Turn on the news and every conversation is a confrontation. Every disagreement is a crisis. But when you take a step back and look at what’s happenin… - Joe Biden

The spread of ISIL’s bloody rule changed the political calculus for all three factions in Baghdad, forcing them to think like the old American revolutionary Ben Franklin. “We must all hang together,” Franklin had famously said, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, “or assuredly, we shall all hang separately.

I regarded these requests as the fruits of a life well lived: our grown children actually wanted to be with us.

So often, our Armed Forces and the Department of Defense staff are how the rest of the world encounters America. And you all know as well as anyone that our country is safer and stronger when we lead not just with the example of our power, but with the power of our example.