solemn word

People often talked about it as patrimoine, or “heritage,” a solemn word, conveying history but none of the wild immediacy of those Tuesday nights.

Mladic had a cameraman film his blitz on the encircled enclave of Srebrenica, to show him extolling his “lads” and haranguing Dutch U.N. peacekeepers who misguidedly accepted his solemn word that the inhabitants would be safe in his hands.

“I will not need until tomorrow, rat. You can have my answer now. How dare you come here with your robber band to read articles of death and slavery to me? I tell you that neither you nor your army will ever set paw or claw inside Redwall, not while I or any of my creatures have breath in our bodies to fight and resist you. That is my solemn word.”

“But what you can’t do, and what I think is wrong, is to abandon an agreement, to rewrite unilaterally parts of an agreement, which you only signed nine months ago, and to which we have given our solemn word,” he told Times Radio.

“I can tell you — giving my solemn word — that the Marine Corps will try to help anyone who comes forward.”