Recruitment and retention are critical to sustain our Armed Forces with the best men and women willing to stand in the gap and make huge sacrifices to ensure our freedom.

With only 2 percent of the world's proven reserves of oil, we in the United States can pump until we are blue in the face and it will not change the fact that we need more diverse and more secure sources of energy.

Now, the United Nations is an organization that I believe was founded with good intentions. As a matter of fact, a prominent Tennessean named Cordell Hull was very involved with it.

I really believe deep in my soul that we're going to have to step up and face these challenges and be tough and pull together and unify and be creative and be willing to sacrifice.

One of the greatest men to ever walk this land was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His life exemplified unity by bringing people together for the good of all. In any small way I hope to someday bring people together like Dr. King.

We must pass a national energy policy to continue our successes in the War on Terrorism.

Those are serious questions of war and peace, of freedom or tyranny, whether or not there is ever going to be a hope of us instilling some democratic systems in a part of the world that frankly is breeding hate and destruction directed right at us.