You don't need to be straight to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight.

All of us feel, I think, that our experiences can be the worst possible thing you can go through and that we're alone in it, which is isolating and intense and insurmountable. But we can get over it.

In an average day, you may well be confronted with some species of bullying or bigotry, or some ill-phrased appeal to the general will, or some petty abuse of authority. If you have a political loyalty, you may be offered a shady reason for agreeing to a lie or a half-truth that serves some short-term purpose. Everybody devises tactics for getting through such moments; try behaving "as if" they need not be tolerated and are not inevitable.

In other words, let's give our young women the right weapons to fight with as they charge naked into battle, instead of ordering them to get back in the house and put some goddamn clothes on.

There's so much power in the idea of becoming monstrous. I think we see that in the way some women and girls choose to adorn themselves now. They don't care about being pretty or palatable. They paint their lips black, dye their hair green, file their nails into claws.

Let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.