Military Leaders From The United States

"Admiral Leahy had served with Roosevelt since FDR had been assistant secretary of the Navy and enjoyed the president's complete confidence. Marshall, Roosevelt's personal choice for chief of staff, brought a single-minded, take-no-prisoners dedication to his task- combined with a remarkable sensitivity to political nuance at the highest level. Arnold, underneath his affable exterior, had a genius for organization urgently required to create an air force virtually from scratch. King, to some extent, was odd man out: fiercely Anglophobic, incredibly stubborn, not as gifted intellectually as his colleagues, but a powerful command presence that the Navy needed after Pearl Harbor. FDR said King shaved with a blowtorch, and it was that fierceness that propelled the Navy, even when King was wrong (as he was in early 1942, when he refused to convoy ships in American waters)."

"A few weeks previously Leahy had come to King's office one day and said that the President would like to have King cease using the customary term Commander in Chief, both in respect to the United States Fleet and the Pacific and Atlantic Fleets, and to alter these designations to Commander, United States Fleet, Pacific Fleet, or Atlantic Fleet, as the case might be. Thus there would be but one Commander in Chief, and that the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy. King asked Leahy if that were an order or a request, and was told that it was not an order or a request, but the Leahy knew that the President would like to have it done. King therupon told Leahy that if Mr. Roosevelt issued an order, or a request, he would of course have to comply with it, but Leahy said that the President said that the President did not wish to issue a definite order, but simply would like to have it done. That was the last that King heard of that particular matter, but it came to mind when he heard of the President's forthcoming visit to Hawaii."

"Fleet Admiral William Daniel Leahy's death was announced by the US Navy. On July 22 at noon, his casket was moved into the Bethlehem Chapel of the Episcopal Cathedral in Washington, DC, and for the next twenty-four hours his body lay surrounded by a naval honor guard before being brought into the nave for the funeral. His eleven honorary pallbearers consisted of his old friend Bill Hassett and ten naval officers who included his few remaining living friends from the Annapolis class of 1897. After the service, a motor procession brought the admiral to his final resting place in Arlington Cemetery. A nineteen-gun salute was fired, and then Leahy was laid beside his wife, Louise, where she had awaited him for seventeen years. Neither Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, nor George Marshall were in attendance. Newspapers marked his passing, but the articles were perfunctory and often mistaken. The New York Times noted how he had all but disappeared from the public mind, having lived as a "recluse" for the past for years. The Washington Post missed his importance entirely, writing, "Yet despite his inner position, his contribution to evolving defense concepts probably was not profound." When George Marshall died three months later, the reaction could not have been more different. President Eisenhower issued a public proclamation announcing Marshall's passing and extolling his greatness. He ordered that the national flag be flown at half-mast on all US government buildings, military facilities, and warships, both at home and abroad, and to be kept that way until after the funeral. both Truman and Eisenhower attended the funeral, and Truman described Marshall as "the greatest general since Robert E. Lee... the greatest administrator since Thomas Jefferson. He was the man of honor, the man of truth, the man of greatest ability. He was the greatest of the great in our time." The general's death was soon followed by a hagiographic biography, the foundation of Marshall scholarships, a Marshall library, Marshall public schools, Marshall awards- a whole industry to perpetuate his memory. To this day, historians claim, with scant evidence, that he determined US strategy in World War II."

"Dear Admiral: I am writing this on the train going 90 mi. an hour. I hope you will be able to read it. I received your letter enclosing an article by Constantine Brown. I wish I could get my hands on him and on the fellow who gave him the false information in the first place. I want you in the White House. I have the utmost confidence in you. You tell me what you think. While you and I don't see eye to eye on some things, we are always frank with each other. Don't you pay any attention to any lying stories the gossipers write. It's part of the political farce as it's played in this country. The opposition try to hurt me by hurting my friends. Please don't let it bother you. When I have anything to say to you, I'll say it to you. You are my friend and I am yours come hell or high water. Sincerely, Harry S. Truman"

