A soldier in Iraq said that he wanted to "punch Donald Rumsfeld in the gut, then in the face" or something like that. He wanted me to use his name, but I knew he'd get in trouble, so I didn't. However, I felt it was a great quote because it summed up the frustration of those guys at that moment.

Despite failing to get bin Laden, the U.S. government and media portrayed the early Afghanistan war as a great victory.

The general's staff is a handpicked collection of killers, spies, geniuses, patriots, political operators and outright maniacs. There's a former head of British Special Forces, two Navy Seals, an Afghan Special Forces commando, a lawyer, two fighter pilots and at least two dozen combat veterans and counterinsurgency experts. They jokingly refer to themselves as Team America, taking the name from the South Park-esque sendup of military cluelessness, and they pride themselves on their can-do attitude and their disdain for authority.

After a decade of war you have this Pentagon-military apparatus run amok using resources that they shouldn't be to try to manipulate U.S. public opinion.

The humanitarian argument is so selective I find it difficult to swallow. It's not even so much about the choice as to where we should get involved and where we shouldn't.

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.

Afghanistan would have been difficult enough without Iraq. Iraq made it impossible. The argument that had we just focused on Afghanistan we'd now be okay is persuasive, but it omits the fact that we weren't supposed to get involved in nation-building in Afghanistan.