I'm a good liberal, and I grew up in a very liberal family and had very strongly held beliefs.

The attacks of 9/11 came out of Afghanistan. It was a failed state, a rogue nation. That's why al Qaeda was there in the first place.

In some ways, risk-taking is the ultimate act of self-indulgence , an obscene insult to the preciousness of life. And yet, how can one dismiss something that persists despite every reasonable theory that it shouldn't?

Bad news is dramatic. It makes good TV. If there's a firefight on the same day that a school opens up, the media will show the firefight even though the school is way more important and will affect the community for much longer.

The only thing that makes battle psychologically tolerable is the brotherhood among soldiers. You need each other to get by.

I don't think people would climb mountains or jump off bridges with parachutes or kayak Class V rapids if those things didn't offer the brief and horrible illusion of imminent death. They would just be complicated, time-consuming endeavors that we'd steer well clear of because they got in the way of real life.

I hope I get married one day.