The long bitter years of the Cold War are over. America and her allies have won; totally, decisively, and overwhelmingly....So thank you SAC. Job well done. Enjoy your retirement.

Politics is different, because the mission is always to get the necessary votes. A good politician goes through everything in terms of mission and vision, and resourcing, but at the end of the day politicians have to make compromises in order to achieve consensus.

Our strategy in going after this army is very simple. First we are going to cut it off, and then we are going to kill it.

I would caution my Republican friends that [Obama has] three years to go, and in that three years the American people are going to want to see some progress and not just claims that this guy is out of office and we're going to do everything to destroy him or that somehow he is a 'socialist' taking over the country. Have we so lost our faith in this country that we think one person, one man can be can suddenly change our entire system? That's kind of absurd.

When you wrestle with a pig, he has fun, and you just end up dirty.

When I was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I would still have junior officers brief me. Usually these people knew more about the subject we were discussing than I did. I had to make sure that they felt confident enough to tell me everything they believed.

Have a vision. Be demanding.