"Roadside bombs have claimed the lives of eight US soldiers today in Iraq." "Four troops were killed when an explosion struck their vehicle during combat north of Baghdad, while an airman was killed by another roadside bomb in Tikrit." "Two US soldiers were killed and three wounded when their unit was struck by a roadside bomb in Baghdad." "The death of an eighth soldier from a non-battle-related cause is under investigation." "At least 3,555 members of the US military have died since the Iraq War started back in 2003." "One more, that's it." "Thank you very much." "Thank you for coming in." "Thank you, sir." "Have a good meeting, sir." "Senator?" "Absolutely." "He's ready for you now, Ms. Roth." "Sorry?" "The Senator." "Oh!" "Okay." "Hi." "Good morning, Janine." "Only good thing about morning is it ends at noon." "Please, sit down." "Would you like some coffee, tea, water?" "No, thanks." "It's terrific to see you." "Thank you." "Thanks for coming in." "Senator?" "Marcia, could I have coffee, please?" "I read the story you did on the rise of image consultants in politics." "You did?" "I thought it was a good story, actually." "It was a different angle." "Thank you." "Are we waiting for your PR pit bull, or..." "No." "Just you and me." "Oh." "No one to intercept your trick questions." "One-on-one time." "Wow." "You were the first to call me the future of my party, and this is me returning the favor." "Well, it wasn't a favor." "It was just how I saw it eight years ago." "Well, nonetheless, grateful." "And considering the state of your party, how do you know the tag isn't pejorative?" "'Cause I got 77% of the vote." "Oh, yeah." "How could I forget?" "Yes." "You're aware that I'm doing this time line about this..." "Yeah, you're doing a detailed time line on the War on Terror, and I bet, if it's like every other time line that's come out this past year," "It'll be the opening salvo of a much larger retrospective of mistakes made." "Or it could just be a simple list of facts." "From which you all will pick and choose." "You don't trust us." "I trust you." "And that's why we're here." "To discuss what, exactly?" "To see if you'd like to write an honest-to-God story again, instead of reminding the few paying attention that we've been fighting a tough war for six years." "Who gets the Peabody for that?" "What's the story?" "It's about a new plan going into motion in Afghanistan." "Afghanistan?" "A new plan?" "A new plan that will win both the war and, as cliché as this might sound, the hearts and minds of the people." "What's the plan?" "Obviously, I won't be at liberty to tell you everything." "National security, of course." "But enough so that you might write a story about what we're doing in Afghanistan now." "Not six years ago, but now, and how those efforts can culminate into actual victory." "Uh-huh." "What is this?" "This?" "This meeting." "This is my honest effort to keep the press better informed." "And to change the subject from the past to the future." "Acknowledge mistakes and talk openly about ways of fixing them, step by step." "How much time do we have together?" "I have till 11:00." "The whole hour?" "Wow." "You all must be panicked." "Oh, no, no, no." "We're determined." "Listen up." "Hooah!" "Lieutenant Finch, you and your boys good?" "Roger that, sir." "How's that knee?" "Ready for that 15-mile hike." "Glad to hear it." "Rodriguez?" "All up, sir." "All right, good." "I want you to take notes, I want you to ask questions." "Good news first." "Al Qaeda and the Taliban have been whittled down to small wolf packs, so do not believe everything you read in the papers." "We've successfully pounded the enemy into something much smaller and more impotent than when we first got here." "That's good." "The bad news." "We have yet to step on their throats." "We've yet to close." "The longer we don't, the harder it gets." "Remember your von Clausewitz," ""Never engage the same enemy for too long, or he will..."" "Adapt to your tactics, sir." "He will adapt to your tactics." "That is correct." "Case in point, INTSUM is reporting that Al Qaeda in the Badakhshan province is attempting to open up a new front." "Locals up there can't handle the fight, sir?" "See, that's really the whole problem." "There's nobody up there strong enough to fight this enemy, and Karzai sure as shit ain't gonna let any of these guys go home now." "Sir, why is the enemy doing this now?" "What is clearly happening is that the enemy is bent on establishing themselves as a legitimate fighting force for the people again." "Sir, these guys don't grow on trees." "So where they coming from?" "They're going door to door." "They're asking families to give up their sons." "If they don't give up their sons, their sons are executed in front of the families." "That's number one." "N umber two is Iraq." "Qaeda and the Tali are starting to funnel battle-tested fighters..." "Funnel through where, though, sir?" "Well, that I can't tell you." "I ain't gonna answer that question." "'Cause you already know too much." "So, Jihadi and Wahhabi terrorists are moving through Shiite territory, sir?" "Suffice it to say, the enemy is getting stronger and the enemy is getting uglier." "It is time for us to get back into their fucking kitchen." "We are gonna put our foot on their throats." "You are going to air assault into the Badakhshan province." "You will set up an operating camp here at Pamela Left, a forward operating point." "An 8,000-foot peak offering 360 degree views of the valley below." "The enemy is gonna want it just as badly as we do, so we've been ordered to take it first, before the snow thaws." "If you'll check your maps, you'll see there's a suitable LZ." "You all got that?" "Roger that, sir." "Hooah." "You will set up camp, you will set up comms, you will set up sat links." "You will patiently wait, and if fortunate enough to engage the enemy, you will introduce them to the full measure of American Mean." " Are we clear?" " Hooah." "Dress warm." "We're being pushed awfully fast here, aren't we, sir?" "Yep?" " Morning." " Morning." " You want it closed?" "Or..." " What's your guess, Todd?" "You want it closed?" "Or..." "What's your guess, Todd?" "You know this is unethical, making me bring you some coffee." "No more than making me look at that shirt." "Doc." "This here's a genuine Reyn Spooner." "This is $89. 99." "Or was it $69.00..." "Yeah?" "Well, well, I take it all back, then." "Yeah, please." "So why'd I ask you to come in this early with a gift?" "Well, you know, my sporadic absences." "Kind of sounds like the title of a book about your semester so far, doesn't it?" "That's good, yeah." "Yeah, I don't know, Doc." "I just..." "I have never, ever been this busy in my life." "What with?" "Wow, just like all my other classes..." "This is your major." "And there's also a young lady, too." "Yeah?" "Uh-huh." "Is this the one that you jockey to sit next to when you do come to my class?" "No." "What else is keeping you busy?" "President of my fraternity." "Hey." "Well, hail to the chief." "Uh-huh." "Come on, now." "You were in a house." "Right?" "Yeah." "Gotta remember how busy it can get." "Oh, yeah." "With the four-day weekends and the 30-minute study sessions." "Yeah, no." "That's not what I mean." "Well, you asked me what I remembered." "All right." "So, what?" "You don't think that school should be as social as it is academic, kinda like getting two educations?" "Well, I think if you can't balance the two, you shouldn't be here." "I also think that most of the kids that argue that one out loud are the