"[FDR] acknowledged needing a primary adviser to coordinate the army, navy and air force operations. In July, he appointed Fleet Admiral William Leahy as chief of staff to the commander in chief, US Army and Navy. Unlike modern presidential chiefs of staff, Leahy's job was related primarily to the military. The sixty-seven-year-old former chief of naval operations had also served as governor of Puerto Rico and ambassador to France after the Nazi takeover- a thankless job if there ever was one. FDR thought Leahy's experience and seasoning would make him an ideal power broker to the big egos of the military command. And he was comfortable with Leahy. Their relationship dated back to FDR's years as assistant secretary of the navy, when Leahy had commanded the secretary's dispatch boat and they'd become friends. "He said [at a press conference] that I would be a sort of 'leg man' who would help him digest, analyze, and summarize a mass of material with which he had been trying to cope singlehandedly," Leahy recalled."

"All admirals are supposed to be "crusty," and this characteristic is expected to continue into retirement. Leahy often seemed to be crusty, formal, and distant. He had a mean eye when he faced incompetence, stupidity, or neglect of duty. But there was kindness, tenderness, and compassion. He just didn't let those qualities show so much."

"It's important to get a mental picture of FDR at the time of his early sails with Bill Leahy. Roosevelt was an energetic and athletic thirty-three year old, easily motoring around on his own two legs. About the only similarity between this man who strode purposefully aboard the Dolphin and almost demanded his turn at the helm and the wheelchair-bound leader of the Allies three decades later was the pince-nez eyeglasses that perched on the bridge of his nose. The fact that Roosevelt was seven year Leahy's junior didn't stop him from calling the lieutenant commander "Bill." Naval etiquette, as well as Leahy's firm separation of familiarity from duty, demanded that Leahy call FDR either "Mr. Secretary" or "Mr. Roosevelt." But the two hit it off."

"The President tried to avoid face-to-face showdowns with King. If he had something to say that would rile King, he would use Leahy, Knox or his naval aides as reluctant surrogates. After the Savo Island debacle, Roosevelt suggested to Knox that carrier task groups employ fewer cruisers and more destroyers. (FDR presumably felt that cruisers could be more profitably used in defending beachheads.) As Knox was the least qualified official in the Navy Department to discuss tactics, King presumably drafted the reply for Knox's signature: the Navy knew best (it said) and would keep the status quo. Roosevelt was smart enough not to overrule King's professional judgment, but he still wanted the last word. Thus Leahy found himself dragged into the discussion when he received word from Roosevelt that the Navy Department memorandum should "receive further study." It did not, of course. Leahy had another unpleasant chore when he entered King's office in mid-1944. King was surprised because Leahy rarely came to see him. Leahy explained that Roosevelt, obviously jealous of his own "commander in chief" title, wanted King, Nimitz, and Ingersoll to change their titles as fleet "commanders in chief." "Is that an order?" asked King. "No," said Leahy, "but he'd like to have it done." "When I get the orders," said King, "I will do exactly that. Otherwise not. The subject was dropped."

"On the day that General of the Army Douglas MacArthur stood on the deck of the battleship Missouri and sternly ordered the Japanese representatives to sign the articles of surrender, Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy was far from the scenes of power, delivering a routine speech for the president. Addressing the Midwest Farmer Observance, he spoke of responsibility and of duty, especially of the civilian's duty to make "our own system of government and our own way of life... work better in our land than other systems work in foreign lands. Let us not fear the competition of other systems." With the greatest war in history a thing of the past, it was time to rebuild the nation and the world. It was time to plan so that war would never again bring its destruction to man. In Leahy's mind the United States had a sacred duty of preserving the peace in spite of the dawning of the atomic age. His last years of service were dedicated to accomplishing that goal. There were those who believed, now that the war was over, there was no longer a need for a military chief of staff to the commander in chief. Despite the fact that the military men of the United States have never failed to yield to civilian direction and have never failed to lay down their offices when their terms have expired, there remains a paranoid lack of trust among many liberal newspapermen and politicians that the generals and admirals they have relied on to save them from the enemy somehow become the enemy when the guns have fallen silent."

