Afghanistan changed him, but Iraq sculpted him.

— Melissa Seligman

Ahead in the distance we could see the main gate, but there was a sea of cars, none moving, people standing, milling around, waiting nervously, perhaps fearfully, as heavily armed MPs and military working dogs searched every square inch of every vehicle, searched every bag on every person, all the while keeping a vigilant eye on the long alley we were stuck in, and on the hundreds of rooftops that overlooked that alley, wary but aware that there were people out there who would gladly hurt us again if given the chance.

— Tucker Elliot

All my life my dad felt this need to protect his kids from a war he fought, a war I believed could never reach out and touch us, could never hurt us—and yet he fed us lies with his answers, shielding us from the truth about what he did there, about what he saw, about who he was before the war, and about what he became because of it. He lied to protect us from his memories, from his nightmares. Standing with my dad at The Wall, I knew the truth—no one could know so many names engraved in granite if he 'never was in danger.

— Tucker Elliot

Allowing Islamic Sharia law into the constitutions of the U.S-created Islamic (!) Republic of Afghanistan and Republic of Iraq in 2004 and 2005 was as foolhardy as it would have been to write emperor-worship and Shinto militarism into Japan's 1946 constitution.

— Robert Spencer

Almost everything about Afghanistan was troubling Mullen. As Obama was giving intense focus on the war, Mullen was feeling more personal responsibility. Afghanistan had been marked by 'incredible neglect,' he told some of his officers. 'It's almost like you're on a hunger strike, and you're on the 50th day, and all of a sudden you're going to try to feed this person. Well, they're not going to eat very quickly. I mean, every organ in the body is collapsing. The under-resourcing of Afghanistan was much deeper and wider than even I thought. It wasn't just about troops. It was intellectually, it was strategically, it was physically, culturally.

— Bob Woodward

Always Sami. I was tethered to her somehow. To that scared little girl I’d found on the staircase nearly a year earlier; to the past, when teaching was simpler, and I could care about everyday problems, when being relentless meant running two extra laps, not waiting for an MP to search the undercarriage of a bus for bombs before letting students approach it.

— Tucker Elliot

An infantryman’s job is to deliver his enemies into the waiting hands of Death. It is Doc’s job to protect his brothers from Death, to knock him aside and say, “Not today.

— Adam Fenner

An intelligent enemy,' he would say, stroking his beard as if it were a bristly pet, 'rather than a foolish friend.' Or, 'He learned the language of pigeons, and forgot his own.' Or, the favorite of Jan Fishman Khan: 'Nothing is what it seems.

— Tahir Shah

Appearances can be misleading. You just never know what’s inside someone until he’s tested.

— Daniel Rodriguez

A son for a flag is a lot of sacrifice.

— Tucker Elliot