Look, I went into journalism to do journalism, not advertising.

A woman I loved [Andi Parhamovich] was killed in Baghdad in January 2007 – al-Qaeda in Iraq took credit for it … The memorial service with me crying over an empty coffin.

If you polled the military in Afghanistan as to how many think we should be there or not, the numbers would probably be similar to what the U.S. population believes. That's not because they're watching the news. But, hey, they are out there risking their lives. No one likes to be criticized and it really sucks to be criticized when you're risking your life.

Inside the White House there were always extreme amounts of doubt about whether they should be escalating in Afghanistan. In fact, most of the president's advisers said, "This is probably not going to work." A lot of people in the military said, "This is probably not going to work." If the thumbnail version of the Iraq war was that George W.Bush lied about mass destruction weapons, the thumbnail version of Barack Obama's war in Afghanistan is that the generals pushed him into a war he didn't want to fight.

I love living in Vermont and I love living in New York. Does my love for Vermont give us the right to rain bombs down on Tripoli? Of course not. There are exceptional qualities about the United States. But it doesn't give us the right to impose our will on other cultures when they often don't want it.

During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the military conducted only a handful of drone missions.

The guys on the ground are the guys I care about. I've had the most satisfaction telling their stories. But when you're in combat with somebody, yes, a bond does grow.