"Perhaps there is some hope that its capacity for death and terror among the defenseless may restrain nations from using the atom bomb against each other, just as in the last war such fears made them avoid employment of the new and deadlier poison gases developed since World War I. However, I am forced to a reluctant conclusion that for the security of my own country which has been the guiding principle in my approach to all problems faced during my career, there is but one course open to us: Until the United Nations, or some world organization, can guarantee- and have the power to enforce that guarantee- that the world will be spared the terrors of atomic warfare, the United States must have more and better atomic bombs than any potential enemy."

"Far less known than other leaders of World War II, Leahy was content to perform his services for his country and for the two presidents he served so closely, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. In his final job, the one he held longer than any other in his career, chief of staff to the commander in chief, he was the president's man. He spoke for the president, he represented the president, he advised the president, and he disagreed with the president when he believed he was wrong. But he did not make waves outside. He seldom gave interviews. When he made his occasional speeches, he talked on mundane subjects such as patriotism or what a proper naval education and naval career entailed. He kept silent- in public- on politics, on international affairs, on controversial issues. He made his opinions known where they mattered... Strictly a black-shoe sailor, Leahy did learn to value naval air and later the importance of air power. As he matured, he learned how the services complemented each other, and he was able to make balanced judgments which he recommended to the president. In the opinion of George Elsey, one-time assistant naval aide to President Truman, Leahy's greatest contribution was keeping the Joint Chiefs of Staff in line."

"To direct the actions of each supreme commander and to coordinate British and American military policy, ARCADIA established the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS), a joint British-American undertaking composed of the three British chiefs- General Sir Alan Brooke (CIGS); Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, the First Sea Lord; and Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal- and their American counterparts, Marshall, King, and Arnold. At Roosevelt's insistence the Combined Chiefs was headquartered in Washington, where its work was directed by Field Marshal Sir John Dill, who became the ranking British chief and Churchill's personal representative. Dill was joined in July 1942 by Admiral William D. Leahy, whom Roosevelt brought back from Vichy to become chief of staff to the commandeer in chief and, in effect, chairman of the American Joint Chiefs of Staff. In retrospect, the establishment of the command structure to fight the war was an unprecedented achievement that reflected the extraordinary ability of Churchill and Roosevelt to saw off minor differences and find common ground. Roosevelt, unlike Lincoln, was also well served by his long familiarity with the Army and Navy and his ability to pick effective military subordinates. Leahy, Marshall, King, and Arnold were exactly the right men for the job, and they served in their posts throughout the war. In their own way they were ruthless taskmasters, loyal to the president, and, when pushed by FDR, worked effectively with their British counterparts."

"Always dependable, loyal, shrewd, and intelligent, Bill Leahy was next beside the president in the turbulent years of World War II and in the first few years of rebuilding, offering counsel and advice. Only Harry Hopkins was closer to Roosevelt, and no one on the military side was closer to Truman. George Marshall undertook more jobs for Harry Truman, but Bill Leahy was the one who was in the White House every day until his health demanded that he step down. To most laymen and to many naval officers, he is a forgotten name from the past, one of those shadowy figures whose name is given to buildings and ships, whose picture appearing in books of history is passed over as eyes fall upon the face of the man he is with. The reason for his lack of prominence is simple. He did his greatest work in the shadow of two dynamic presidents. He led no fleets during World War II, only one battle in his entire career, the Battle of Santiago in the Spanish-American War, from a gun turret aboard the battleship Oregon, after her famous cruise around South America."

"I did not see Julius Caesar's return to Rome, but I am sure that in comparison it looked like a deuce of spades."

"I was there."

"Everybody may have peace if they are willing to pay any price for it. Part of this any price is slavery, dishonor of your women, destruction of your homes, denial of your God. I have seen all of these abominations in other parts of the world paid as the price of not resisting invasion, and I have no thought that the inhabitants of this state of my birth have any desire for peace at that price, or that they lack the fortitude that is necessary to discourage aggression by the barbarians who are now about to be driven back to their kennels, or by any other savages who may arise at some later date against our civilized Christian world."

