“The military is mostly filled with people who genuinely...

“The military is mostly filled with people who genuinely desire to do the right thing. More Marines receive the Medal of Honor for jumping on grenades than any other action. It’s a culture where officers eat last and everyone shares their water. These people grew up as boy scouts and girl scouts. The whole reason they volunteered was because they wanted to do the right thing. But the right thing is never clear in war. If you shoot too early, an innocent person gets killed. If you shoot too late, you lose a buddy. So a lot of our injuries are moral ones. Most of us come home feeling like we did something wrong. Or we didn’t give enough. Or that our friends gave too much. My best friend in the Marines was a guy named Ronnie Winchester. He was the nicest guy you can imagine. My 22nd birthday was during our officer training course. None of us had slept. We were all starving. We were only getting one ration per day. But Ronnie wanted to give me a memorable birthday. So he put a candle in his brownie and gave it to me. That’s how nice of a guy he was. Ronnie ended up getting killed in Iraq. And if a guy like Ronnie got killed, you can’t help but wonder why you deserve to be alive. Ronnie was 25 years old when he died. He is always going to be 25 years old. I have a wife and kids now. I get to grow old. But Ronnie Winchester is always going to be 25.”