I don't know if I'm the best of the best. But I did know that if I quit, I wouldn't be.

One was to be a cowboy and another was to be in the military. I grew up extremely patriotic and riding horses.

I did want to be the top sniper.

If you hate the war, that’s fine. But you should still support the troops. They don’t get to pick where they’re deployed. They just gave the American people a blank check for anything up to and including the value of their lives, and the least everyone else can do is be thankful. Buy them dinner. Mow their yard. Bake them cookies.

In the end, my story, in Iraq and afterward, is about more than just killing people or even fighting for my country. It's about being a man. And it's about love as well as hate.

I’ve lived the literal meaning of the ‘land of the free’ and ‘home of the brave.’ It’s not corny for me. I feel it in my heart. I feel it in my chest. Even at a ball game, when someone talks during the anthem or doesn’t take off his hat, it pisses me off. I’m not one to be quiet about it, either.

Decades of Saddam’s rule made what could have been a fairly rich country, due to its oil reserves, into a very poor one.