It's not possible to put into words the sense of loss and grief that comes to a family that loses one of their children.

We dont see that the Taliban ultimately can succeed, and its a combination both of what the international community can do to support Afghanistan, not just in the short term, but over the long term.

We dont want the Taliban to put down roots, or the al Qaeda to put down roots in Afghanistan that can facilitate Afghanistan becoming - once again - a launching pad for international terrorism.

Afghanistan is going to be here a long time, and what's critical is that Afghanistan's relationship with its neighbors are, to the maximum extent they can be, constructive and operationally useful.

The Russians haven't helped us at all in the fight against ISIS. When you total up the numbers of sorties that have been going into Syria, aircraft attacks, if you will, going into Syria, when the Russians said they were going to assist, we got a very small number of Russian sorties.

You know, great powers don't get angry, great powers don't make decisions hastily in a crisis.

I can't spend a lot of time worrying about the numbers at home. I've got to focus on the mission.