Walk through Santa Monica and try to find somebody who knows a young man or woman who's in this war. Here, war is an intellectual concept. If you lose your son or daughter, it's no longer an intellectual matter.

We never did just one take. Multiple takes. Many. I did a bunch. Sometimes I do one take. Sometimes I did 20.

I found two true stories. One was in 2003. One was the beginning of 2004. I decided to meld them. Richard Davis' story which is the largest portion of this, a lot of the events are exactly as you saw, exactly what happened and the locations. Exactly as it was said with the chicken house and the strip club. Richard's parents were on the set and they'll tell you that the story is different than their son's. I was very concerned because I called them to say, 'You understand I'm fictionalizing this story?

If you believe in someone enough, and you just don't stop believing in them, mo matter what, no matter how much they push you away, and no matter how often they prove they're only there to use you.

We think we know what's right. With excessive pride comes blindness.

What happens when these young men and women come home so scarred and so wounded? We are ignoring that fact. We're just shoving them under the carpet.

We are manipulated by fear and the fear of others, and how we're often manipulated into doing things and voting in ways that are against our own best interest. Look at healthcare. People will tell you that healthcare is socialism and communism, and they're doing this while their wife needs an operation and their kid needs braces.