about 2,000 people for every service there was nothing in this space that indicated in any way that anything religious was going on. there wasn't a cross, there wasn't a window of any kind. the only thing you saw was a drum trap set in the middle of the stage. it came time to start the service and was as happy music goes a was actually pretty good and the theology of it was okay as it went, but it was only no mention of the world and no means of a world. 20 minutes of singing and then he comes out and introduces an

african-american pastor from new york city where they had been renting space for their services on sunday and they were being thrown out that has been reversed at this point and his whole message was what's happening in new york is the to be happening in san diego. get ready. and then jim talked about that evening's panel which i was granted be a part in his tone was they are coming to get us and the only way that i could prepare you for when they come is when you come to light so be here and it was this kind of paranoid thing that i hadn't heard before.

was 45 minutes long and i would never get away with that in new hampshire. [laughter] the first time god had a mention most 20,000 in and 40,000 minutes jesus got a mention and then it ended. i forgot to tell you right after the music come he comes out and says now it's time to take up the offering out of the gate and everyone cheered. i could use that in new hampshire. [laughter] there was a very weak kind of prayer and then a was over. i've never been at what was a

church service where there was such a little god, jesus, religion and was all political and was all paranoid. they're coming to get us and we have to get ready. i'm not sure that i observed the insight that it gave me but it sure made me understand more about the fear that is out there and often behind the vitriol that we experience and i often, you know when someone comes at me either directly or indirectly the way that i try to stay sympathetic to ask what are they afraid of and is their anything i can say that convinces them that there is no need to be

afraid but this was a double dose and it really shook me and helped me understand a little bit better of what we were against. many of our enemies in this movement are in the business of ratcheting up people's anxiety often to make money or to work for a particular political party or candidate or for whatever reason, it seems to me that they are simply brilliant at ratcheting up the anxiety. this service was not anything about the comfort that comes from a loving god, it was all about what is going to happen and it ain't going to be pretty.

so get ready. i think we need to take that into mind. let me talk a little bit more about fear because i addressed this in the book. there's a lot of fear about ltv t. issues because the of gdp movement signifies or eliminates the fact that sexuality is far more complicated than we thought you remember when we used to have the communities the state community and the gay community and then lesbians spoke up and said hello, we are here and our experience was different so then we became the state and the gay and lesbian community and bisexuals spoke up and transgendered and now we are adding the letters, aren't we?

[laughter] we are going to run out of letters pretty soon and i say to the audiences, some of you are here how do you get away with just being st? [laughter] [applause] all of those letters say that we've actually been exploring this reality of those letters are an indication of the kind of diversity and that we are finding in our own community and there is more which is why we are going to run out of letters. and it also points out the fact that i think the heterosexual community hasn't done that kind of worked or else they would have a bunch of letters. they are not one big wall of

straight. but who's talking about that and any kind on the store helpful way. i can remember during antiracism training early on with young african-american women that said the you know what i'm actually kind of sick to death of coming to your antiracism conferences. you put me in the center of the room and you have me spell my guts out side of the hall safe areas can be and you don't have to share anything. she said why don't you just go away and have your own sexual of the, the racism conference and then when you have done some work, get back to me and then we will talk. sometimes especially on a bad day i think the focus on lt bet

is not having to focus on heterosexual sexuality to maybe do a little bit of their own work and then get back to ross. i will also predict that the transgender issue will raise people's anxiety more than the gay and lesbian issue did ever because when we start thinking about section devotee being more fluid and mysterious and this crazy combination of things that can result between peoples and ourselves and their physical bodies, it means it sort of says everything is up for grabs and nobody likes it. that's why the old gay and straight dichotomy was so comfortable. if i'm not that it means i am this and i know who y yemen they

know who they are and never between sean meek but now they're just seems to be very much more variation not that it didn't occur before but i've predicted which is why i think the transgender community offers us such. i think the transgendered will raise questions even for gay and lesbian people but that we have not fully confronted so if that sounds exciting to you, great but my guess is to a lot of people it will push a lot of scary buttons. i want to be honest about the fact that the talk about a gay

marriage is leading the straightforward but also marriage is one of those things that is under siege, and again i think the lgbt community has become the ripping boy for marriage troubles which by the way were here before we ever started talking about gay marriage and marriages under siege at least in my experience in counseling experience and clergy and so on. it's the greatest threat to marriages you have people trying to hold down two or three jobs to make ends meet and it doesn't leave a lot of time for nurturing the relationship so marriages under attack. that's for sure but i want to be honest about one thing. i think we need to be -- as some