guys with the 2.4s trying to justify" "30 grand a year for all those C's." "Okay, my friend." "You've aced a lot of the exams you've shown up for, but you've only been to eight classes this semester." "Now, that'd be a hall of fame run, if we only met once a week." "So, attendance is part of my grade all of a sudden?" "Hey, Todd?" "Would you take a solid B for the rest of this semester?" "No plus, no minus, just a straight blue-collar B?" "I'll get that to you." "Right here." "Right now." "It's no bullshit." "A B for what?" "For not coming to another class." "For not writing or reading one word I assign to you." "For not signing up for any more of my classes for the rest of your time here." "A B for nothing, huh?" "You nod yes, and this meeting's over." "Half the fucking class would kill for that deal." "But I'm not meeting with any of them." "Think I know what you're doing." "There's another deal." "Two parts." "Both non-negotiable." "First part, you show up every day, every class, from here on out." "And second, you sit there and you let me tell you about the last two kids I had that gave me hope." "Maybe that'll explain why I called you in this morning." "And Tango, what are you guys doing?" "We're just fluttering." "Base turn to follow." "And ground..." " Hey, Texas." " Here, 203, bro." "Yeah, I gotcha." "Hey, check this out!" "You got the reaction time of a fetus." "Whoa, whoa!" "There we go." "Friendly skies, baby." "How can you be more afraid of clouds than bullets?" "'Cause I'd rather take a bullet than a fall." "You think you fast?" "This is a very high-minded goal you've set for yourselves in Afghanistan." "Yes, it is a high-minded goal." "But this goal for the future of Afghanistan is just a lot of hot air, unless we solve the military problem first." "Our Special Forces soldiers are going to take the high ground in key positions throughout Afghanistan before the snow thaws, allowing the enemy mobility." "And the military part has to come first, why?" "Because only after we've eradicated the enemy can we then get down to the true nuts-and-bolts work of keeping this new democracy breathing." "So it's basically kill people to help people?" "No." "No, that's not what I said." "I said "the enemy."" "Don't take that out of context." "Sorry, I was just trying to..." "Yeah, I know what you're trying... boil it down." "So, in 2002, I remember you said something like," ""The Taliban's back is forever broken."" "And then big applause." ""Mission accomplished." Right." "Writ small." "Mistake." "Mistake?" "Because we now know the enemy with broken backs can still crawl." "And we also know that the enemy learned their lesson from that first back-breaking." "So, you're taking for granted there's gonna be a second back-breaking?" "Would we be having this meeting if I didn't?" "Is this how the rest of the hour's gonna go, Janine?" "I'm just asking questions." "Senator, can you just give me one example of the enemy having learned a lesson?" "They've woken up to the fact that we're fighting on two fronts." "Uh-huh?" "And history does tend to punish that kind of hubris, right?" "So, we're launching this new strategy using the military as the opening punch." "Taking the high ground is key." "Whoever takes it owns the ability to observe, the prerogative to attack and the opportunity to preside." "So..." "Preside?" "It's why the Romans built forts." "You establish a constant presence, or you'll have constant violence." "So, we're gonna be there for good, like Romans?" "I said constant, not permanent." "Oh." "We have to have the same patience and determination as these insurgents, or they'll simply outlast us." "And this security allows us to build those schools and the clinics." "It's going to bring clean water supply..." "But where's NATO in all this?" "Good question." "Where are they?" "We can't wait for them to decide when they might act, so we put this new strategy into motion now." "And why now?" "Why not a year ago?" "Two years, three years?" "Two reasons." "First reason, the satellites and drones are not nearly as omniscient as they're marketed to be." "Anybody knows that." "You just Google "Predator" or "Global Hawk"..." "The second reason's ugly." "Ugly?" "What is that, code for "off the record"?" "For the time being, yeah." "Okay." "Iran." "Iran?" "What are they doing now?" "Outside of building nuclear weapons, talking to North Korea, and telling Israel they don't know what a real Holocaust looks like?" "They're allowing Wahhabi insurgents to hike from Iraq to Afghanistan using the most direct route possible." "Across the countryside of Iran." "Is that confirmed?" "By their denials." "Proof there truly is a new axis of evil." "Wow." "1,300 years of murder between the Sunnis and Shias getting back-burnered now so they can kill more Americans in more places." "Hey, are we still off the record?" "Because this really is..." "This is a story." "That's negotiable." "You see what I'm saying?" "These radicals are uniting against us." "Now, we need to remind the American people who their enemies are." "Okay, you have proof that they are uniting against us, or are you saying that there may be some potential at some point..." "No, no, no." "Don't, don't, don't underestimate how frightening a development this is." "Now, this is a significant threat to the security of our nation, and you can quote me on this." "Now that Iran has nuclear potential, we simply cannot allow this to escalate." "When you say nuclear, it just sounds like the same kind of fear-mongering that led up to..." "Your position affords you the luxury of that opinion." "Mine does not." "It is my responsibility." "It's part of my job description to protect the American people." "Mmm-hmm." "And that is why we put this new strategy into motion now." "So when does it start?" "Ten minutes ago." "Heads up." "Sir, we're two minutes out." "Two minutes!" "Lock and load!" "That's an old A.A. Right there." "Anti-aircraft gun on the ridge." "NODs!" "It's all good, sir." "Drones took pictures last night." "It's an old, rusty 23-millimeter with spiked barrels." "Good eye, though." "Rusted and spiked." "Inoperable." "Spiked?" "By who?" "Point is, it can't shoot." "What?" "An old A.A. Gun that can't shoot could make for a nasty trap." "Sir, I see this kinda junk from the air all the time." "That's why we call this place "Trash-gani..."" "Medic!" "Man down!" "Man down!" "What direction?" "What direction?" "We are taking fire!" "Mayday!" "Mayday!" "Give me your finger!" "Give me your finger!" "Turn towards it." "Turn towards it." "Turn in towards it!" "Land!" "Land, land!" "Land!" "What are their names again?" "Ernest and Arian." "Wait." "Like "Master Race" Aryan?" "Well, he spelled it with an "l" instead of a "Y."" "What's your point?" "You looked up "irony," huh?" "What?" "You know?" "A guy named Arian, he could only be" "African American." "What difference does that make?" "Stay focused on the American part." "All right." "So they played ball, huh?" "It was the only way they could afford to come here." "Scholarship athletes?" "You wanna come up with two guys more different than me?" "What?" "You know, professors aren't teachers, they're salesmen." "Okay." "So what do you sell?" "You, to you." "But, you know, you don't have to do me any favors, Doc." "And why is that, Todd?" "Why don't you have to do me any favors?" "Why don't you care anymore?" "Well, how do you know I cared before?" "Just because I showed up to your class?" "Yeah." "You not only showed up, you got involved." "You read everything I assigned." "You were hungry." "You