"[MacArthur's "Old Soldiers Never Die" speech was of] such a superlative quality of excellence... that there is no other individual... capable of preparing and delivering a comparable address... The public enthusiasm for General MacArthur in San Francisco and in Washington was a triumph beyond anything that I have ever seen anywhere for anybody, which seems strange in view of his recent summary detachment by President Truman. If the general's popularity persists for a considerable time, it should actively effect a change in the country's domestic political policy, and it might have a radical effect on the complexion of domestic political development. From a purely military point of view it appears that General MacArthur's attitude will be fully accepted by all qualified military authorities."

"Throughout the war, the four of us- Marshall, King, Arnold, and myself- worked in the closest possible harmony. In the postwar period, General Marshall and I disagreed sharply on some aspects of our foreign political policy. However, as a soldier, he was in my opinion one of the best, and his drive, courage, and imagination transformed America's citizen army into the most magnificent fighting force ever assembled. In number of men and logistical requirements, his army operations were by far the largest. This meant that more time of the Joint Chiefs were spent on his problems than on any others- and he invariably presented them with skill and clarity. King had an equally difficult task. His fleets had to hold Japan at bay while convoying millions of tons of supplies for the second front. He was an exceptionally able sea commander. He was also explosive and there were times when it was just as well that the deliberations of the Joint Chiefs were a well-kept secret. The President had a high opinion of King's ability but he was a very undiplomatic person, especially when the Admiral's low boiling point would be reached in some altercation with the British. King would have preferred to put more power into the Asiatic war earlier. He supported loyally the general strategy of beating Germany first, but this often required concessions of ships which he did not like to make. He could not spare much, since, until the last months of the war, he was working with a deficit of ships. America was fighting a two-ocean war for the first time in its history."

"In the Pacific we gave our enemies a costly lesson in amphibious warfare, just as in Europe we, with our allies, demonstrated successful coalition warfare. The performance of all branches of the services in Europe under General Eisenhower, in the central and southern Pacific under Admiral Nimitz, and in the southwestern Pacific under General MacArthur brought glory to themselves and to their country."

"Once it had been tested, President Truman faced the decision as to whether to use it. He did not like the idea, but was persuaded that it would shorten the war against Japan and save American lives. It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nakasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender because of the effective sea blockade and the successful bombing with conventional weapons. It was my reaction that the scientists and others wanted to make this test because of the vast sums that had been spent on the project. Truman knew that, and so did the other people involved. However, the Chief Executive made a decision to use the bomb on two cities in Japan. We had produced only two bombs at that time. We did not know which cities would be the targets, but the President specified that the bombs should be used against military facilities. I realized that my original error in discounting the effectiveness of the atomic bomb was based on long experience with explosives in the Navy. I had specialized in gunnery and at one time headed the Navy Department's Bureau of Ordnance. "Bomb" is the wrong word to use for this new weapon. It is not a bomb. It is a poisonous thing that kills people by its deadly radioactive action, more than by the explosive force it develops."

"The lethal possibilities of atomic warfare in the future are frightening. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children. We were the first to have this weapon in our possession, and the first to use it. There is a practical reality that potential enemies will have it in the future and that atomic bombs will sometime be used against us. That is why, as a professional military man with a half-century of service to his government, I come to the end of my war story with an apprehension about the future. These new concepts of "total war" are basically distasteful to the soldier and sailor of my generation. Employment of the atomic bomb in war will take us back in cruelty toward non-combatants to the days of Genghis Khan. It will be a war of pillage and rape of a society, done impersonally by one state against another, whereas in the Dark Ages it was a result of individual greed and terrorism. Thee new and terrible instruments of uncivilized warfare represent a modern type of barbarism not worthy of Christian man. One of the professors associated with the Manhattan Project told me that he had hoped the bomb wouldn't work. I wish that he had been right."

"Details matter. Ignoring them can be the difference between success and failure."