people are critiquing marriage. but the argument i am making in this book is quite a conservative argument by attitude is give us marriage and then we will critique it, but give the access to and this is not the book to critique the institution of marriage although there is quite a bit of that in at but it's the conservative argument about marriage at its best and its ideal speaks the kind of relationship in which two people make a place in their heart for one another in such a profound way that it actually reveals to us the kind of selfless love that god has for

us. that is a place dog and promises to show up and if in the relationship of another person there are times you actually do love this person more than you love yourself, it gives you some window into the heart of god who loves us beyond anything we can imagine and that's why we value it. it is a laboratory for understanding the transformative power of that kind of love. at the end of the day it is the conservatives' argument coming and one that conservatives ought to be four. after all how long have they criticized us for having promiscuous sex and superficial relationships? sure we are trying to add some

depth and they are against that, too. also opposed to sex education and contraception. it just doesn't make any sense but i thought i should give you a heads up. [laughter] >> last question then i will open up for questions. i also think the fear and resistance that we experienced in this movement signals something even better and that is i do believe the of gdp movement is a beginning of the end of patriarchy and patriarchy has been around as you know for a very long time and abetting certain ones of us especially if we are white western-educated

men. and i think the all gdp movement -- i would be interested to hear from some of you on the studies and so on i think the lt bet raises in a way that is different than the way the women's movement has raised the issue because we benefited from it for so long and it's been in place for so long, i think there should be no surprise that the resistance to lessen this movement has been and will continue to be fierce and let's remember when we get full and equal rights for 0gbt people when there are protections in place when liberty and justice for all actually means all,

there will still be worked to do. just because we get the jim crow law of the books in the 60's it doesn't mean racism went away because there's funding for women's sports doesn't mean it went away and when we get marriage equal the were the end of doma, there will still be lots of work to do so we have to be in this for the long haul. last i would say that i think gay marriage offers a vision of radical egalitarianism, a relationship not based on an explicit or implicit sexism and i think that is why it is so frightening to people and why we hear the religious right touting the sort of traditional husband is the head of the family kind of language i just think it's

challenges that whole system in a way that feels like we are being cut loose from the mornings, and you are either excited about that as i am or frightened to death of it and i think there are a lot of frightened people off their. last, i hope this book will empower you we and other people you know to do it particular part in this movement. one of my favorite places in the whole world is the national civil rights museum in memphis tennessee that's up the old hotel where dr. king was assassinated and as you go into the front door in this remarkable museum there's a big black monolith and there is this ever spiraling trail of african-americans and they are

holding hands with someone and it reminds us that in that civil rights movement and african-americans went into the streets to face the snarling dogs and fire hoses and sometimes that deficits and they did it in a way and they knew they wouldn't live to see the end of it but they went anyway. and each of them found their place in that longline. i think that is what we are going to need in this movement does well and heterosexual allies. we will never be more than a very small minority and unless we have help from our heterosexual brothers and sisters would be hard to see the end of this journey. let's remember in the 60's all of a sudden white people began

to understand that they were paying a terrible price for racism, too and began to join dr. king and others in that movement so i'm hoping this book will or mew to become an advocate and if you have friends in maine or maryland or washington state or minnesota and you've been meaning to have a conversation with them this would be a good time to call them. because every vote is going to count and every time we've ran in one of these places, the appearance and the reality are an unrelenting forward movement has created so each of the battleground states are really important. i hope you will feel empowered by the polk and find new words.

thank you for coming out tonight. [applause] >> thank you. so, what do you want to talk about? who has a question? >> okay. a great pity the was wonderful -- [laughter] there's one. there comes the microphone. >> it's a little intimidating, isn't it? [laughter] >> i was at the constitutional conventions here and i remembered at the time we were singing the same song over and over again that this seemed the way people were trying to abrogate the fear of the population was by creating a

sense of separation between the religious sense of marriage and the more secular sense. i'm wondering if you and your book addresses this new approach looking at people on their own religious grounds in terms of the backlash being greater that we are talking about equality in the religious sense rather than be able to visit a partner in the hospital. >> thank you let me say a word about the separation of church and state which i have a lot of and the book. i think we have gotten really confused and america about the separation of church and state because we've deputized clergy to be agents of the state in doing with the state does he and my own personal opinion as we would be a lot better off if we

