'The Good Soldier' is an odd and maybe even unique book. That it is a masterpiece, almost a perfect novel, comes as a repeated surprise even to readers who have read it before.
If I was a soldier going to war, I'd be pretty scared the night before a battle. It's a scary thing. And I want my readers to feel that fear as they turn the page.
A lot of people of my Ulster Protestant background would have been very suspicious of the notion of a film about Bloody Sunday. Our fear would have been that it would be terribly anti-Britain and anti-soldiers: a piece of nationalist propaganda.
Now the true soldiers of Christ must always be prepared to do battle for the truth, and must never, so far as lies with them, allow false convictions to creep in.
But to the fighting soldier that phase of the war is behind. It was left behind after his first battle. His blood is up. He is fighting for his life, and killing now for him is as much a profession as writing is for me.
The feeling about a soldier is, when all is said and done, he wasn't really going to do very much with his life anyway. The example usually is: he wasn't going to compose Beethoven's Fifth.
I did love 'Dirty Sexy Money' quite a lot. I loved my tenure at 'Scrubs' quite a lot. 'ER' might have been my favorite guest star thing. 'We Were Soldiers' meant a lot to me.
I had repeatedly made written requests to the Fuehrer that I might be allowed to join the Wehrmacht as an ordinary soldier. He refused to give me this permission.
We were ordered out to quell an uprising of the Indians, and were out for several days, had numerous skirmishes during which six of the soldiers were killed and several severely wounded.
I sort of became infatuated with soldiers. I got to know some of them and got a little perturbed with Hollywood making a spectacle out of them and making them look like they have screwed up somehow.
India Conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.
Most recently, terrorist forces have captured Israeli soldiers and fired rockets into Israeli cities - both unprovoked. These acts of aggression deserve the rapid and decisive response they received.
I am also deeply concerned with the widespread, often undiagnosed, incidents of PTSD and the alarming suicide rates amongst our returning soldiers.
U.S. soldiers, with whom I now have more than a passing acquaintance, joke that they track my movements in order to know where they will be deployed next.
Just because I was almost 62, I did not feel decrepit and felt I wasn't finished being a soldier yet.
Ministers regularly meet soldiers that have returned from operational tours to hear about their experiences, including those who have recovered from their injuries.
You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub.
And to me, it was interesting, some of the people I had interviewed who knew the insides to this program said that they also, to create anxiety and upset in the soldiers, they take Bibles and they trash them.
I get a certain feeling when I go to Lambeau field in Green Bay. Soldier field in Chicago is special to me. Those are the places that I really like. The stadiums.
Bin Laden, who was in his country, attacked and damaged our Pentagon, and killed our soldiers right out here at the Pentagon. But his pentagon no longer exists. It is rubble.
One or two of the trips were a bit scary. Soldiers had me at gun point on one trip, locked me in my van all night and escorted me in and out of buildings when I wanted to wash.