"In combat, attention to detail is the barrier between life and death. We generally don't like death, so we pay attention to details. We also don't like failure. We don't like failing in our mission and we don't like failing the people who are relying on us. Ignoring the small stuff leads to both of those unenviable failures."

"You ever wonder why we are always doing inspections in the military? Why do we obsess over perfect creases, shiny shoes, and crisply made beds? It's simple: If you can't get the small stuff right, you won't get the big stuff right. If you ignore the relatively unimportant details, then you are more likely to ignore the very important details, the stuff that actually counts. This is true of running a town, a city, or a country, but also for running your own life."

"Congressman Dan Crenshaw has certainly made an impact since being elected to the House of Representatives for Texas's Second Congressional District. He ran as a Republican in the primary with very little previous experience and virtually no money to take on candidates with deeper pockets and more political and legislative experience. He won, like he has so often in life. Since taking office, he has gained in prominence within the Republican Party and is considered to be one of its young rising stars. That should come as no surprise given Congressman Crenshaw's bona fides."

"CONGRESSMAN DAN CRENSHAW: “If I ever meet Tucker Carlson, I’ll suck him off. I’m not joking.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2025/02/25/hot-mic-appears-to-catch-gop-rep-saying-hed-kill-tucker-carlson-if-they-met-former-fox-host-offers-his-address/"

"When he was twelve, Congressman Crenshaw's father suggested he read Dick Marcincko's Rogue Warrior. Marcinko was a Navy SEAL and the man who first commanded SEAL Team 6. His memoir fired the imaginations of many future SEAL team members. Congressman Crenshaw possessed a keen sense of adventure at an early age (he originally thought he wanted to be a spy), but after reading that book, he told himself that a seal was who he wanted to become. In Congressman Crenshaw's mind, there is an important distinction between deciding what you want to do with your life and deciding what kind of person you want to be. Many of the decisions he's made in life have been based around the latter."

"His father worked in the petroleum industry, and the family traveled a great deal: Scotland, Egypt, Ecuador, and Columbia. As a result, Crenshaw developed a perspective on the world that deepened his appreciation for America and what it offered. He also wanted to model himself after his mother. For five years, Susan Carol Crenshaw fought a battle against breast cancer. Her positivity and refusal to give in to a victim's mentality had a profound effect on him long after she passed away when he was ten. A 2006 graduate of Tufts University with a degree in international relations, Congressman Crenshaw was also enrolled in the naval ROTC program there. He commissioned in the navy immediately after graduation. He served for ten years, experienced five tours of duty, and was medically retired in 2016. In 2012, while on an operation in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, an IED explosion seriously wounded him. He lost his right eye and very nearly lost the vision in his left. His recovery was miraculous, and he later deployed to Bahrain and South Korea. He served with great distinction during his military career and was awarded two Bronze Stars, one with Valor; the Purple Heart; and the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with Valor, among many others."

"Not only was the SNL blowup a huge boon to Crenshaw’s campaign and public image, but it also totally blotted out any memory of the fact that the former Navy SEAL is linked to far-right conspiracy group “Tea Party,” which popularized the Pizzagate conspiracy. On August 31, Newsweek reported that Crenshaw and four other GOP nominees were or had been administrators on a popular Facebook group that bolstered the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, pushed Pizzagate, and provided a comfortable home for racist chit-chat. When Newsweek contacted Crenshaw about the group he was listed as an administrator and had posted two of his campaign movies to the group, Crenshaw told the publication he’d “never actively managed or interacted with that page.” He then removed himself from the group."

"It's up to us as consumers of information to be smarter, to take control. The only way a problem gets fixed is if you fix it as an individual. Don't just read to confirm your own preconceived bias. Do your research. Wait to form an opinion. You do no harm when you say you don't know and you don't have an opinion. There's no shame in that. There's a lot of shame in having a strong opinion with no facts. Too many people are very quick to feel a truth. You can't feel a truth. You can have feelings, but don't pretend that your feelings are what matter the most. Don't let your feelings drive your reality. A lot of people, veterans and civilians, fall victim to victimhood. They feel like they are victims. What are you doing, then? You're removing power from yourself. Now you're letting somebody else have control over you. That's a terrible existence. Even if you were really unfairly treated, you have to tell yourself a story of overcoming that. It's the only way out. Period. Full stop."

