Fort Bragg is an enormously important presence as the home to the 82nd Airborne and the Global Response Force of the XVIII Airborne Corps.
My father was a very contradictory man. I mean, most environmentalists in America in the 1950s - of which there were hardly any - were not... paratroopers. But my father was in the 82nd Airborne, it was just like that.
While I now own more guns than the 82nd Airborne, my first gun is still the most important gun I've ever owned.
I had seen the films out of World War II, the great 82nd Airborne, the 101st, and all of those of you in the greatest generation and the service that you had provided.
Love, whether it's friendship or more, is like a cup. It fills up drop by drop, until one last drop and the cup is full. The liquid hangs there almost above the rim, hangs there on surface tension alone and you know that one more drop and it will spill over.
It's a funny feeling, being suddenly airborne. Just as you realize it, it's over, and you're sinking.
I spent several months patrolling Al Dora district in Baghdad in 2006 with the 101st Airborne. It's a tough neighborhood. There's a lot of militias operating there, including a lot of Shiite militias, which are backed by Iran.
When you get to the point where Baghdad is basically isolated, then what is the situation you have in the country? .. You have a country that Baghdad no longer controls; that whatever's happening inside Baghdad is almost irrelevant compared to what's going on in the rest of the country.
I was with the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq, really in the middle of nowhere, about 80 miles south of Baghdad. And it was almost midnight, and I got a computer message from the home office of the Washington Post asking me to call them. I did call them and was told that I'd won the Pulitzer Prize.
During the writer's strike I was walking a line and ran into Jack Black and he said,'We're doing Airborne 2!', and I asked, 'Are you kidding?', and he said, 'Yeah.' I like 'Airborne,' its very pure.
During the writer's strike I was walking a line and ran into Jack Black and he said, 'We're doing Airborne 2!', and I asked, 'Are you kidding?', and he said, 'Yeah.' I like 'Airborne,' its very pure.
Baghdad fell on April 9, 2003, Hussein and his regime were brought down, we declared "Mission Accomplished" and celebrated victory . . . and chaos erupted. We did not assert control and authority over the country, especially Baghdad. We did not bring with us the capacity to impose our will. We did not take charge. And Iraq did not in a few weeks magically transform itself into a stable nation with democratic leaders. Instead a raging insurgency engulfed the country.
Don't believe that jazz about there's nothing you can do, "turn on and drop out, man" - because you've got to turn on and drop in, or they're going to drop all over you.
We can drop the fundamental hope that there is a better "me" who one day will emerge. We can't just jump over ourselves as if we were not there.
We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.
Well, I've been to Iraq twice now. I was in Baghdad in June and then north of Baghdad in November.