The military is sort of the ultimate test of proving that you're a man, and certainly that whole idea was very much uppermost in my mind when I joined the Army.

Perhaps the thing that most got to me was the ide - the whole thing about lying, and how pervasive lying about Vietnam was.

I had what I would consider a normal upbringing and, which to me, a normal American up - upbringing for an American male child almost gears you towards going into the military.

Because I was into like proving myself, which was one of the big things that ah, that the whole military experience sort of offers a kid at that age, um, I went to officer candidate school. Um, and I graduated as a second lieutenant at the age of nineteen.

There was a part, you know, obviously there was a part of the whole I military experience that you know like hooks right into the whole boyhood experience that that you know most American boys have growing up, you know, which is proving your manhood by proving how hard you are, by proving that you can take it.

You really had to learn to protect yourself from all Gooks in Vietnam, or else you would end up dead.

I was very religious when I was younger. I went to a seminary for three years, studied to be a priest, and um, so that sort of natural idealism just um sort of carried over into my feelings about joining the army.