Ray Elwood Quotes in Buffalo Soldiers (2001)

Colonel Berman: What is this? What have we here?

Ray Elwood: Just some requisitions, sir.

Colonel Berman: One thousand gallons of Mop & Glow... my God, do we really need that much?

Ray Elwood: Well, cleanliness is next to godliness.

Ray Elwood: [voiceover] "When there is peace, the warlike man attacks himself." That's Nietzsche, and his point is that there really is no peace. There's always some war, somewhere, with someone. And there are no winners or losers either. Just those who are still around to fight another day.

Ray Elwood: Falling. My worst fear is falling, falling like a bomb. You see, life for me is about distractions. I try to keep looking up and forget about what's down. But when I dream... I fall.

Ray Elwood: These were my guys. Fighting the dull fight. Soldiers with nothing to kill except time. They know that war is hell, but peace... peace is fucking boring.

Ray Elwood: There's basically two types of guys in the army - the motherfuckers and the motherfucked. Sergeant Saad is the third kind, he fucks the motherfuckers. Which is doable when you're the chief MP by day and the director of retail heroin sales by night.

[During an indoor game of American football, Parsons McCovey gets tackled and hits his head hard on the corner of a table. As the others argue about the game, Elwood examines Parsons, who hasn't gotten up]

Ray Elwood: Uh, guys... guys...

[louder]

Ray Elwood: Guys!

Kirschfield: [irritated] What?

Ray Elwood: Uh, just letting you know, Parsons is dead.

Colonel Berman: [reading a coroner's report] Heroin, cocaine, marijuana, lysergic acid, deithyl... whatever the hell that is, amphetamines, traces of barbiturates, estrogen. Estrogen? McCovey was on the pill? How could this be possible?

Ray Elwood: Well, he might have taken it by mistake, sir.

Colonel Berman: What?

Ray Elwood: The birth control pill. He might've thought it was something ele.

Colonel Berman: Well, fine, but he didn't take heroin, speed and cocaine by mistake, did he?

Ray Elwood: It seems unlikely, sir.

Ray Elwood: Sir, you've got to relax...

Colonel Berman: Don't you tell me to relax, goddammit! You're an E4, I'm a goddamm full bird Colonel! You don't talk to me like that. You understand me, soldier?

Ray Elwood: Yes, sir.

Colonel Berman: Oh, Jesus, Elwood, I'm... I didn't mean to take it out on you. Elwood, I'm sorry.

Ray Elwood: That's OK, sir, I understand the kind of pressure you're under.

Ray Elwood: So how come they assigned you here?

Knoll: I put in for it. My fiancée is here on base, so we arranged for a transfer together.

Ray Elwood: Oh, how sweet. Who's she?

Knoll: Margolis, Carol-Anne. Private First Class.

Ray Elwood: You call her by her last name? What do you do, salute in bed?

Ray Elwood: [being given a big M-60 machine gun] The 60's a heavy mother.

Sgt. Lee: So am I.

Robyn Lee: You have a serious problem. My dad's a pretty heavy guy. He'll really fuck you up.

Ray Elwood: When you say 'fuck me up', what do you mean?

Robyn Lee: I mean fuck you right up. He's done three tours in Vietnam, he's killed a lot of people.

Ray Elwood: Whoa, you're saying he's going to kill me?

Robyn Lee: I don't know, but he's not a guy to mess with.

Ray Elwood: Why are you telling me all this?

Robyn Lee: I guess I don't want him to fuck you up.

Ray Elwood: You realize that's probably the nicest thing anyone's said to me in my whole life?

Ray Elwood: Say, do you ever have falling dreams?

Robyn Lee: Sure, I think so.

Ray Elwood: I have the same dream all the time where its really high and I'm kind of floating and then I fall. Is that the same as yours?

Robyn Lee: Kind of.

Ray Elwood: Well, why? What happens in yours?

Robyn Lee: I wake up before I hit the ground.

Ray Elwood: I always hit. I don't wake up.

Robyn Lee: That's not normal.

Ray Elwood: Let's just say cooking smack is like preparing Thanksgiving dinner where one of the ingredients is a hand grenade.

Sgt. Saad: This shit explodes?

Ray Elwood: Kaboom.

Ray Elwood: [on the high dive] Jesus Christ, this is not fun!

Robyn Lee: What's the matter? You scared?