leaned into those lectures." "You went for the jugular in every debate." "Now my question to you is, why not anymore?" "I already answered you." "A lot of things." "Girls, fraternity, a social life..." "Bullshit." "Come on." "Hey, Todd, come on." "Go on." "Don't wanna hurt your feelings." "Hey, we got an hour." "Don't waste a second on worrying about my feelings." "I'm not worrying about yours." "Thanks." "You should write Hallmark cards." "Okay, go on." "Say it." "All right, all right." "Political science, Doc..." "What's scientific about it, outside of maybe the psychology behind how much shit voters will swallow before they notice?" "Science part, it's really only about how to win." "Not how to govern, not how to make anybody any better, just how to win." "No matter how stupid or two-faced or criminal you gotta make yourself look." "Give me an example." "Okay, like presidential candidates now." "They announce their candidacy by standing in front of a large audience and loudly saying they will not run for president." "You know?" "Yeah, I do." "Yeah." "What is that shit?" "It's as old as time." "No, I don't think so." "'Cause you..." "Okay, you had me when we were studying the old philosophers." "Greeks?" "I mean, Doc, you had me." "They were awesome." "But somewhere..." "Somewhere you lost me." "I don't know." "Have you ever been to Greece?" "No." "No, of course not." "Otherwise you'd know, their government makes ours look like a streamlined vision of the future." "Well, isn't that my point?" "Socrates, Plato, Aristotle." "They can't fix things, what the hell is Todd Hayes gonna do?" "Bitch." "Quit." "Hey, look, I'm gonna pay my taxes." "All right?" "I'm gonna obey traffic lights." "I'm gonna give..." "Gee." "That's super." "I was thinking about something bigger." "Something bigger?" "Bigger like what?" "Like, like "be a congressman" bigger?" "Well, that's bigger." "Oh, yeah." "Super." "And then I get to be one of those turds in DC, and I do mean pure pieces of shit, who make our laws?" "I get to be a dough boy who parts his hair the same side as everyone else." "The guy who never says anything even though he never stops talking." "Do I get to be the guy who lectures you on morality while a page jacks me off under the table?" "Yeah, please." "The guy who funnels away a million that doesn't belong to him and then bawls like an evangelist when he gets caught." "And how many never get caught, Doc?" "Hey, if that's something bigger than being a good Joe with a good job, fuck it." "Yeah, that's where you lost me." "You almost convinced me." "Almost convinced me." "What?" "That you really know what you're talking about." "You're great with words, Todd." "But you know what would make them even better is that they had a heartbeat." "If they were rooted in any kind of experience." "If you had knocked on doors, licked envelopes, been to a damn public rally." "Just put yourself on the line in any meaningful way." "Licking envelopes." "That's putting myself on the line, huh?" "Infinitely more than just talking." "Ernie?" "Brother!" "Pamela Left is hot." "How hot?" "Chinook took hits from small arms, RPGs." "You talking to the pilots?" "And they have dead and wounded on board." "And they didn't land at their objective." "Where did they land?" "Three kilometers south on the plateau." "Chopper's fucked for good." "Two men missing." "Missing?" "Lead with that, who's missing?" "Finch and Rodriguez." "Consensus on the chopper is that they fell out over a small ridge short of the planned LZ." "No guessing on whether or not they survived." "Ernie?" "Brother?" "Arian?" "You fucking idiot." "How bad are you?" "Bad!" "Can you get to me?" "I'm stuck." "My leg's jammed." "Hang on!" "I'll launch the rescue chopper." "Get them in the air but vector them halfway between Pamela Left and us." "We are not gonna put them in that same gauntlet." "Put them in a holding pattern till we know what's going on." "Can we see anything?" "You got a Predator up?" "I don't know for how long." "Cold front's still coming." "G2 says it's packing big snow, maybe 70-mile-an-hour winds." "It's fucked." "All right, I want to see as much as I can for as long as I can." "What's the ETA on getting a fast mover out there?" "I got a Warthog that'll take 20, 25 minutes to get out there, but the margin of safety..." "Just scramble it, do it." "I would love to talk to the motherfucker that said this mountaintop was secure." "Afghan terrain demands that small specialized teams establish forward operating points." "I've heard of "forward operating bases,"" "but not "forward operating points."" ""Point" sounds smaller than "base."" "Because it is." "What?" "Just, come on, say it." "Sorry, no." "I just..." "It also sounds like Pentagonese for "bait."" "Janine." "It's not like we're putting one or two guys on the mountain here." "All right?" "But small is how we fight now." "Mmm-hmm." "Says the man in the air-conditioned room." "This is a fight that we're in." "And, unfortunately, civilizations do not sustain themselves through non-violent responses." "What does that mean?" "Are you going to now forgo diplomacy and State Department treaties, too?" "We were attacked." "You do not respond to an attack with diplomacy." "Bin Laden's idea of diplomacy is not filming the beheadings." "Saddam violated 16 U N resolutions and the U N responded by issuing 30-plus sternly worded statements condemning his behavior." "All the while France, China and Russia continued to trade with Saddam under the table." "And didn't we also arm Saddam in the '80s?" "But here we are now." "Yes, here we are now." "And don't you think it might be critical to examine how we got to this point?" "How and why is not the issue now." "We have to move forward." "We're fighting a brand of evil that thinks the last 1,300 years of human progress is heresy punishable by violent death." "Now, if that's something that you don't feel should be wiped..." "Me?" "I would like to see bin Laden dead and gone as much as anybody, but I just don't understand how you can not want to look at the past." "Not think it's critical." "What is critical, what is relevant, is the implementation of a new strategy that will win this war." "A war we cannot lose." "But we're not winning it." "Yet." "This new strategy can change that." "How about a strategy to bring the troops home?" "So leave?" "That's not an option?" "Okay, let's play this out." "We walk and Afghanistan reverts back to the Taliban." "Only now the Taliban has metastasized into something infinitely more vicious and potent because they're now 2-0 versus superpowers." "They butcher the people who helped us, who voted, who were stupid enough to put their faith in our word." "So call it not only the end of hope for tens of millions of Afghans but the end of American credibility, the end of America as a force for righteousness in the world." "When did America become..." "And when we're forced to go back in a couple of years, and please quote me on this, we'll be squared off against a shattered Iraq, a hopeless Afghanistan, and a nuclear Iran." "How many troops are we gonna need then?" "I guarantee you'll be adding some zeros." "Wait." "May I speak freely?" "You're about to implement another new strategy regardless of the human cost or the financial cost because you predict that maybe..." "We thought deeply about the human cost when we were planning this strategy." "What were your estimates exactly?" "What I can say is that this strategy has patience and determination at its core." "It ensures that it puts our fighting men in spots