"I encourage the American public to look beyond the headlines. If you read beyond the headlines, not only will you be outraged, you'll be a better thinker. Even good journalists are defeated by bad headlines. They don't write the headlines. Editors do, and they are created more as clickbait than truth. they are designed to appeal on an emotional level. I can't make the media do anything different. I can't force them. I can't shame them all day long, which is what I do, but they don't care. So many journalists are so left-wing that they are fighting an ideological battle. They'll do whatever it takes to drive their side's biases home. And that's sad for the good journalists who are out there writing good and fair pieces."

"Don’t kid yourself into believing that’s why we lost. It’s not. I’ll tell you openly. I'm not wrong."

"In BUD/S the failures are more surprising than the successes. A lot of times, the most athletic, the fittest, the physically strongest candidates were the ones who quit. They should have been able to just crush it, but they didn't. Part of that is because they spent too much time on physical preparation and not enough on mental preparation. They believed that because of their physicality, their athleticism, they wouldn't be so surprised when faced with immediate failure. Those failures happen so fast in BUD/S. Your body fails constantly. That's what the program is designed to do to you. It is not physically possible to do everything that is being demanded of you. So you break down; you can't do every repetition of every exercise. We called them beatdowns for a reason. The instructors want us to break down and run away with our tail between our legs. They keep pressing us to go on, even after you thought that the activity was over. That happens to you over and over again. Your muscles fail you. And the instructors understand that difference between quitting- a failure of the will- and failing- your body giving out when you have already pushed yourself past what you once perceived as your limit. They respect that you hung in there long enough to truly fail. That's probably why you see so much anxiety and increasing suicide in our larger society. We have the most comfortable society the world has ever known. And that's good; I'm glad we do. But it's also made some people weak, and they break down when confronted with suffering. If you want to be a person who doesn't freak out just because you're scared or whatever else you're doing, then decide to be that person. Every time you fall short of that goal, look back on that situation and tell yourself you're going to do better next time. Eventually you will."

"Everybody I knew who became a SEAL wanted to be one for a long time. You wanted this. You knew that you were, or wanted to be, an outside-the-box thinker, a sort of renegade or rebel, but also a strictly disciplined soldier. So you became that before you got to BUD/S (basic underwater demolition/SEAL training). BUD/S just made you prove it and then trained you to harness that. You learn how to exist in two different mental states: those of an ultra-aggressive combatant and a chivalrous gentleman. And you can instantaneously transition between the two. That's a warrior."

"Politics is the social manifestation of a set of policies. When I speak to kids, I let them know that there's a crucial difference between politics and policy. If you want to go into politics, then you have to be a representative of other people. To do that, you have to be able to communicate well. So before you decide to run for office, you have to ask yourself a few questions: Do you care about just one policy or issue? Are you good at communicating? Are you able to frame and win an argument? What are you good at? I don't think that all elected officials or candidates think through answers to these, and lots of candidates don't win because they quit on that notion of self-examination. For me, politics happened overnight when an opportunity presented itself. Because the military makes you think you have to be uber-prepared for everything, I thought that maybe I'd have a seat in about ten years. We did it in three months."

"This is what happens when angry little boys like @alexstein99 don’t grow up and can’t get girlfriends…"

"The ability to deal with adversity, to accept pain, to be calm under pressure- these are the traits we look for. Some can be taught, much is innate."

"As bad as I had it, lots of people have had it worse than me. Lots of others had made the ultimate sacrifice. I've got the initials of eight of those guys tattooed on my chest. So even when you're lying bleeding on the ground, unable to see much of anything, and later totally facedown in a bed for six weeks, you know what? Your buddies don't even get to have that chance because they're dead. That sounds morbid, but it's true. It should toughen your spine a little bit and make you feel grateful for being here at all. Too many people don't show gratitude for the new mission that they might have. They complain. They complain about the Veterans Administration. They complain about their disability payments. They complain about their lack of opportunity. Well, your buddies don't get to complain at all, and I think they would be grateful for anything. Living with duty means having a duty to those who aren't able to complete their mission because they would want you to keep going. They would want you to live life with a purpose. That's a message for civilians; that's a message for veterans."