Ray Elwood: Of course I'm not scared.

Robyn Lee: I won't push you.

Ray Elwood: Yeah, I'd appreciate that.

Robyn Lee: [on the high dive] What would it take to make you jump?

Ray Elwood: A parachute.

Ray Elwood: Three things I love about Germany: my Mercedes-Benz, no speed limit on the autobahn and a black market for anything I can get my hands on.

Robyn Lee: You're seriously out with me just to piss off my dad?

Ray Elwood: Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

Robyn Lee: Are you crazy? He's the First Sergeant of your company, he's not somebody you want to piss off. You realise he's gonna cut your balls off.

Ray Elwood: Yeah, probably.

Robyn Lee: So, what if stay? There's a chance you're going to lose your balls, do you think I'm worth it?

Ray Elwood: Yeah, sure, why not?

The Turk: [looking at a form] Mm. A lot of guns. Where'd you get all this stuff?

Ray Elwood: Santa Claus.

[Sgt. Lee and couple of military policemen have been searching Elwood's barracks room, which is full of luxury items paid for by his illicit dealings]

Sgt. Lee: [all the while speaks calmly and quietly] This ain't exactly regulation stuff here, is it, soldier?

Ray Elwood: Well, I don't really know. No, I guess not.

Sgt. Lee: Look, I'm going to come round here tomorrow and I want this place looking like a regular quarters. You follow?

Ray Elwood: Look, I know it ain't exactly regulation but the last Top didn't seem to mind about all this.

Sgt. Lee: Well, him and me are a bit different.

Ray Elwood: Look, Top, is there a way you and I could talk in private? These guys kind of make me nervous.

[Lee sends the MP's out. Elwood shuts the door]

Ray Elwood: Does it really have to play this way, Top?

Sgt. Lee: How do you suggest we play it?

Ray Elwood: Well, what is it you want? I mean, you and me, I think we... I think we got a lot in common.

[for a moment they watch the TV, George Bush is giving a speech about barriers falling between the East and the West]

Ray Elwood: For example, I see you're an admirer of Japanese technology. No problem, the TV's yours. What I'm trying to say is, what's it going to take for you and me to make nice?

Sgt. Lee: Are you saying what I think you're saying?

[he gets up, steps over to the TV and smashes the screen in with his boot]

Sgt. Lee: There's your answer.

Robyn Lee: [in Elwood's top-of-the-line Mercedes-Benz SEC] How the hell can you afford this car?

Ray Elwood: Oh, I got a great deal. Mercs are a lot cheaper in Germany.

Ray Elwood: I'm a natural enemy of guys like your dad, mostly because I don't give a shit about the army.

Robyn Lee: If you don't give a shit, why'd you join?

Ray Elwood: I didn't exactly have much of a say in the matter. I got caught stealing a car and the judge gave me a choice - either 6 months in prison or 3 years in the army. So I made the mistake of choosing the army.

Stoney: [at the party] How's it going?

Ray Elwood: Oh, the usual. Berman and Marshall are trying to suck a General's dick.

[At the Civil War-themed officers' party, Elwood and Stoney are serving drinks, dressed as Confederate soldiers. Stoney is black so this is a bit incongruous]

Sgt. Lee: Jesus Christ, look how they got you dressed up. Ain't you sick of being fucked by a white man?

Stoney: [threateningly] You and me can step outside right now.

Sgt. Lee: Whoa. You think you can take me?

Ray Elwood: Uh-oh, customers.

Sgt. Lee: Yeah, maybe. Straight up, hand-to-hand, you got a shot. Maybe. But maybe I wear a blade. Maybe I got a .45 cocked and locked to shove up your ass. You ain't considered that, have you?

Ray Elwood: Berman's too nice of a guy for the army.

Ray Elwood: [sitting on the high diving board, looking down] Oh, fuck. That's really high. Maybe you get used to it after a while.

Robyn Lee: I think the point is not to get used it.

Mrs. Berman: What do you think, Elwood? Do you like the new chair?

Ray Elwood: Can you sit on it, ma'am?

Mrs. Berman: No, of course you can't sit on it, it's an antique.

Ray Elwood: Oh, well, it's very nice.

Ray Elwood: [voiceover] Parsons McCovey was a casualty of war. The only difference was that this was the Cold War and he was a fucked-up junkie. There'd be no hero's burial for Parsons.