where they can face, fight and kill the enemy, so that we can then go about rebuilding that country." "And if it takes ten years, that's how long we stay." "We do whatever it takes." "Whatever it takes." "Then why did it take three years to up-armor our Humvees?" "They're up-armored now, at my constant urging." "Add-ons don't provide the same protection, Senator." "You know that." "And why does the President insist on spending billions on subs and fighter planes that are completely useless in this kind of war?" "What do you think I'm working on?" "And why do we send 150,000 troops to a country that did not attack us?" "And one-tenth that number to the one that did?" "How many times are you people going to ask the same question?" "Till we get the answer." "Okay, here goes." "Iraq was almost a First World country." ""Was" is the operative tense." "We took it quick because we had numbers." "Afghanistan was, is, and always will be the definition of rugged Third World." "Big numbers have bogged down there since before" "Alexander became "the Great."" "We "took" Iraq?" "How did I miss that?" "Militarily, we did." "We made mistakes." "Colossal mistakes." "That should never be forgotten." "But six years ago, who could have known what to do or when to do it after watching our jets fly into our buildings?" "Do you remember how petrified we were at what our enemies might do for an encore?" "And how, all at once, everything was at risk." "Families, friends, and kindergartens, rivers and bridges, nuclear plants." "Do you remember how terror colored that next morning in shades we'd never seen before?" "Mmm-hmm." "And tens of thousands have died since because of that fear and the mistakes it inspired." "But the question I'm left with, the question that keeps me up at night because I have to answer it, is, "What do we do now?"" "Shit." "First platoon?" "Two roger bob, roger five." "My God." "They're moving in." "Yeah, we're leaving our radio on and we're still waiting to hear from the last two." "Do you have the temperature radar on?" "They're alive." "Okay." "Okay." "It's just snow blowing!" "Watch my flank." "Get me the A-10 pilot." "I want a goddamn ETA." "They just said 18 minutes." "That was seven minutes ago, I wanna talk to the pilot now." "Sir, the rescue bird is in its holding pattern waiting for your word." "All right." "So, what?" "Ernest and Arian, they volunteered?" "Is that a question or an accusation?" "All right, it's just a question." "Yes, they volunteered." "They're like adrenaline types, like, they like it extreme." "Those kind of guys?" "No, no." "Ernie and Arian aren't adrenaline types." "What I was talking about was fearless." "Being terrified but willing yourself to the next step." "It's courage, right?" "But of the real kind." "What are you afraid of, Todd?" "Most everybody's afraid of not getting a job or moving in with their parents or student loan payments looming." "Yeah, that all scares me, too, Doc." "Or the voice in your head that keeps asking really awful questions, like, "Should I be doing more with my gifts?"" ""Am I making the most out of my time here on this planet?"" "Think everybody asks themselves those kinda questions." "A lot of us are afraid of the answers." "Do you remember the second or third lecture you ever had with me?" "And I called you out of the blue?" "You sat way over to the side where most of you guys sit when you don't wanna be called on to talk?" "You know, close enough to have commitment, but just far enough away where I can't see you to call on you." "It's called embarrassment." "You asked me what I thought about the reading, and I just said, "I didn't do the reading."" "But on reflex, no excuses, no bullshit, honest." "I was just terrified." "But you willed yourself to the next step." "And do you remember the subject we were discussing?" "What that reading was all about?" "I try to block embarrassing moments out, don't you?" "It was about that clinic they were opening up on Adams." "They were passing out clean, free needles to addicts." "Mmm-hmm." "And a class of 80 people thought that that was a pretty good idea." "They thought, yeah, stop spreading of disease and maybe cut crime a bit, and you said..." "Look, if we're gonna spend tax dollars, our tax dollars, to help people break the law in a safer way, why don't we have a designated drunk-driver lane on the highway, too?" "What?" "What?" "It's a much bigger problem than IV drug use." "And it's the exact same logic." "You're talking economics." "Yeah, I'm talking economics, and I'm also talking about safety." "No, no." "Wait a minute." "You just admitted you didn't even read the assignment." "I know, I didn't." "But I can still think." "I've still got a brain." "He's right." "He's right?" "No, no." "Yeah, well, you know." "I can kick a hornet's nest with the best of them, Doc." "Yeah, but the kid who didn't read the assignment and admitted it becomes the center of one of the most interesting debates" "I've ever been a part of." "Where did that kid go?" "So I take it to mean you think that the number of troops that we have in Afghanistan now is enough." "I do." "And a big part of why we're able to do more with less in Afghanistan, outside of the precise intel that we have in the area, is the superior nature of our Special Forces." "I mean, these guys, these guys are pros." "Mmm-hmm." "It really reminds me of Abrams, in '68." "Abrams?" "Abrams." "H uh?" "Yeah." "Remember?" "Mmm-hmm." "How long ago was that?" "Can't get the Vietcong to engage in big fights, so we'll send out smaller groups so that they can't resist ambushing us." "At least we'll be fighting." "Fifty-eight thousand names say that new strategy didn't work out so well." "What is your problem with evolution?" "With utterly capable platoons of Special Forces soldiers surgically ferreting out the enemy?" "Again, platoons are small." "Again, small is the point." "Abrams." "What, do you TiVo the History Channel?" "No." "'68 was my first year reporting." "It was my college newspaper." "Liberal rag?" "Yeah." "I never lost my taste for it." "Lucky me." "1968." "Yeah, you were six." "But reading at a sixth-grade level." "40 years in this racket." "You don't have to say the duration out loud." "40 years means you should have enough salt to know that we're at a tipping point." "Now, the American people need to understand it is not only our choice to stop these insurgents, but our moral obligation." "We simply cannot allow their form of evil and terror to spread." "And through precise military action, we will take the essential first step." "First step?" "But what have we been doing for the past six years, Senator?" "You know, World War I I took less than five." "Roll over." "I gotta see your leg." "See if it's compounded." "Oh, God." "Don't black out." "Okay." "You need a tourniquet." "I'm one-handed." "Man." "Push through, brother." "Push through." "Shit." "Rescue's coming." "There's nothing debatable about it, Janine." "The job is not done." "But, Senator, the American people, if they're going to accept yet another new strategy," "I think, want more than just vague admissions of past mistakes." "Can you tell me, in your own words, exactly where you think we went wrong?" "Worst intel in our history." "Decision-makers who've never bled in a fight." "Bad PR." "Bad PR?" "You guys had a heyday with Abu Ghraib." "That was quite the meal ticket." "Have you ever bled in a fight?" "Intelligence." "Six years." "But not the infantry, right?" "You know this." "I graduated first in my class at West Point." "I excelled at intelligence." "Are