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

There are problems in the world today.

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.

None of us wants any more war.

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.

Planning is really the hallmark of any large military formation, and it's typically a weakness in new formations and new armies.

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.