I like the ethos of the military and the idea of joining an institution in which, at the very least, everyone who signs up believes in something.

We're so used to using military terminology in civilian speech that we forget those terms might mean something very specific.

There's a tendency to look at anybody who joined the military as if they underwrote everything that happened policy-wise. That's not really the case. I have a friend who both protested the Iraq War and joined the military, and ended up serving two deployments in Afghanistan.

Responsibility and accountability is a big part of being in the military.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are as much every U.S. citizen's wars as they are the veterans' wars. If we don't assume that civilians have just as much ownership and the moral responsibilities that we have as a nation when we embark on something like that, then we're in a very bad situation.

One thing I've always liked about the military is there's a certain amount of pragmatism.