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 t… - Salvatore Giunta

I hope my daughter grows up in a world without war, a world without hate and bloodshed and pain. But I know that's a practical impossibility. So I will make sure she understands what freedom really means, and the price paid in its name. I will encourage her to embrace some type of public service, because I think that's a healthy way to express patriotism, and to share some of the burden of a free and democratic society. Do I want her to put on a uniform and carry a gun? Do I want her to know combat, or to see the horrible things I've seen? No, of course not. What father wants that for his child? But you know what? If she chooses to join the military, I will support her one hundred percent, because I know in my heart that there is no more noble path.

That was the primary conundrum when fighting in the Korengal Valley: distinguishing between the real enemy and the imagined enemy; between fighters and people who were aiding and abetting. It made a difficult war nearly impossible, and an ugly war almost indescribably brutal.

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.