you asking me to apologize for an achievement?" "No, no, no." "I would never do that." "You know, here we are, having a high-minded debate about war and policy, and it just occurred to me that you're not gonna be able to fit a real story in between those" ""home of the free, land of the obese"" "exposes and all your network's entertainment coverage." "Well..." "Maybe if I keep my fingers crossed" "I might get a seven-second mention from that focus-group-created anchor of yours with the big hair." "Forgive me, it's Summer Hernandez-Kawalski?" "Is that her real name?" "Mmm-hmm." "What happened to you guys?" "When did you all become a windsock?" "A what?" "Windsock." "Blows with the prevailing breeze." "When did you start confusing majority opinion with the right opinion?" "Sort of like when we supported going into Iraq?" "Supported?" "No, no, no." "You guys sold it." "Your network led every report about the invasion of Iraq with a digital screen-sized flag, the square-jawed saluting Marine, and the bald eagle soaring to Aaron Copland." "That's because we believed and you believed that Iraq was a legitimate enemy, and you asked us for the benefit of the doubt..." "They are a legitimate enemy." "Because we have troops in harm's way, so we gave that to you." "Your network provided that benefit without a blush." "We gave it to you." "We both..." "Janine?" "We both put our fighting men at risk." "Now, I've admitted my mistakes." "When will you?" "Call from Senator Skilken on line two." "Thank you." "Ask him to wait a second, please." "You know, in a sense, we're on the same team." "We're teammates." "We both have a responsibility." "You've already sold the war." "Now I'm asking you to help me sell the solution." "Excuse me, I have to take this call." "Could use the phone in here." "Do you think I want to let you hear me beg for money?" "Why are they waiting?" "May be trying to take us alive." "Figuring out how." "Breathe!" "Breathe." "Okay, Team One gets to set the bar." "And the topic they've pulled..." ""What foreign relations theory or concept can best be applied" ""here at home to greater effect?"" "Dude, thank God it's not us." "Okay, Team One, you're up." "15 minutes, flame or fame." "That's good." "Man!" "Hey." "Hey!" "What?" "You okay?" "You ready to do this?" "Yeah." "Breathe." "I'm breathing." "Breathe." "No, no, no, you gotta forgive my boy." "He's so desperate to get my dumb ass a good grade he's either gonna shit his pants or swallow his tongue." "You know why they cut affirmative action?" "It was his G PA." "So what about you, Doc?" "What about me?" "Well, those who can't do, teach." "Seriously, is being a professor doing the most with what you were given?" "Are these your gifts?" "You got me." "You know, 30 years ago I had a whole different idea about what this job was gonna be." "I was gonna publish theories that would change the thousands that read them." "The university fathers were gonna be so impressed with me that they would offer me season tickets on the 50 just to make sure I stayed." "Jesus." "That's some elaborate daydreams there." "Yeah." "Aren't they?" "Yeah." "Papers I do get published don't get read." "Students do come to me for advice, but the school still spells my name wrong on memos and mail." "So, what?" "You still here for the money?" "The money?" "God, no." "No." "I'm still here, Todd, because I'm a selfish man." "I'm selfish for the very rare times when you really know you have someone in one of your classes that has rare gifts to go on and do big things on a big scale." "I realize that my gifts aren't my theories, but my ability to recognize great potential in others, and maybe give them a little shove when they need it." "You think I'm one of those people?" "What do you think?" "Ernest and Arian, they were able to show you they were rare?" "Like, every day?" "Just enough to erase doubt." "No, no." "The only real difference between you and them, Todd, is that you're a naturally gifted student." "They weren't." "They had to work their asses off." "Didn't come easy for them, like you." "That, and they could also hit 90-mile-an-hour fastballs?" "Hey, I'll trade them, Doc." "No, they'd trade you." "They went to these high schools in the area around where they grew up." "Godforsaken places that bear no resemblance to the schools you or I went to." "Metal detectors on every door, and teachers carrying Mace." "And these awful places did them not one favor." "Saw the same thing when I was in Vietnam." "What?" "The first guys to sign up to fight are the very ones this country really doesn't treat that well." "And here are Ernest and Arian, growing up in these neighborhoods where people butcher each other for the most simple-minded shit." ""You were raised in a neighborhood two blocks south from" ""where I was raised instead of north." Bam!" ""The rims on your car are better than mine." Bam!" "And what do they do after they scrape themselves up and get out of these places in one piece?" "They go out to fight for the very country that all but ignores these neighborhoods unless there's a riot or a drive-by epidemic." "Then on the flip side, you got kids that can take advantage of every single gift this country has." "Just like me, right?" "And usually they're the first ones to take a big step back when it comes time for volunteers." "Are you recruiting me?" "Recruiting you?" "You sold the army to Ernest and Arian and now you're trying to sell it to me." "Three guys in that photo never came home." "One guy's in prison for life." "You wanna know what the worst wound I ever got was?" "Fifty-four stitches protesting in Chicago after I came home." "I did just the opposite of recruiting Ernest and Arian." "Did I like what they did?" "No." "Did I agree with what they did?" "No." "In fact, it broke my heart." "But that doesn't mean I don't revere the reasons they went." "They took action because they believed the best way to change things in this country was to go fight for it." "Engagement." "Engagement is the foreign relations concept that we would like to apply here at home." "We're pretty good with it abroad." "Cur Secretary of State has traveled more miles than any in history, and we have more embassies than ever." "To your first point, isn't that just because of easy access to jets?" "And to the second, aren't there just more countries now to put embassies in?" "We can choose not to fly those jets and we can choose not to recognize any new country, but choosing to do so, I guess, is engagement." "Again, we're pretty good with engagement outside of our country, even though we've had some big failures." "Like?" "Like 9/11 and Rwanda." "Somalia." "There's a communist country 90 miles outside of Miami." "And we just need a lot more than 15 minutes to talk about that." "Yeah, well, no country's perfect." "Every country should wanna be better." "Look, homeboy, if you cool with that, we would like to use the rest of the time we have left to focus on engagement and how we see it abroad and we don't see the same on our streets." "Now, we totally turned away from the biggest problems here at home, even though the best way to double the size of the problem is just to turn your back on it." "Yeah, so who knew?" "America needs to do more." " We do." " Why?" "We do." "Like, do away with your junior year of high school." "And there's three options instead of just going to school." "You get a Peace Corps year abroad, an AmeriCorps year here in one of the 500 poorest zip codes, or an ROTC-like apprenticeship here or abroad, but everybody picks one, and nobody gets