"I think about my daughter often when I'm out traveling around, giving speeches, shaking hands, talking about my friends in the military. I want her to be proud of me, and to know that what I'm doing is important. I want her to know that I accept the Medal of Honor not for myself, but because it provides a forum for talking about my brothers and the job they are doing, and the sacrifices they've made. Those men and women who do the fighting- too often, they don't get to talk. I want their voices to be heard."

“I'd be lying if I said that I adjusted quickly and easily to a life without combat. I don't think that's possible.”

“For my wife, Jennifer, and our daughter, Lillian.”

“Soldiers on the ground do not have the luxury of political opinion- it's irrelevant to their existence and their mission. They do what they are told, regardless of how crazy it sometimes seems. Soldiers do not make big decisions; they do not have choices, other than those those that are made in the blink of an eye and have life-and-death consequences. And they accept this responsibility willingly. They seek it out. They fight so that others don't have to fight.”

“There were more bullets in the air than stars in the sky. A wall of bullets at every one at the same time with one crack and then a million other cracks afterwards. They're above you, in front of you, behind you, below you. They're hitting in the dirt early. They're going over your head. Just all over the place. They were close— as close as I've ever seen.”

“All these freedoms and pleasures we enjoy as Americans were bestowed upon us, but they came at a great cost.”

“Every day in the Korengal Valley held the possibility of death. The sun came up every morning and the shooting started shortly thereafter. That's just the way it was. The fact that you might have to kill someone, or that you might be killed, did not burn through your head, because that was life in the valley.”