I'm a Catholic, raised a Catholic. I was an altar boy. Religion has been a huge part of my life. It helped lead me through a war, leads me today.

I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service.

Our military deserves leadership that matches their service and patriotism. Getting our troops the pay raise they deserve is the very least we can do to show how much we value everything they do for us.

How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?

I had a chance to talk with President [Vladimir] Putin and he clearly said to me very directly, "I will think about that. I will think about this challenge of how we win." Look, this is not easy for Putin. Everybody says, "Oh, Putin's made a big move." Well, Putin is [in Syria] now; and if he wants to fight ISIL alone, that's a challenge, folks.

My dad was a member of the Greatest Generation that achieved victory in World War II. This was the generation that saved the world from fascism, came home and built the great American middle class, led the way in the civil rights movement, protected our environment, and created great programs like Medicare.

The agreement is fundamentally that we want to try to resolve this. The agreement is that ISIL is a threat to everybody, and we need to come together to find a way to fight ISIL. The agreement is that we want to save Syria, keep it unified, keep it secular. So surely in those very fundamental principles on which we could agree.