a note from Mom." "Man, come on." "Is this another joke?" "No, man." "Was democracy a joke?" "It's the truth." "Was civil rights a joke?" "How about every junior then also learns to march in formation, and we invade our neighbors?" "We would get lost on the way." "Oh, man." "Listen, 73% of all California freshmen cannot name the country that borders Minnesota." "Can you?" "77% of all US freshmen cannot name both senators from their home state." "And 50% of all 8th graders can't write or do math at 8th-grade levels." "And when 25% of our workers didn't function, we called it a Great Depression." "Now, what do we call 50% of our students not functioning?" "A Greater Depression?" "And Canada borders Minnesota." "That's the smartest thing you've said all day." "Yeah, but what about cost?" "I think he means, "How ridiculous" ""and infeasible would they be?"" "I mean, come on..." "Not as ridiculous as the nine grand we spend per student per year." "Nine grand times, what, 3.8 million juniors?" "That's 34 billion dollars, man." "34 billion dollars." "We spend two billion dollars more now than we did five years back." "And for worse results." "Who wouldn't wanna be part of an experience where it's not about your race, it's not about your wealth, not even where you come from." "Common only because we're American." "I guarantee you that would make us better for life." "And the shame is, we don't get that type of level playing ground, not in this country, unless there's a draft." "So I'd have to stay in school a year longer?" "You've been here eight years, bro." "We could all..." "With all the degrees and all the money we're gonna make, go hide in a big house with high walls." "When hasn't a big house with high walls been the American dream?" " Good point." " Uh-huh." "July 5, 1776." "What about December 8, 1941?" "September 12, 2001?" "So you two don't wanna go to Harvard Law or Stanford Business after you graduate here?" "You don't wanna make money?" "I say bullshit." "I think it's totally hypocritical for you to just talk this giant game." "Let's do this." "All right." "What?" "They gotta be kidding." "Whoa." "That's weird." "Are they kidding?" " No way." " Is that serious?" "Thank you." "Thank you." "Doc, what's going on with you?" "Look like you getting ulcers over there." "No." "I've had the ulcers." "Question is whether or not they're bleeding." "You gotta stop worrying, thinking that that project made us enlist." "It didn't." "I don't believe that." "Come on, you guys." "You two could pick any grad school in any field you want." "$200,000 in the hole the day you graduate." "Loan forgiveness programs?" "Yeah, there are programs, but they're not as forgiving as they advertise." "Arian's doing a lot of talking for both of you." "You think he did the math all by himself?" "Doc, you're the one who told us not to live over a safety net." "I didn't think that was gonna translate to you guys heading out to a war." "If I did, I would've cut my tongue out." "I think you're missing the point, Doc." "Yeah." "Why?" "Because I can't see the army as a better gig than graduate schools most students would give an arm to get into?" "No, because you're not seeing that if we did anything else, we wouldn't be a part of the most important things going on right now." "Doc, these events are gonna define our lives." "Just the same way Vietnam did for yours." "I didn't enlist." "I was drafted." "World War I," "German soldiers wrote poems about the bravery of British grunts, admired them, almost as much as they laughed at the British high command who wasted those same grunts by the hundreds of thousands." "German general wrote," ""Nowhere else have I seen such lions led by such lambs."" "Gosh, that statement is so dead-on right now." "These starched collars that started this war, that are running it now, nowhere near the best and the brightest, not even in the same galaxy." "They're the ones that, when some of our men are blown to bits in the middle of a gun battle, say shit like," ""The enemy may have bloodied our nose," ""but we're learning from our mistakes."" "We agree." "What's the problem?" ""So, what's the problem?" What are you talking about?" "Yeah, I mean, we already know how the system works." "Guys, think." "Think!" "We've thought that far ahead." "Because it's going badly makes it even more important, Doc." "I don't..." "What do you mean?" "We wouldn't have spent three weeks in school on Nixon without Watergate." "If we killed bin Laden on 9/12, or if Iraqi Shiites greeted us with a ticker-tape parade, we would never have to think about things like, "Who are these people?"" ""Does religion really preach murder?"" ""Do they really need a dictator to stop" ""themselves from massacring each other?"" "The greatest military in history can't catch three guys." "Come on." "And how do you preach democracy and still send billions to Saudi kings who are the furthest thing from it?" "So just load yourselves into the breech, huh?" "Or sit on the bench." "The men who lead are the ones that do work when there's work to be done." "Will you step up when you're needed, or will you just sit back and let the other people do the lifting for you?" "They're just simple questions." "With potentially really awful answers." "Guys, trust me." "Please trust that if I thought this fight was worth the sweat, I'd back you." "I would." "But what about stepping up here?" "Changing policy at home?" "Look, we go do this now, then we come back and go to school." "On the army's dime." "Then we can do something." "Black and Mexican combat vets with an education." "Goddamn!" "No debt to dictate what we do next." "They gotta listen to us then, Doc." "We can change things." "If." "So why isn't Tali just rushing them?" "Finishing it?" "'Cause we're worth more captured than killed." "The pilot." "ETA to my boys." "Nineteen minutes, sir." "All right, when you get there, you shoot straight." "I want you to apprise the rescue chopper of all of this." "You tell them we got an A-10 bomber moving in there to attempt to clean it out, but they are heading into a still-hot LZ with exposed friendlies." "I want you to make sure that this is heading the correct way up the command chain." "You understand me?" "You tell them this is not as easy as it looks 9,000 miles away." "Janine?" "I'm sorry to keep you waiting." "There's a vote up now, so I..." "Can I just..." "In 1991 my network, ANX, was bought by a corporation best known for selling soap and light bulbs." "And overnight we went from a news organization preoccupied with gathering news, to a business unit preoccupied with ad revenue and ratings." "A windsock." "And I knew it." "When I signed my contract, I knew." "But I thought I could keep my autonomy, you know." "I thought that little raise they gave me meant they were still committed to hard news, but, anyway..." "Janine." "Sit." "Please." "Thank you for that." "It's just the truth." "How can I..." "How can I verify the results of this mission?" "You're not gonna be embedding press with these troops, are you?" "No, no, no." "There's no room." "Right." "Special Forces travel fast and light, but I can provide the infrared and the gun-camera footage." "That's great." "That's great." "Those are always the most popular downloads from our website." "And any developing details will come directly from me to you." "Great." "Thank you." "Yeah." "Now let me kill the good feeling." "You?" "Really?" "Worst-case scenario..." "Forward operating points don't work." "They will work." "Have you..." "Has the President contemplated surging the