Hugh Shelton

There are a lot of things that have to be considered in National. The military aspect of it is only one of them. I'm confident that President Bush will have all of those things laid out for him before he makes the decision.

I believe that this is a different war than America has ever fought in the past. It is a non-conventional war. It means that you've got to use every tool you've got available to you.

My goal was to make first lieutenant. I never spent a lot of time worrying about what came after that.

I always concentrated on doing the very best that I could in the job and the duties that I was assigned.

Of course, you always have to be concerned about hijacking. But with the measures that are in place right now, I'd say that probably the airways are as safe as they've been in a good number of years.

And occasionally some of the nations that will be partners in this would probably not be, in terms of passing a pure human rights check, have everything going for them that you would like to have.

Wayne Downing is also a great leader, has served our nation very well, and I think it's great that he's coming back to join a very capable administration already of dealing with this problem, and it will just strengthen that team.

We came back right over the World Trade Center and could see, even from that altitude, the devastation, the smoke that was coming up. It was obvious it was going to be horrible.

I had seen the films out of World War II, the great 82nd Airborne, the 101st, and all of those of you in the greatest generation and the service that you had provided.

And so I'm still giving some thought - I will transition hopefully into the corporate world. And I look forward to getting involved in several other areas that I have a great interest in.

They were involved in a firefight and felt they were surrounded. Whether they escaped from that and were fleeing and went in the wrong direction, we don't know.

But it's been a great, humbling - and I've been very honored to have the opportunity to serve and to lead and to be the representative of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who are in Washington. And it's been the greatest honor of my life.