It's easy after a disaster to dwell on the experience, to spend too much time with your mind stuck on it, and to let it defeat you.

In death, as in life, we stand together, always a family, always a team. The brotherhood never dies.

We're trained and trained for a reason: to be better at the craft of war than our enemy, to use our skill to perform the missions, and to accept the risks. As American warriors, it's our obligation to protect the innocent. And that means, sometimes that we're the one who needs to be put on the disadvantaged side of the threat cycle.

Danny Dietz died right there in my arms. I don't know how quickly hearts break, but that nearly broke mine... I had to leave him or else die out here with him. But I knew one thing was certain. I still had my rifle and I was not alone, and neither was Danny, a devout Roman Catholic. I left him with God.

My God had not spoken to me again. But neither had He forsaken me. I knew that. For damned sure, I knew that.

Helpless, tortured, shot, blown up, my best buddies all dead, and all because we were afraid of the liberals back home, afraid to do what was necessary to save our own lives. Afraid of American civilian lawyers. I have only one piece of advice for what it's worth: If you don't want to get into a war where things go wrong, where the wrong people sometimes get killed, where innocent people sometimes have to die, then stay the hell out of it in the first place.

With 300 Marines, you could probably take over Iraq if you wanted to and get rid of ISIS completely. Make no mistake about it, Marines are war fighters. I mean they are really good at what they do. The only time they are not good at what they do is when someone puts the shackles on them,