troops?" "In support of this strategy, if it's necessary?" "Military's stretched pretty thin right now." "Maybe you'll have to send kids didn't sign up to go?" "A draft?" "No, no, no." "We don't need it." "We have everything we need to break the enemy right now, except the public will to do it." "That's where you come in." "But how do we know you're gonna get it right this time?" "You know, people are very mistrustful." "You know, after 9/11 we had the whole world on our side." "Here we are six years later, stumbling through one of the worst times ever to be an American." "Look, come on, Janine." "Hyperbole is not gonna do us any good." "It's..." "Come on." "Nobody is monitoring our patriotism here." "You have to admit, this is one of the five worst times to fly the Stars and Stripes." "People need a..." "A win, Janine." "The people, the President, me." "We all need a win in Afghanistan." "Winning allows our public to refocus." "Winning gets Congress back in the mood to talk instead of yell." "And it helps the people of Afghanistan..." "That goes without saying." "And it helps your party." "Because we are the party that represents security, the power that this country is known for, the party that signals tyrants the world over that the USA has the stomach and stamina to finish our fights." "Finish?" "Do you wanna win, Janine?" "What?" "Do you wanna win the War on Terror?" "Yes or no?" "Yes or no?" "It's..." "It's a broad..." "Okay, you see this, this is the quintessential yes or no question of our time." "But this..." "Equivocation is defeat." "You stop for a second and you're dead." "The only option for America..." "Excuse me." "The general would like to see you, sir." "Excuse me." "Irving." "Mmm-hmm." "Uh-huh." "When?" "Ammo!" "Reloading!" "How much ammo do they have left?" "How the fuck would I know?" "Why aren't the Tali hitting them?" "I think they're trying to get them to empty their clips." "No." "They're still there, sir." "Keep me posted." "It's just covering fire!" "Save your ammo!" "I tell you what, I am sick and tired, Janine." "I am sick and tired of being humiliated." "Over and over again we have allowed our great country to be threatened by these little, tribal, ragtag gangs." "And it's going to stop." "Do you realize what we've got?" "Do you realize what our capability is?" "Because God knows, it breaks my heart to ask the men and women in uniform to risk their lives for this victory, when I know in my gut there is no other way to that end." "Not with this enemy." "Not with their medieval beliefs." "But the solace that I can provide the families of our fallen, with absolute conviction, is that at least their lives were about something." "Now, to tax Internet transactions or not tax Internet transactions." "That is the question." " Marcia?" " Senator?" "My notes, please." "This is your strategy, is it not, sir?" "It is the product of new school military thinking." "And you are the new school." "You have the ear of the President more than the Defense Secretary." "So?" "So, if it succeeds with your name on it, it's a great way of separating yourself out from the rest of the pack in your party who would like to be president." "Let me state this as loudly as possible." "I'm not running for president." "This has been a good hour." "This is a big story." "And it's yours." "This is my direct number." "Call if you have any questions." "Thank you." "Marcia, could you come in, please?" "Absolutely." "He's over at the Department of Agriculture." "Hey!" "Yeah?" "Any idea how many left?" "A dozen or more." "I don't know." "Get on the phone with the A-10, tell him to keep making runs until he's out of ammo." "ETA on the rescue bird is six minutes." "Headwinds." "Put me back on with the pilot." "Can they see us?" "Is it over?" "For us if they lived!" "Eyes up!" "So I'm supposed to go implement" "Arian and Ernie's junior year project, even though that thing sounds like a fairy tale to me?" "You gave them an A for that?" "I gave them a B+." "What?" "A B+, they were loose on their stats." "No, I heard you." "Why aren't you telling me about the students who got an A?" "'Cause I don't remember them right now." "So, what?" "Attendance is a prerequisite for you, but grades aren't?" "Aha!" "You're on to the secret now, Todd." "It's called "potential."" "And believe me, that's a far better signal of what you might do than getting an A in some class you might forget about in two, three years." "Sounds a lot like what kids with 2.4s tell themselves to justify all the C's." "No, no, no, no, no." "That's very nice, but neither got C's." "Maybe both got blue-collar B's." "Not by quitting." "You happy they're over there?" "Todd, I told you twice, I did everything I could to stop them." "But revered the reasons they didn't?" "Yeah." "So I'm supposed to listen to your advice." "This direction you're trying to give me, even though that the two you've been telling me about didn't listen?" "They went ahead." "They did what they were gonna do anyway." "Okay, maybe, just maybe, you might be dropping the hammer on me because of how rarely you find a student you think is worth the time and how often it sounds like you failed at getting through once you did find those students." "Actually, the failing started about 10, maybe 15 years ago." "You know, the truth is, Todd," "I used to knock meetings like this out of the park." "And what changed?" "You." "Students sitting across from me." "'Cause we're more shrewd." "'Cause we see how things work." "'Cause we don't wanna die for these pieces of shit." "Because you wanna put as much distance between yourself and the real world as possible." "And these pieces of shit..." "And by the way, how many times are you gonna say that?" "They bank on your apathy." "They bank on your willful ignorance." "They plan strategies around it." "They try to figure out how much they can get away with because of it." "So blame me for it all." "Blame me 'cause I might just wanna live the good life." "Because I can." "Because I'm smart enough to." "You're gonna blame me because I don't wanna work elbow to elbow with you on a goddamn collective farm?" "Doc, you are sounding a hell of a lot like my parents." "They're always harping on how they're giving me a better life than they ever had, and then they resent the shit out of me 'cause I got the nerve to enjoy it." "Todd, what good is a $90,000 Benz if there's not only not enough gas in the tank, but the streets and the highways are decaying to the point of becoming Third World." "If all your rants about Congress and politics are true, Todd, if things are really bad, as bad as you say they are, when thousands of American troops are dead and more are dying every day," "probably as we speak, you tell me, how can you enjoy the good life?" "Rome is burning, son, and the problem is not with the people that started this." "They're past irredeemable." "The problem is with us." "All of us." "Who do nothing." "Who just fiddle." "Who try to maneuver around the edges of the flame." "And I'll tell you something, there are people out there, day-to-day, all over the world, that are fighting to make things better." "You think it's better to have tried and failed than failing to try, right?" "Yeah." "But what is the difference if you end up in the same place?" "At least you did something." "Thanks for knocking." "What did I'enfant terrible want?" "One-on-one time." "Whole hour." "An hour?" "Jesus." "What, a beating or a story?" "A big new military move launched as we sat there." "An exclusive?" "Yeah." "Damn." "Details." "Let's get the basics