Over time, the desire of Iraqis to contribute to their own security has manifested itself in citizens volunteering for the police, the Army, and concerned local citizen programs.
When I served in the Army, along the Iron Curtain we had a word for a person who absconds with information and provides it to another nation: traitor. We also had a name for a person who chooses to reveal secrets he had personally promised to protect: common criminal.
U.S. adversaries exploit power gaps. It's easier for Russia to invade Ukraine with irregular forces out of uniform, the so-called 'little green men,' than to send a conventional army that would challenge NATO.
For eight years, you had the Bush administration with a very interventionist policy, driving into world affairs, driving primarily into the Islamic world, army first or fist first.
Serving in the Israeli Army taught me what it means to be part of something greater than yourself.
It sometimes seems that the only plan the Israeli government has for the Palestinians is for them to sit quietly while Israel does whatever takes its fancy, equipped with its army, with laws it promulgated, and with courts it established.
After I arrived in the United States, I realized that in the army, Israelis learn how to be part of something bigger than themselves.
One of the few benefits of being a journalist is that you're not in the Army.
Strangely enough, my favorite airport is Logan Airport in Boston - but largely for sentimental reasons. My first real summer job was working as a journeyman for the airport's resident maintenance crew - a small army of union electricians, plumbers, and carpenters.
So when I told my parents I wanted to go into acting because I was flunking out of my first year of junior college, they were relieved that I had picked something other than joining the army. But I can't imagine how they had high hopes for me.
My dad was a Punjabi from Amritsar, and my mom is a Punjabi from Kashmir. My dad was a soldier in the Indian Army.
Probably half the cases of Civil War dead were not identified. And so there was no way to let loved ones know, and there were no regularized processes in either Northern or Southern Army for notifying next of kin.
I've always wanted to go to Switzerland to see what the army does with those wee red knives.
I've always said drag queens are like Swiss Army knives. Most come from having to take $50-a-show pay and doing their own costume, wig, music and jokes.
Lebanon, of course, is a country with great problems. Traditionally, they have religious-national groups or ethnic-national groups. They have the Druses. Even the two Moslem sects, the Sunnis and the Shiites, are apart. Then they have the armed groups. Everybody's got a private army.
As one of the first editors at 'Outside' magazine in 1975, it was my contention that most American writing going back to James Fennimore Cooper and then through Twain up to Hemingway had been outdoor writing. At that time, adventure writing meant stuff like 'Saga' or 'Argosy.' 'Death Race with the Jungle Leper Army!' That kind of thing.
Actors are like Swiss Army knives - we're ready to use any lever at any moment. But I learned long ago that, unfortunately, this industry only sees the one thing sticking out that they know us from, and that's the only thing they can imagine.
I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep.
History tells us that a general can move and feed an army as efficiently as he likes, but the real litmus test is the battlefield.
I started out just as Elvis was going into the army, Jerry Lee Lewis married his 14-year-old cousin, and Little Richard became a priest.
