“There's a tendency to look at anybody who joined the military as if th...” — Phil Klay Quote

“There's a tendency to look at anybody who joined the military as if they underwrote everything that happened policy-wise. That's not really the case. I have a friend who both protested the Iraq War and joined the military, and ended up serving two deployments in Afghanistan.”

“One thing I've always liked about the military is there's a certain amount of pragmatism.”

“I started with things that I was troubled by or confused by or interested in, and then I wrote stories to try to puzzle my way through it. But the question is not how to represent war, because it's an abstract thing that's felt differently for all the characters.”

“I want to study law, become a lawyer, and work in Afghanistan for human rights.”

“In 2012, I got hit by an IED in Afghanistan.”

“Afghanistan does have an air force: It has two C-130s. I saw one of them. It was nice, a gift from the United States. But two planes don't even make a Caribbean charter airline, let alone an air force for a country at war.”