I try to dream about peaceful things, beaches, that is what I cannot understand. Why are they chasing me?

The nurses at the hospital tried to soothe me, and they even tried unsuccessfully at one point to return me to Americans.

I grew up in Palestine, West Virginia, which is mostly a farming community; there aren't a lot of jobs.

I'm not about to take credit for something I didn't do. I did not shoot - not a round, nothing. I went down praying to my knees - that's the last thing I remember.

I remember the first time I put on the Army uniform. I just felt like a totally different person - I felt proud.

The truth is always more heroic than the hype.

I know that I'm already in the history books and that people are going to remember me as the prisoner of war and the fabricated stories, but you know, to me I was just another soldier over there doing my job.