{"quotes":[{"text":"The only thing worse than his arrogance was his incompetence. He was a bully, behaving like an ass. I saw Angel though, not him. The memorial was right there, just outside the window. It’s in the flowers, and it makes me angry. Angel liked to sit on the couch, watch TV, eat chips. She hated outside. Maybe I should have been a bully and an ass to Angel’s parents. Maybe Angel and Grace would still be alive if I’d behaved like this piece of shit teacher.","author":"Tucker Elliot","tags":["9-11","9-11-01","afghanistan","dodds","education","germany","iraq","korea","military","terrorism","tucker-elliot"],"id":9954,"author_id":"Tucker+Elliot"},{"text":"In total this journey will take five flights and fifty-five hours, but in reality it began four decades and two generations ago when my uncle died in Vietnam.","author":"Tucker Elliot","tags":["9-11","9-11-10th-anniversary","afghanistan","dodds","education","germany","iraq","korea","military","terrorism","tucker-elliot"],"id":34442,"author_id":"Tucker+Elliot"},{"text":"For your own security it’s imperative you blend in with the native population.","author":"Tucker Elliot","tags":["9-11","afghanistan","dodds","education","germany","iraq","korea","military","terrorism","tucker-elliot"],"id":39817,"author_id":"Tucker+Elliot"},{"text":"Korea is often called the “Land of the Morning Calm.” It’s a country where you notice the filth and the smog on your first trip and you can’t imagine why you ever thought it was a good idea to visit. Then you meet the people and you walk among their culture and you get a sense there is something deeper beneath the surface, and before you know it, the smog doesn’t matter and the filth is gone—and in its place there is incredible beauty. The sun rises first over Japan, and as Korea is waiting for the earth to spin, for streaks of light to brighten its eastern sky, in that quiet moment there is a calmness that makes Korea the most beautiful country in the world.","author":"Tucker Elliot","tags":["9-11","afghanistan","dodds","education","germany","iraq","korea","military","terrorism","tucker-elliot"],"id":51202,"author_id":"Tucker+Elliot"},{"text":"We all lose people. We all have to live in the aftermath. It’s how we move forward that counts, but sometimes we are tethered to something in our past that won’t let us move forward.","author":"Tucker Elliot","tags":["9-11","afghanistan","dodds","education","germany","iraq","korea","military","terrorism","tucker-elliot"],"id":52378,"author_id":"Tucker+Elliot"},{"text":"I’m in my classroom and I’m looking at this girl, but all I can see is my dad on the ground, in front of The Wall, telling the truth, finally—his knees drawn and his chest heaving—and when people pass by they look the other way, except for this one lady who stops to give my dad a hug. She gets down on her knees to reach him, and now she’s crying with a stranger, and without asking I know it’s because she’s lost something, too, and I wonder if in comforting my dad she thinks she can find it again. Probably not. It doesn’t work that way.","author":"Tucker Elliot","tags":["9-11","9-11-10th-anniversary","afghanistan","dodds","education","germany","iraq","korea","military","terrorism","tucker-elliot"],"id":62102,"author_id":"Tucker+Elliot"},{"text":"I felt a hand on my back, movement behind me, my guys making room, someone squeezing into our circle, and then one last hand joined the pile: my Korean aide. I guess it made sense. We were her real family. The closest thing she’d ever had to a real family, at least. All year she said maybe five words a day. 'Now kick some ass,' she said.","author":"Tucker Elliot","tags":["9-11","afghanistan","dodds","education","germany","iraq","korea","military","terrorism","tucker-elliot"],"id":73313,"author_id":"Tucker+Elliot"},{"text":"I stood with my mom in the cemetery. She felt terrible pain. My grandmother is with God. My mom has to continue living. It’s not so easy, moving forward.","author":"Tucker Elliot","tags":["9-11","afghanistan","dodds","education","germany","iraq","korea","military","terrorism","tucker-elliot"],"id":93050,"author_id":"Tucker+Elliot"},{"text":"As calls rang out the world over for new treaties and organizations to be established with the intent of preventing future wars, America and her allies took a more realistic approach to the problem—we maintained allied military bases across Europe and Asia and we stationed troops in these foreign territories on a permanent basis. We weren’t invaders or conquerors and for sure we had no intention of being an empire. We were liberators. That’s all. But having fought and sacrificed so much and for so long, the pragmatic thing to do was to follow this simple philosophy: it’s great to have dialogue, it just works a lot better when you have a strong military strategically placed and ready to act around the globe.","author":"Tucker Elliot","tags":["dod","dodds","education","military","schools","students","teachers","tucker-elliot","you-look-like-a-teacher"],"id":97919,"author_id":"Tucker+Elliot"},{"text":"DPRK translates to Democratic People’s Republic of Korea—and if the words Democratic and Republic sound like a good thing, well, it’s oxymoronic because the Korea we’re talking about here is the communist one in the North, and when I said the pastor’s father was their guest, what I really meant is he was shot down, captured, tortured, and held prisoner by a depraved enemy in what today can only be described as a failed state.","author":"Tucker Elliot","tags":["9-11","afghanistan","dodds","education","germany","iraq","korea","military","terrorism","tucker-elliot"],"id":101947,"author_id":"Tucker+Elliot"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":41,"pages":5,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}