Chuck knows that war is not an abstraction. He understands that sending young Americans to fight and bleed in the dirt and mud, that's something we only do when it's absolutely necessary. My frame of reference, he has said, is geared towards the guy at the bottom who's doing the fighting and the dying.
Obama defends Chuck Hagel's understanding of the realities of war as he nominates him for Secretary of Defense.
Share
More from Barack Obama
I think when you understand the complexities of America and the contradictions of America, I don’t think it makes you love it less. I think it makes you love it more.
This idea that any suggestion or criticism that America was anything other than perfect is unpatriotic... is a suggestion that you hate your country.
helped lead some of the most significant movements for change in human history
Other voices in this conversation
