You've been told that you're broken, that you're damaged goods and should be labeled victims. I don't buy it. The truth, instead, is that you are the only folks with the skills, determination, and values to ensure American dominance in this chaotic world.

Once ISIS is defeated, there is a larger effort under way to make certain that we don't just sprout a new enemy. We know ISIS is going to go down. We have had success on the battlefield. We have freed millions of people from being under their control.

Since 9/11 we've been engaged in wars around the world, and General [James] Mattis has been a leading battlefield commander in many of those theaters, including in the April 2004 siege of Fallujah, where the US Marines killed so many people that the municipal soccer stadium in the city had to be turned into a graveyard for the dead.

I would consider the principal threats to start with Russia, and it would certainly include any nations that are looking to intimidate nations around their periphery, regional nations nearby them, whether it be with weapons of mass destruction or, I would call it, unusual, unorthodox means of intimidating them, that sort of thing.

An untrained or uneducated Marine ... deployed to the combat zone is a bigger threat to mission accomplishment ... than the enemy.

I think the core problem is much closer to recognizing where force is of value, where it is useful, and to distinguish that from situations in which war is not useful or is indeed counterproductive.

Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot.