Jim Webb actually said...

"A Veteran--AD, Reserve, NG, or Retired is someone who, at one point in their life, wrote a blank check made payable to 'The United States of America,' for an amount of 'up to and including my life.'"

"Thank you very much."

"We have so many people, who are now contracting force, who are doing, at a minimum, quasi-military functions."

"I think so much of it comes from the improvised explosive devices, where people are inside vehicles and you have this echoing impact that a regular blast, in other wars, did not really experience."