teased that but apart again. if you get people to think about it, they know that marriage is a several the institution because when they get divorced they don't go back to the sweet little church where they got married to get a divorce, right? [laughter] they go to the court. so they kind of know it but you have to remind them of it. so i have suggested to my clergy that we separate the two. there's a policy they identify someone in the congregational who is. at the back of a church symbolically where the secular and sacred meat, the state, the justices of the peace affect the

marriage and then you come up the aisle and receive the church blessing. we saw how it happens that france. everyone gets married in the mayor's office and then readjust will go to their place of worship to do with the institution does. i think everyone who attended service would get a civics lesson in of the separation of church and state and we would be in a lot better place. if i really had it to do all over again which we can't, but in the best of all possible worlds everyone would have something called a civil unions and then those people who are religious would be married in the eyes of the church would stick with marriage be in the civil institution and would call with the church calls mix simoni

or some other name. somehow we need to tease those things apart and they are hopelessly joy and. the ramifications of that is that when we are asking for marriage equity, it feels to the conservative people and you know how the roman catholics come out on this way and evangelicals on that way and the kind of meat it feels like an attack on their belief that they are not going to be allowed to believe what they have always believed and if we had a greater separation and clarification it would feel less so. the effect of the matter is nobody is required to marry anybody. i don't have to marry any couple, gay or straight and that's true of clergy across the board that hasn't changed with any of the marriage equal the the laws and we are finding it

to be a really helpful strategy to restate that in the legislation even though it is already the law to ease people out of that fear. the other part of that is because it feels like an attack on religion, it seems to me that usually when we talk about separation of church and state we are afraid the state is going to impinge on the church but in this case we have the church impinging on the state. churches and synagogues and mosques saying don't do this, no marriage equality, when in fact it's the state's job to figure out what liberty and justice for all means and for whom it is offered and i think we have the religious institutions exerting undue influence listee of this

issue and i think we need to call the church out on that. i am trying to get back to the other part of your question. yes, i think it does complicate but in one sense it deepens the conversation when we are actually talking about religious marriage as well but i think it's important to separate that discussion about what a particular church, the nomination, faith feels about the spiritual union and marriage. a separate that from the legal right to marry, the freedom to marry because at the end of the day the state doesn't care. the state could care less about the content of a marriage. in fact you don't have to say anything to get married. what makes you married is the

signature of two people on a marriage license plus the signature of an authorized agent and if that doesn't go back to the city hall or wherever you send it, you're not married. you're married whether you had novell's at all, traditional for the sickest most romantic things you are going to cringe over a year later, it doesn't matter to the state of those signatures, are there you are married. so it's important to understand the state's interest in this is the stability of the culture which includes a stable and healthy and frear met for the raising of children and so on that's the state's interest in this. the church, the synagogue, the

mosque put some deeper meaning in terms of the spiritual union but we have to be careful to separate the discussions so that we don't further this confusion. yes, sir and then right here. >> first of all, [inaudible] [laughter] >> then i will answer your question. [laughter] >> my name is richard and i'm a christian and by monday and i have it today speed read because they just got your book in. one of the questions, you've made no mention to him, jonathan and david. just curious if you have a comment on that in the bible, and second, what i consider a paradox that spain recognizes gay marriage in this

predominantly catholic so i'm just wondering if you have any thoughts on that our entire country that can be predominantly catholic could be one of the first ones to go along with the marriage. >> it's great. [inaudible] it is an astounding thing and somehow in this country that has been predominantly roman catholic forever, they seem to of gotten the subornation thing. it's really quite astounding and i honestly can't explain it other than race that some people were so on stock from the context that they could actually think through this quite clearly

let me say this especially i think we don't do ourselves a positive service when we deposit things into scripture that aren't there. i know the jonathan david think. you know what? just describe what's there. it's in the book with jesus. i'm not saying jesus is gay. i'm saying male and female disciples and 12 guice he spent special time with, three, peter, james and john huji singled out for special leadership training and against all odds there is one disciple identified as the

one whom jesus loved where from across jesus basically gives his mother to john, the beloved disciple and gives john the beloved to settle to his mom and says take care of each other. when his mother and brothers came looking for him because he was making too much, jesus said it goes against the role of my father and mother and brothers, he knows about families of choice. ..

