I was a part of the planning and attack package intelligence team for the strike against Syria in 1983 - in which we lost a pilot and had another one captured until Jesse Jackson got him out - and numerous other operations against Syria both before the Iraq war and during the insurgency.

For years before my Navy enlistment, I had studied the Soviet Union and the KGB's history of political intrigue in preparation for a career in intelligence.

I started my career in Naval Intelligence when I entered as a Russian language interpreter sent to DLI, the Defense Language Institute.

Intelligence officers are a peculiar lot. Whether they are active or retired, their brains are wired for a completely different way of seeing the world around them.

Friends' was an education in intelligent comedic banter; in intelligent vernacular. It was an education in scene study. It was an education in group dynamic. I came out of there with a master's degree in comedy.

Basically, I think society functions thanks to how certain key industries work - government, finance, healthcare, education, energy. Pretty much all of these have a huge impact on everything else.

I think the way poems are taught to high school students is completely counterintuitive; it sets up this sense of being the poem's adversary. The poem is sort of sneakily trying to outsmart you.

Today it is time for every child to have a right to life, right to freedom, right to health, right to education, safety, the right to dignity, right to equality, and right to peace.