A military road led from this point to Fort Leavenworth, and for many miles the farms and cabins of the Delawares were scattered at short intervals on either hand.

Riding in advance, we passed over one of these great plains; we looked back and saw the line of scattered horsemen stretching for a mile or more; and far in the rear against the horizon, the white wagons creeping slowly along.

A military road led from this point to Fort Leavenworth, and for many miles the farms and cabins of the Delawares were scattered at short intervals on either hand.

A few hours' ride brought us to the banks of the river Kansas.

Not a breath of air stirred over the free and open prairie; the clouds were like light piles of cotton; and where the blue sky was visible, it wore a hazy and languid aspect.

Here society is reduced to its original elements, the whole fabric of art and conventionality is struck rudely to pieces, and men find themselves suddenly brought back to the wants and resources of their original natures.

Four men are missing; R., Sorel and two emigrants. They set out this morning after buffalo, and have not yet made their appearance; whether killed or lost, we cannot tell.

The reader need not be told that John Bull never leaves home without encumbering himself with the greatest possible load of luggage. Our companions were no exception to the rule.

We were now arrived at the close of our solitary journeyings along the St. Joseph's trail.

America, when it became known to Europeans, was, as it had long been, a scene of wide-spread revolution.

Many of the Iroquois and Huron houses were of similar construction, the partitions being at the sides only, leaving a wide passage down the middle of the house.

Crossing the Penobscot, one found a visible descent in the scale of humanity.

Fort Leavenworth is in fact no fort, being without defensive works, except two block-houses.

We were now, as I before mentioned, upon this St. Joseph's trail. It was evident, by the traces, that large parties were a few days in advance of us; and as we too supposed them to be Mormons, we had some apprehension of interruption.

Our New England climate is mild and equable compared with that of the Platte.

We were in all four men with eight animals; for besides the spare horses led by Shaw and myself, an additional mule was driven along with us as a reserve in case of accident.

The fortified towns of the Hurons were all on the side exposed to Iroquois incursions.

Early on the next morning we reached Kansas, about five hundred miles from the mouth of the Missouri.

We were soon free of the woods and bushes, and fairly upon the broad prairie.

It was a rich and gorgeous sunset - an American sunset; and the ruddy glow of the sky was reflected from some extensive pools of water among the shadowy copses in the meadow below.

The great medley of Oregon and California emigrants, at their camps around Independence, had heard reports that several additional parties were on the point of setting out from St. Joseph's farther to the northward.

Our military commanders have said over and over again that a timetable for withdrawal sends the wrong message to our troops, but more importantly to our enemy.

The successful establishment of a buffer zone around Fort Carson will provide an example for other bases around the country as we seek to protect the training mission of the U.S. military while preserving critical habitats on our ranges.

The sanctity of our battlefields, monuments, and veterans institutions is of utmost importance to preserve military history and pay respect to those who fought.

We won't always have the strongest military.

The real peril of war lies not in military defeat. It lies in war itself, whether we win or lose.

All of us who are convinced that our military needs all the support the government and public will provide are pleased that he will have his chance to do just that.

Can you imagine what Bush would say if someone like Hugo Chavez asked him for a little piece of land to install a military base, and he only wanted to plant a Venezuelan flag there?

I visited the Chinese side last year. The Chinese are in a constant state of military readiness. They have all their nuclear weapons in the area, presumably trained on targets across the border.

War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.

The decision to go to war is the most important decision that I can make as a representative in Congress. As a veteran, I see any potential military action first through the eyes of the young men and women who volunteered to wear the uniform and would carry out such a mission.

Since far fewer people are recruited to serve in a voluntary military, the connection between America and its military is increasingly tenuous and less personal.

In the recent years there have been criticisms levelled against Japan suggesting that she should offer more military forces to the United Nations forces and thereby play a more active role in the keeping and restoration of peace in various parts of the world.

We know that the decisions we reach will have a profound impact on the communities hosting our military installations, and more importantly, on the people who bring those communities to life.

The military lead turbulent lives, but they are people like everybody else.

We ought to recognize that we have an offensive responsibility to take the war to the terrorists where they are. That responsibility has waned in the last year as military and intelligence resources were withdrawn from Afghanistan and Pakistan to be used in Iraq.

An overstretched military undermines homeland security and our ability to meet threats around the world.

Everywhere that the struggle for national freedom has triumphed, once the authorities agreed, there were military coups d'etat that overthrew their leaders. That is the result time and time again.

The People's Republic of China has not yet reached the military might of the Soviet Empire. It requires a little more time and a little more infusion of Western aid, loans, technology and the hard currency of our tourists.

If you ask me to summarise our mission, I would put it this way: We were a military regime that sought to lay the foundations for freedom and liberty in a complex society.

There is a difference between a military mission and the aspiration for the long-term plans for the country. What we want is a stable enough Afghanistan, able to look after its own security so we can leave without the fear of it imploding... But let's be clear - it's not going to be perfect.

Fourth, we might have declared an embargo against the shipping from American ports of any merchandise to either one of these governments that persisted in maintaining its military zone.

You get a lawyer whether you're in a military tribunal or whether you're in a federal court, number one. The attorney general decided that the court with the biggest - with the greatest venue, with the best jurisdiction was the New York court. That was the right decision to make.

Normal military trade is undoubtedly part of the normal State-to-State relations.

To honor our national promise to our veterans, we must continue to improve services for our men and women in uniform today and provide long overdue benefits for the veterans and military retirees who have already served.

To the contrary, I believe the U.S. military has already done all that has been asked of them. Saddam Hussein is on trial. The threat from alleged weapons of mass destruction programs in Iraq has been neutralized.

In this ever-changing world, it's more important than ever that our top-notch military continues to receive the resources needed to serve and protect our country.

If the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government.

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.