One of the big changes in the Congress since I first came to Washington is that all of these folks go home every weekend. They used to play golf together; their families got to know each other, go to dinner at each other's homes at weekends - and these would be people who were political adversaries.

If there's ever an example that military power alone cannot be successful in Afghanistan, I think it was the Soviet experience.

And so the greatest of American triumphs... became a peculiarly joyless victory. We had won the Cold War, but there would be no parades.

In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it.

I think in the context of senior government positions, I think an anecdote of what I told President-Elect Barack Obama when we had our first meeting. And I said, "You don't know me. Can you trust me? Why do you think you can trust me?" and so on. But at the end, I said, "You can count on me to be loyal to you. I will not leak. I will keep my disagreements with you private. And if I cannot be loyal, I'll leave." Loyalty means doing what you think is in the best interest of that person as well as the country.

We should never lose sight of the ethos that has made the Marine Corps - where 'every Marine is a rifleman' - one of America's cherished institutions and one of the world's most feared and respected fighting forces

Congress is best viewed from a distance - the farther the better - because up close, it is truly ugly.