I jump out of perfectly good airplanes, and it's a great thrill and it allows me to share in the dangers that our great men and women in uniform share in on a regular basis.

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.

I think that the American people should rest assured and be assured that every federal agency that has a role to play in this terrorism is working overtime now, taking every necessary action to protect our great citizens.

Well, I enjoy sharing in the dangers that we ask our men and women in uniform to share in almost every day.

Those are the things that, in the wrong hands - and certainly in our war on terrorism we also must attack proliferation and those nations that proliferate with chemical, biological and nuclear type devices, because that can cause the most catastrophic results.

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.

I'm not going to say whether I'm a Republican or a Democrat.

Whether or not you could actually increase the size of the force is something that will have to be determined.

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.

I feel very confident that Americans flying in the air are safe and that only under the most dire of circumstances would our pilots ever even request permission to do that.

Our people are working overtime - I say our people; our federal agencies in this regard - and that I'm confident that the way that you can stop this and make Americans the most protected for this is to take it to the terrorist groups.

It is changing the face of terrorism. It is basically bringing it to the United States, to our great citizens. We know the terrorists are barbaric and murderers that attack innocent civilians, as they did in this case.

I was, somewhere in the neighborhood of about 300 jumps.

Well, it has been rather hectic since the 11th of September. And even before then it was quite busy.

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.

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.

The first truth for special operations is that quality is more important than quantity.

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.

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

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 jump out of perfectly good airplanes, and it's a great thrill and it allows me to share in the dangers that our great men and women in uniform share in on a regular basis.

The standards to get in are very high. We don't want to lower those standards.

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 again, we, I think, over the years have set the example for a lot of nations that may not have had the same values, the same type of coming out of the same culture that we as Americans have and enjoy. But we can be an example, a role model for them.

But the other thing is that I feel very confident in the individual pilots. They are tremendous individuals. They are individuals that have sworn to protect and defend our very citizens. That's why we serve.

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

I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems to me that they are wonderful things for other people to go on.

The thing is helicopters are different from airplanes An airplane by it's nature wants to fly, and if not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or incompetent piloting, it will fly.

All my life, I've never been able to get enough airplanes. This will keep me flying every day.

My dad served in two wars has been flying airplanes for 60 years now. He was certainly quite an inspiration.

I realized that If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.

My wife had taken off on a plane. Two airplanes had crashed into the World Trade Center. I, of course, like any other person, felt potentially devastated, panicky a little bit.

I've had a chance to fly a lot of different airplanes, but it was nothing like the shuttle ride.

I want to bring passengers on my airplanes to present to them my product.

Before we had airplanes and astronauts, we really thought that there was an actual place beyond the clouds, somewhere over the rainbow. There was an actual place, and we could go above the clouds and find it.there.

After the loss of Columbia a couple of years ago, I think we were reminded of the risk. All of us, though, have always known that the Space Shuttle is a very risky vehicle, much more risky than even flying airplanes in combat.

I thought that automobiles were going to have mufflers and go fast and airplanes were going to fly fast.

Nine g's is good, if the pilot can stand it. We couldn't stand it. Not in the airplanes of World War II.

Airplanes are interesting toys, but of no military value.

We've got gays working there. If they can demonstrate long-term relationships, we make same-sex benefits available just as we do with common-law marriages. Gays are productive people. Some fly airplanes, some work in breweries.

There are aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion.

It is just called Continuing Legal Education. You can go to lectures, you can even listen to tapes on airplanes - they want you to stay current. So you do have to stay current to maintain your license even if you are not practicing.

Later, in the early teens, I used to ride my bike every Saturday morning to the nearest airport, ten miles away, push airplanes in and out of the hangars, and clean up the hangars.

My movies were the kind they show in prisons and airplanes, because nobody can leave.

The century of airplanes has a right to its own music.

I jump out of perfectly good airplanes, and it's a great thrill and it allows me to share in the dangers that our great men and women in uniform share in on a regular basis.

Airplanes may kill you, but they ain't likely to hurt you.