Fighting wars is not so much about killing people as it is about finding things out. The more you know, the more likely you are to win a battle. Take the AEGIS system in the navy. It's a radar computer system for air-battle management. What it does is give the commander an extra 15 minutes to decide what he's going to do to fight a battle, and those 15 minutes are decisively important.

I'd rather talk to people who do things than complain about other people who do things. I say they're idiots.

A field commander never has the information he needs. He has to go with his best hunch. The more information he has, the easier it is for him to win the battle.

No matter what you or anyone else does, there will be someone who says that there's something bad about it. Whenever somebody comes up with a good idea, there'…