clearly a deep and spiritual relationship or that between jesus and the olympic disciple. but i don't think we hope our case any to extrapolate from that more than the tax can bear. the shoshone people of what is fair and just let them sit with it. like really, i think we'd be better off. right here, who's next? >> thank you for your talk. i was actually raised to make church similar to what you describe. our church was 12,000 people and

it was predominately blacks. i work for mass equality is a community engagement organizer and something that i struggle with is how i can be like and gay and christian on the ones in the race within the community and also trying to gain support from black ministers for gay marriage. as wondering which are dots were about the racial divides within the lgbt community. >> great question. after i return going to be senior fellow at the american progress with john podesta's think tank in d.c. the one thing i'm most looking forward to is a former newspaper editor who is african-american

and use they are doing stuff unreason were going to do some work on this together. one of the things i've learned in my training is not to speak for people of color. so i won't be doing that. because i try to learn as much as i can from people of color. but a couple of things that i've observed, i think when people have multiple oppressions, it's asking a lot of them to take them all on at once, right? racism is still alive and well. and honestly, don't you think some of the scurries about barack obama is just a scratch away from racism?

i mean, people are smart enough to know how not to sound racist. so i think that's part of it. you know, let's remember that gay weightman outwait and we have benefited from that privilege forever and there is a lot of racism were to be done within the gay community. another observation that i would make. it's just a guess. but the president came out -- quickly finish that sentence. but if that makes the headlines tomorrow, i'm going to find out who did it. when a president came out for marriage equality, never paused

there. when he came up for marriage equality, at least the polls showed that within the african-american community jumped from like 37% to 54% or something. it was a sizable leap. what i think that answers african-americans have been doing their work on this issue and the president's announcement i think gave them cover, you know, sort of like it is okay to go public with it in a way that perhaps they hadn't before. so i think we're making progress. d., irene monroe, whom i think most of you know, who i just absolutely adore says that the african-american church has got a lot of work to do on sexism

before it gets to the lgbt issue. as these things are all tied together and everybody wants to. nowadays you can't tease these things apart because sexism and racism in a bliss lemon classism, all of the incense work in the same way and they were together to conspire against us. and so, i just think it's very, very complicated. my experience is that there are more and more african-american religious leaders who are willing to speak out in a more public way than we've ever seen before. but that's a really, really important thing. i think at least it was a

polling center showing maryland, for instance that is the african-american religious community that resulted in the marriage equality going down in maryland. my guess is that if it does pass in time at the ballot box, that barack obama will rightfully receives some of the credit for that. [inaudible] >> okay, one right here and then went back there. go ahead and let me take this one back your first since the microphone and started there. >> what kind of questions would you like to hear vacation conversation with someone who is not a person of faith who might be very not experienced with organized religion or religion. do you think religious issues have much to play in this conversation about gay rates.

what questions would you hear from him that demonstrated an openness to have been the religious element be a part of this discussion? >> i'm not sure i understand your question, but i think this issue can be argued on purely secular grounds. but if any nonreligious person thinks that religion isn't at the heart of the resistance we are experienced in, they are living on another planet. i suppose religion is tied up a whole bunch of issues, but this one seems to really be at the center of it, partly because, you know, if you argue against abortion from a religious disc, you know, you got to look and find things and interpreters extrapolate. what the gay issue come you seem

to have several very clean tax that are very clear enough to show your conservative say very often, which is, just plainly read it. just plainly read it as if one can plainly read the bible. you know, peter grounds i think used to say, you know, maybe the roman catholics have their prey. maybe we shouldn't get the bible to everybody. [laughter] [applause] and in the sense that if you don't know any thing about the context in which those words were written and how they were heard, then you have no way of determining whether they are eternally binding or culturally bound. and it takes some work to make that discernment.

most of us just settle for believing the bible says that other people tell us to a supposed finding out what it says themselves. go back to your question. this is just at the center of this debate. i could sell you a frightening story. whittaker from concord, the 25-year-old from the lgbt, all those letters. i'm not denigrating. it's just getting ridiculous. not a single one of them had ever been to a semi-school. none of them are raised in the religious community of faith of any kind. everyone of them need the word abomination and everyone of them thought that that is what god thought of them. even the ones who didn't believe in god thought that's what god

thought of them. but i couldn't found the book of leviticus in the bible if you have it loaded gun pointed to there had. they knew that word in the belief that god thought of them. so that early in the air we breathe, right? you don't even have to be religious to soak this stuff up. and you don't have to be religious to soak this stuff up if you're a trained five kid. whether they ever got in sunday school or not a end to jump off the bridges. one last question right here in front. he's not going to hit you with that. >> it's a great honor and privilege to be in your presence today commissary. as a member of the islamic community and a myself, i have always been surprised how gay