up on the scroll right away." "What's the action?" "Janine?" "Hello?" "It stinks." "I mean, I don't know." "I just came away with a bad feeling." "It just..." "It feels..." "Feels?" "Bogus." "It feels?" "Yeah." "I mean, are you being paid to investigate your feelings?" "I mean, just give me the facts, Janine." "Jesus." "You know, we can't do this again." "Do what again?" "We can't just buy the whole little program like we did for the run-up at the..." "Oh, please." "Stand back while my fucking head detonates." "This is your guy, right?" "He's not my guy." "But he goes right to you." "He asks you the questions." "He's handing you an exclusive." "He's giving you a fucking gift." "It's not a gift." "It's propaganda." "And we don't have to broadcast everything that the government wants us to, do we?" "No, we broadcast news." "The launch of a new military move is news." "Are you feeling a teensy conscience attack here?" "Please." "Well, isn't it a little late for that?" "Come on." "What is the story?" "What is the move?" "Give me a goddamn..." "Hey, are you old enough to remember The Who?" "The Who?" "Yeah." "And I'm young enough to listen to them." "So what?" "Meet the new boss Same as the old boss" "That's what, it's the Vietnam-era thinking, you know?" "And they just repackaged, you know?" "They're gonna send out small platoons, these kids, as bait." "It's just..." "It's the same..." "Oh, come on." "It's the same old, same old." "No, no." "That is speculation." "We do not air speculation, okay?" "No, I know." "It's these guys." "They're so desperate for a way out, see?" "They're so desperate to change the subject from Iraq." "They're so desperate for a win that they're listening to Irving." "And you know, I don't blame them, because, boy, he is good." "But he doesn't have a plan for the day after the attack." "No." "I mean, he'll croon about hearts and minds, but it's all, you know, helicopters and Marines." "That's what..." "Jesus." "Anyway, he couldn't care less about the soft stuff." "You know, this whole thing, this..." "It's a strategic..." "It's a lubricant to get him into the White House." "So what?" "So the guy's ambitious." "So what?" "Wait a..." "Janine, are you letting your politics cloud your reasoning?" "I'm just trying to do my job." "That's all." "Your job, if I can bring you back to the twenty-first century, is to report verifiable facts, so I can put them up on the goddamn screen." "There are none!" "Okay?" "There are no embeds up there." "We have to just take his word for it." "It's just..." "How can you stand it so hot in here?" "But I'll tell you something." "He does have a plan for after the election." "Yeah, and it's not the long, slow peace process." "No, no, no, no." "These boys have toys on the high shelf they've not been allowed to use for 50 years." "He says, "I'm sick of being humiliated." "" Oh, my God, Janine." "They're dying to take these down..." "Please don't start that." "And try them out..." "That tactical, nuclear, paranoia bullshit." "And find out what a real winning noise sounds like." "No, no, no." "He said to me..." "I don't wanna hear it." "He said this to me." "I have it." "I have it." ""Whatever it takes to win." Fuck." "Here it is." "See? "Whatever it takes."" "Okay." "Great, great." "Can you please just calm down." "Okay?" "Calm down." "Look, it seems to me like Irving has a plan to go after the guys who attacked us, okay?" "Now, our viewers will believe that's a good thing." "So do I." "What happened to you, Howard?" "Time was you would take a punch at anybody if you thought it was justified." "You know, you were good once." "Yeah, and I didn't think I'd live past 40, either." "Come on, Janine." "You can't leave me hanging out here by myself." "You just can't do that to..." "Wrong." "I just can't do this." "You turn in some loony, speculative, what-if story that's based on what?" "A woman's intuition?" "I expected more from you, Janine." "Yeah, you expected me to turn in a tidy time line." "That's right." "If we don't do this, Howard, who's gonna do it?" "This is the job." "These politicians, these journalists, everybody that says," ""Oh, well, if we'd known then what we know now."" "It's bullshit!" "It's bullshit." "It was all right there." "We knew it." "If we had bothered to connect the dots." "But we didn't, did we?" "We just rolled over." "Right?" "So what happens if you're wrong, Janine, huh?" "Listen to me." "You're 57 years old." "You got a mother that needs 24-hour care now." "What other network is gonna snap you up after this, huh?" "All I'm asking is..." "Just don't put me in this position, okay?" "Your version of this story will never see the light of day, and you know it." "Well, I can't write the one that he gave me." "Can't." "Well, I think you ought to think that over." "Abdullah!" "Abdullah!" "Oh, man." "Get to me!" "I'm digging!" "Get to me!" "Come on." "Come on." "Pilot." "Get back there, make another pass and clean those fucking Talis out!" "Professor Malley?" "Read the sign." "Wait." "Are we done?" "Okay." "Here's my last bit, so bear with me." "The decisions you make now, bud, can't be changed but with years and years of hard work to redo it." "And in those years, you become something different." "Everybody does as time passes." "You get married, you get into debt, but you're never gonna be the same person you are right now." "And promise and potential, it's very fickle." "And it just might not be there anymore." "Are you assuming I already made a decision?" "And, also, that I'll live to regret it?" "All I'm saying is that you're an adult now." "And the tough thing about adulthood is that it..." "It starts before you even know it starts, when you're already a dozen decisions into it." "But what you need to know, Todd, no lifeguard's watching anymore." "You're on your own." "You're your own man, and the decisions you make now are yours and yours alone from here until the end." "I'm sorry." "The sign says till 8:00, and it's way after 8:00." "Yes." "Sorry." "So, what, you don't want my decision?" "Class meets again Tuesday at 9:00." "I'll find out then." "Okay, Muna." "What..." "Professor Malley, the grade you gave me can't be right." "You mean a C+?" "Excuse me." "Close the door behind you, huh?" "Let's see." "So..." "Ammo?" "I'm out." "Me, too." "Rescue's not gonna be here in time." "No, no." "Get out of here." "Get out of here." "Go on!" "No way." "You can move." "Climb down." "Not even if there was a ladder." "Not like this." "Not laying down." "Help me up." "Let's go." "Hey." "Hey, man." "So, the new thing is skin turgidity." "Tur-what-ity?" "Did you make that word up?" "No." "It's a term taken from flora and fauna, used to describe the health of..." "Like plants?" "Well, yes." "Exactly." "You going to astronomy today?" "J.D. 's organizing a Madden tourney." "Totally sounds like it." "So, firming creams don't work." "Well, not all do, but this one does." "And which one is this?" "The fuck you doing up so early?" "A meeting with Malley." "Los Angeles affiliate, KZVZ, is reporting that pop singer Fate has this morning finally filed for divorce from rapper husband Bully-Dog." "After Fate and Bully-Dog's now notorious Pacific Rim tour last summer, when Fate was recorded asking a Japanese reporter how long the bus ride from Tokyo to Beijing would be." "Up next we have our lead story." "Baby toupees." "What'd you guys talk about?" "Grades." "Is he failing you?" "He is failing you, isn't he?" "No, he's not failing me." "What, do you already know what you're getting?" "Huh?" "Do you know what you're getting?"