Most cops are not looking for understanding. They work in a world filled with a sense - real or imagined - of danger lurking around each corner and every hallway. Most cops are merely looking for respect.

During the course of any normal day, I usually pay more attention to assembling a grocery list than I do to reading movie reviews, although there are a more than a few film critics who bring huge insight to their work.

It's your glove, your baseball glove. It's got a soul, a memory all its own, and a future that never fades because it has never let go of the grasp the past has on you and so many others.

Unlike other professions - doctor, lawyer, teacher, journalist, sales clerk, stock broker - when a cop makes a bad mistake, it could mean someone is dead. They take home mental baggage unlike anything carried in almost every other job.

As a former Commander, I gave an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. As a state senator, I gave that same oath. As a Congressman, I gave an oath to defend the Constitution. There are some things that are not negotiable: Faith, my family, and the Constitution are dead center. It is nonnegotiable to me.

I know what it feels like to be a young family looking for opportunity in the United States.

My dad was an only child. His father raised him all but alone after his mother abandoned the two of them. He was only three years old.

I think it's great to have USADA come in and clean up the sport, because what I don't want to do is train my butt off for 10 weeks to prepare for a fight for a limited amount of money to feed my family, then get out there with a guy that maybe put in 3 weeks training and cheated.