Quotes from Phil Klay

Treating war as farce is one way soldiers deal with it.

Prayer in a combat zone serves exactly the same purpose as it does in peacetime. In war, the stakes are life and death, true; but if you believe in God and in the notion of a human soul, then we are always making decisions of tremendous significance.

There's a very particular way that the military speaks. There's a lot of profanity and a lot of acronyms.

People have a very political way of looking at war, and that's understandable.

I literally went straight to New York City from Iraq, which was bizarre and complicated. I was walking down Madison Avenue, and it was spring, and people were smartly dressed, and it was so strange because there was no sense that we were at war. It was something to grapple with.

I don't believe in any Greatest Generation. I believe in great events. They sweep ordinary people up, expose them to extremes of human behavior and unimaginable tests of integrity and courage, and then deposit them back on the home front.

I'd been in college studying English creative writing and history when I made the decision to join the Marines in the runup to the Iraq war.

It's easier to get people to talk to you if you're a vet and you want to interview a vet about war. Sometimes they open up a little bit easier.

There's a tradition in war writing that the veteran goes over and sees the truth of war and comes back. And I'm skeptical of that.

Even if torture works, what is the point of 'defending' America using a tactic that is a fundamental violation of what America ought to mean?