"a super PAC called Conservative Results Matter is going after Republican Dan Crenshaw, calling him an “anti-Trump liberal,” in the two-way GOP runoff to replace retiring Texas Rep. Ted Poe. “‘Insane, hateful, idiot.’ These are the words so-called Republican Dan Crenshaw used to describe President Trump,” the narrator says in a new TV ad from the super PAC. “Crenshaw called Trump an ‘idiot.’” The attack mirrors a Facebook post by Crenshaw’s runoff opponent, state Rep. Kevin Roberts, which cites an old Facebook post of Crenshaw’s and says Crenshaw “openly [attacked] Donald Trump as an ‘idiot,’ ‘insane,’ and ‘ignorant.’”"

"There's a notion out there that service members are victims somehow, that they were being used by some government overlord to do their political bidding. That's not true. We're an all-volunteer force and we love what we do. We understand that there are bad people out there that seek to do harm against the United States' interests. We are willing to go out there and fight them."

"Israel is our most important ally in the Middle East. We must always stand with Israel."

"As a long-time supporter of Israel, I will ensure that our alliance does not waver, and that America continues to support Israeli security, advocate for her on the international stage, and contain the threat from Iran and terrorism across the region."

"I've always supported President Trump, I didn't always support candidate Trump."

"I always ask the question, like what? You know, like what is he undermining exactly? You know what – what democratic freedoms have been undermined? We just had an election where we switched power in the House. Democracy is at work. People are voting in record numbers."

"Writing this book was the first time I thought deeply about the lessons I'd derived from the SEAL teams, and life in general. It is quite the challenge to examine your own attributes, your failings, and then attempt to extract the lessons from your past that make you who you are today. This book is largely a product of that journey."

"Tonight I voted no on the spending bill. Here’s why: I reluctantly voted against this bill, There are many things to like in this bill and many examples of good-faith compromises. But this vote was about the border security debate, an issue which shouldn't be debatable in the first place. There are approximately 400,000 illegal immigrants apprehended while crossing our border each year, and this bill does not take the necessary steps to fix the problem. This issue is not about who wins arbitrary political battles; it's about the security and sovereignty of our nation. When will we start taking it seriously and finally give our border agents the resources they've requested?"

"I recognize my corpsman's voice, as he works on my wounds. I say, "Dude, don't get blown up. It sucks." He laughs and tells me to shut up."

"My mother spent half a decade staring death in the face, burdened with caring for two small boys whom she would not live to see grow up. She lived day to day in ever-increasing pain. The cancer afflicted her- and the cancer treatments afflicted her, too. Six rounds of chemotherapy on top of radiation treatments are a brutal experience for even the strongest constitution. Self-pity is never a useful state. But if anyone had reason to feel sorry for herself, and to complain a bit, it was my mom. She never did."

"A little perspective can be the difference between spiraling into dark despair and clawing your way back to the light. A brave young woman fought through despair twenty years before, which meant I could do it now, suffering in darkness in a sterile hospital room in Germany. So when the doctors told me I had virtually no chance of seeing ever again, I just heard one thing: Virtually."

"A favorite memory of many veterans is their time sitting around grumbling incessantly about their circumstances with their teammates. I have to admit that we do this way more than the average group of people. It's like a continuous group therapy project. When the guys stop complaining, leadership starts to worry. What's wrong with them? Are they depressed? Something wrong at home? The reality is that in these high-performing environments, where everyone is a perfectionist and overachiever, people like to point out deficiencies in the most over-the-top fashion, usually with a side of sarcastic and cutting humor. The good news is that they also aspire to fix those problems. Or maybe we are just a bunch of divas. I don't know. Maybe it's both."