I'm not saying everybody has to walk around with a six-shooter, but they have to be prepared. You don't have to be militarized, but you have to be ready.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
You don't have to be straight to be in the military; you just have to be able to shoot straight.
Generations of gun owners have taught their sons and daughters that it takes as much patience and skill to be a good shot as it does to be a good steward of a powerful weapon.
I guess if you're stupid enough to join the army without thinking about getting shot at, then you really are a fool.
My life isn't always at risk, even if I'm in a war zone. A lot of these places have areas of calm, so covering war doesn't necessarily mean being shot at all the time.
The combat environment has the effect of flattening out civilian identities. If you're young or old, or a graduate from Harvard or the son of a farmer from Alabama, or if you're gay or straight or good-looking or ugly: none of those things matters much in combat, as long as you can conform to the group expectations.
Today nearly every combat brigade located within the United States would report that they are not ready for duty. They are at the lowest levels of readiness.
What you experience in the army, aged 18 to 21, is what you take through all your life. You cross invisible lines: you shoot someone, get shot, break into people's houses. It's naive to think you won't carry anything into your life.
We have the new greatest generation. We don't need as large a military due to the technology we have, the equipment we have outfitting our personnel. They really are storm troopers.
If I am shot at, I want no man to be in the way of the bullet.
As a young man, every bone in my body wanted to pick up a machine gun and kill Germans. And yet I had absolutely no reason to do so. Certainly nobody invited me to do the job. But that's what I felt that I was trained to do. Now no part of my upbringing was militaristic.