The sea is my business.

I think the central mission in Afghanistan right now is to protect the people, certainly, and that would be inclusive of everybody, and that in a, in an insurgency and a counterinsurgency, that’s really the center of gravity.

I’ve said for a long time, clearly the – a, a critical key to success in the region is going to be Pakistan and our relationship with Pakistan, which was one that was broken in the late ’80s and which we’ve worked hard to restore.

I’d have no problem serving under any president.

Few things are more damaging to our democracy than a military officer who doesn’t have the moral courage to stand up for what’s right or the moral fiber to step aside when circumstances dictate.

I think anybody in our – in the, in the national security apparatus has, has got to take full cognizance of their responsibility for the safeguarding of classified information.

The mission – the overall mission is to dismantle and defeat and disrupt al-Qaeda. But we have to make sure there’s not a safe haven that returns in Afghanistan.

We think we’re near energy independence – nothing could be further from the truth. We’re in much better shape now, but the price of a barrel of oil is going to be controlled by the Middle East for the next 10, 20, 30 years for sure.

I’m not a policy and a strategy guy. I’m – you know, the military basically supports what the president wants, the decisions that he makes.

I am convinced that America’s great sea of goodwill can be, in fact, a rising tide, a tide that could lift every veteran and every family of our wounded and fallen.