own soil. The whole damn thing's pretty conventional now. Who knows? Maybe next week will be swords.

Darryl Bates: What started it?

Col. Andy Tanner: I don't know. Two toughest kids on the block, I guess. Sooner or later, they're gonna fight.

Jed Eckert: That simple, is it?

Col. Andy Tanner: Or maybe somebody just forget what it was like.

Jed Eckert: ...Well, who *is* on our side?

Col. Andy Tanner: Six hundred million screaming Chinamen.

Darryl Bates: Last I heard, there were a billion screaming Chinamen.

Col. Andy Tanner: There *were*.

[he throws whiskey on the fire; it ignites violently, suggesting a nuclear explosion]

Jed Eckert: How did you get shot down, Colonel?

Col. Andy Tanner: It was five to one. I got four.

Col. Andy Tanner: [using a crude diorama, the Wolverines prepare for an assault on the Calumet Drive-In, which is now a Russo-Cuban "Re-education Camp"] All right. Four planes. Cuban bunker, Russian bunker. munitions dump, troop tents. Four machine gun bunkers. Back here by the drive-in screen are your political prisoners. We'll cause a diversion over here... cut holes in the wire here, fire on all these machine gun positions. The B-Group comes across this area in a flanking maneuver... and when you reach this bunker, you lay down grazing fire on this defilade. I think that's pretty simple. Anybody got any questions so far?

Aardvark: What's a "flank?"

Toni: What's a "defilade?"

Robert: What's "grazing fire?"

Col. Andy Tanner: [out loud, to himself] I need a drink.

Col. Andy Tanner: [his dying words, after being killed while dropping a smoke bomb into a Russian tank] Come on, buddies! Come and get 'em! Shoot straight for once, you Army pukes.

[gets blown up by an American tank]

Erica: You American?

Col. Andy Tanner: Red-blooded.

Erica: What's the capital of Texas?

Col. Andy Tanner: Austin.

Erica: Wrong, commie! It's Houston.

Jed Eckert: You got a family?

Col. Andy Tanner: I don't know.

Jed Eckert: [they are surveying a wintery landscape, as several tanks gather on both sides to shoot it out] You got across *that*?

Col. Andy Tanner: Just part of it. I hope our guys are still there.

Jed Eckert: So this is the battlefield?

Col. Andy Tanner: It's a real war, kid. It's here every day.