and the world largest tradition has been living under this impression and when it comes to other aspects of life, but the bible and the koran make reference citations to people, but i've never been able to wrap my mind around the fact that for gay love, and i said so and nothing to do with the love between two consenting adults. i just don't understand why people have not objected to that. i try to raise it in my mosque and i'm often silenced about it. no, no, don't go there. but the idea is not been overpowered by the last sacrilegious things have nothing to do the two men loving each other and wanted to live in

communion. >> exactly. thank you for the question. if grape. so i think at the end of the day, what we need to learn to say proudly and confidently when we are approached about any of the secret tax that seemed to be speaking about his, we need to learn to say, actually, the bible in the seven verses or anywhere else doesn't speak to the questions we are in today. it meant that the bible is supportive of gay marriage. i would never contend such a thing, right? but for whatever reason than we do know some of them, this tax were written in response to things in context they are just not ours today. so we need to -- first of all

commit before you start arguing any of the individual tax, when he took the conversation of how do we regard this book? otherwise are really attacking from two different planets and you're just not going to get very far. he talked to some one who thinks god dictated the bible, you know, really take a deep rest, go to starbucks and have a lot taped. because you're just not going to get very far. after conversation about how do we regard this book. i also think that the reason it hasn't, for the centuries is the kind of innate, which is the word i really used, that is an offshoot feature your tea and massage in a frankly. my orthodox rabbi friend says is once modern and a larger hotel of misogyny.

so again, how all these interlocking system of oppression continue to oppress us. i think we need to get a little bolder address and actually, no, this story has nothing to do with what we're talking about today. i mean, nevermind the fact that homosexuality was unknown in the ancient world and offense that there were a same gender couples having back, but the notion of homosexuality, only about 140 years old. so the first notion that a certain minority of us might naturally be created affectionately oriented to sleep with the same gender. all the ancient texts are written, assuming everyone is heterosexual and therefore act them against their nature were doing worship or abusing a young

boy or some of those things. and so, we just have to get better at saying no, actually that has nothing to do with what we are talking about today. two adults consenting mutual faithful long-term commitment, all those kinds of things. the bible is just silent. the bible is silent on a lot of things. there's nothing in the bible about flush toilets, but it's pretty great, right? [laughter] so i think we just have to get a little bit more courageous about saying were not going to go there. and none of the people would argue with take all of the bible seriously. you never hear jerry falwell quoting luke saying if you'd be a follower of mine, you had to

sell your possessions. so everybody picks and chooses. nobody does a plain reading. and anyone who does a plain reading without considering the context is doing violence to the text. thank you all so much for coming. [applause] >> when i started off as the typical high school student, 17 euros walk into my lecture room and i knew everything that an. i was walking tour and a cruder listed in the bathroom to stress the sun. telling you this guy looks like

he could've been president of the united states. i went up and started asking a lot of smart aleck questions. in a couple with sisler? had to get that? yeah, i can hit a deer at a hundred yards. not oppressing him at all. they stood there for minutes at what are you going to do any good at a high school? i looked back, packed my chest out and said i'm going to go play football somewhere. he said yeah that's exactly what i would do to because there's no way he'll ever make it in the marines. [laughter] so quickly realized and i guess that's what they're supposed to do. quickly i realized i set myself. so back to my classroom on the milledge. this overt and i came back here for those who don't know me, i'll take a challenge for easily and i don't take no for easy. if you're one of my commanders, you know that for a fact. went back to my room and started thinking about what the recruiter had done. i was a bartender. i came back to them, left my

room. did you know what, if you pack your stuff up right now, i'll send papers and expecting him to say if we can't do today can we'll do it tomorrow. he said okay, let's go. so i didn't tell my father. winnetka massena papers, came back. the only thing in my way now as my father's signature. so we're sitting at the dinner -- actually in the kitchen table may deadlocks and indigos would it be done now? as a dad, i want to go to the marine corps. he said you're going to play football yesterday. i said i'm ready to go. he said if you thought about this? i said yeah, the hour drive up there in the allergenic eye. i'm ready to go. some anonymous on the marine corps. june 18, 2006, while i bludgeon is to date will never forget. i shipped off the island and this is where spin the 18th birthday. happy birth day, right? is not as bad as the next three because many team birthday would have been cypress school how we.

