For interns at 'The Weekly Standard' or 'National Review,' where the martial instinct finds its most insistent voice, what Robert Kagan calls the military 'career path' is not widely seen as a plausible future. Pulling a trigger is what Jose, Tyrone, and Bubba do, not early admission students at the better private universities.
I guess it's sad that anybody, regardless of profession, that they're in this country, would take a shot at our military.
If you look at the question of expenditure in Iraq, you have got to start from the one fundamental truth: that every request that the military commanders made to us for equipment was answered. No request was ever turned down.
When I grew up, I only had two dreams. One was to be a cowboy and another was to be in the military. I grew up extremely patriotic and riding horses.
Whether your mother is a novelist like mine or a third-generation military wife, the idea of a son or daughter being in mortal danger is terrifying.
I've said for a long time there is no military solution to the crisis in Syria. There has to be a diplomatic solution. ISIL cannot be part of it. Al-Qaeda cannot be part of it, and Assad cannot be part of it. We are dealing with issues that have been going on for centuries, and I'm not sure the administration fully appreciates that.
Haiti and the Dominican Republic don't just share an island, Hispaniola, but a history, one that includes all the signal events that went into creating the modern world: Columbus, conquest, genocide, slavery, imperial war, revolution, and U.S. counterinsurgencies and military occupations.
In the military I could exercise the power of being automatically respected because of the medals on my chest, not because I had done anything right at the moment to earn that respect. This is pretty nice. It's also a psychological trap that can stop one's growth and allow one to get away with just plain bad behavior.
Russia isn't likely to have any more military success in Syria and Iraq than has the United States.
From the moment he took office in January of 1961, Kennedy had been eager to settle the Cuban problem without overt military action by the United States.
I was 20 years old when, despite mass protests against military action, Iraq was invaded in 2003 - it didn't make for motivated political participation, I can tell you.
Even during the years of the Cold War, the intense confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, we always avoided any direct clash between our civilians and, most certainly, between our military.
I would be in support of giving the military commanders more latitude in their rules of engagement rather than be restricted to the point we're tying someone's hands behind their back.
The military executes policy decisions.
Military brats have this toughness: they're almost like orphans or foster children; they develop little mechanisms. It sets you up to look at things a little differently.
A war on Al-Qaeda could have been won with a decisive military strike in Tora Bora during December 2001, but American fighters at Tora Bora were refused requests for more forces when they trapped Al-Qaeda there; the Pentagon was busy husbanding resources for the Iraqi invasion.
What's brilliant about the United States system of government is separation of power. Not only the executive, legislative, judicial branches, but also the independence of the military from civilians, an independent media and press, an independent central bank.
By requiring all 30 million Americans age 18 to 25 to perform two years of national service, in the military or civilian life, we will be asking for a shared sacrifice from all American citizens.
Military operations cannot be tidy or free of friction - particularly in a coalition whose contributing nations see the campaign through national prisms.
I see the war problem as an economic problem, a business problem, a cultural problem, an educational problem - everything but a military problem. There's no military solution. There is a business solution - and the sooner we can provide jobs, not with our money, but the United States has to provide the framework.
I went to school on a military base in Germany. I got a lot of my clothes at the army surplus store.
The way to defeat international terrorism is through international cooperation based on international law, clear intelligence, and a measured and appropriate military response.
My father passed away when I was 12, so it was very difficult. But I was always the class clown. I don't know why - maybe as an escape. But then I was sent away to military prep school.
I think we need to ask serious questions about how we engage militarily, when we engage militarily, and on what basis we engage militarily. What kind of intelligence do we have to justify a military engagement?
As a former Airman First Class in the United States Air Force, like many veterans in America, my military experience played an important part in instilling in me a sense of character and discipline that has served me throughout my life.
A nation that honors God will always be honored by God. I've seen nations that have dishonored God: God has been taken out of schools, the government, the military; and when you take Him out of a nation, how can you expect God to protect this nation?
I don't want to see the military falling. I want to see the military rising to dignified heights of professionalism and true patriotism.
The military is a discrete entity. Then they come back, and they're such a small percentage of the population, and they can't really - it's hard for them to talk to civilians.
I really like being thrown into the works. Many actors, I have found, have this as a common trait. We had to, as children, adapt to various situations with either a military family or things like that.
The people who are in the military work very hard, often for not much money, to make their country better and to protect their country. And I have nothing but respect for that.
Where I would fault President Bush the most was that, in the wake of 9/11, he motivated our military, but he didn't call the nation into a state of war. And he didn't explain that this would take though a communal effort against common foe.