The war came to me in my dreams and showed me its sole purpose: to go on, only to go on.

There is a sharp distinction between what is remembered, what is told and what is true.

It's not just: you get off the plane, you're back home, everything's fine. Maybe the physical danger ends, but soldiers are still deeply at risk of being injured in a different way.

But I remember being told that the truth does not depend on being believed.

To understand the world, one’s place in it, is to be always at the risk of drowning.

One of the things my service in Iraq did give me was this freedom from fear of failure or any kind of expectations that I had to take a standard path.

I think a lot of the guys I know and a lot of people I've talked to, what they want is very often what most people want, a kind of simple life, a livelihood, a family, people who care about them, people they can care about. I think vets on the whole want the same things that everybody else does.