i was and how weak a sniper school not in training in bridgeport, california. following pairs foundation of north carolina for infantry training. after that i went off to hawaii for the next four years. and this is where i also went to sniper school. so after attending sniper school, quickly shipped off to iraq. i didn't get to complete my tour because i was bitten on my right hand by an enemy spider and i suffered severe nerve damage. i want to let everyone in this room know that the enemy will stop at nothing. they even train their spiders to guide us. so he turned back on for two years of additional training and trying to get my head back and this is when i became a sniper team leader charging five other marines and their out of mojave viper, training to go back to

iraq. nick dennis archer what can said we need five volunteers to go to afghanistan. a separate submission? he said we don't know. just a 25 volunteers had appeared a race by hand and said to go. i ended up being assigned to small team of advisers were going to act as advisers to the afghan national army. this is not used in normal mission and being around americans. rich and marines, one navy corpsman, three marines, one navy corpsman on her face. you want to talk about a complete culture shock. i can say right back out when. we did everything from eating to drinking to mission planning to hearing about stories of their life. it really helped us become a solid unit only learn to depend on one another and rely on one

another. i want to talk about the afghan side runabout with the current events are. one of the best lessons taught as not to look at the world and not just people by their religion, skin color, financial status or anything like that, but except them for who they are. i have to tell you i'm guilty of having what i call a small-town conflict. this way you think the world is that big a message you think this has to chew tat. up to you now 24 and that's not the case anymore. but we always do that. we as humans are so fast to judge one another without getting to know each other for what they are. i guess it's something we can all take within two. said the station in northeastern afghanistan, a place called asmara nocona province right on the pakistan border. this is where i'm stationed with

lieutenant johnson and doc layton. not doc layton was a navy corpsman, but if anyone knows of a navy corpsman committeemen assaulting marine saucon had the marine from here on out. [applause] subpart of my opportunities came to meet these guys and develop our team because this is a group of guys i learned to call my brothers. what advice teams are put together, the brass takes different skill sets, ranks and advisories that are never ever ask about personalities or anything like that. definitely not a love connection. they just push them in there and expect you to because johnson and layton, these guys are different from me. the family and countrymen in the group, so i didn't really care. i was just so excited at the thought of me getting to go to afghanistan that it didn't really matter to me. what i learned more and more every single day is these guys

are the most important people in my life. each of us share the responsibility to take care of one another, support one another and protect one another. it didn't take long before personality differences melt away. without a doubt there was never any doubt in my mind daily sacrifice their life at a moments notice, just as i would've done. in the end it proved it. my whole team sacrificed their lives. that day at september 8, 2009 we were running a mission in tangible valley view this is the only mission they took me to replace the gunner sergeant didn't gunner sergeant johnson. gandhiji was a big guy. a fitness guru, always let the

work of the day at play right now i always hated them. but anyway, he's going to take my spot. so my assignment was to set back with all the vehicles while my team into the valley, which i was uncomfortable with, being in the united states marine corps you don't have much of an option. so the mission was to secure a town meeting because they came to us and said they would announce themselves to the taliban and. scott believes would win the war for what it tours. i believe by lowering the support of the taliban and covered by that you stop the freedom of movement. we went to war to stop terrorism. so that's what we're trying to do on this mission. the team is under attack. it was an ambush and it was good. it didn't take me long to realize it wasn't a normal

ambulance. at the first of many firefighters kind of like the shy figure out any situation. you're turning just takes a new start doing your job after 10 or 15 minutes. but not in this way. it was like one thing after another started to sell us. other things start to fall at the house of cards. everything relied on in every firefight was happening. this site falling quickly like a house of cards. they're taking full advantage of it. after some period of time to myself and staff sergeant had to do something. we couldn't just sit back and watch anymore. the winning four times. each time we were told no. a solid each other and said he

know what we've got to go in because that's what brothers do for one another. we knew as soon as we were on our own program at the situation wasn't as bad as we thought it is. i can tell you this, i would rather be here with consequences for my team being alive today than to be standing here today and tell them i didn't do anything because i was worried about myself. but as we were going in, i go to nick johnson on the radio but the board artillery mission he starts calling and. if spot on. the response he got back was location was too close to the village. he said if you don't give me these rounds right now, we're going to die. the response back was, well, try your best. few minutes later i hear gunnery sergeant on the radio.

he had to call in a medical evacuation. he kept getting cut off because the radio going over the radio. but a frustrated voice he finally said to have the radio. so i ruined it. i pulled up my sharpie and i'm trying to write. if i can read if i can read the great anatomic cell that can locate their vision on the map, go straight to an. with my sharpie in my hand at his his first reprints and he stopped. that was the last time i ever heard my teammate. after six hours of evacuating with afghan soldiers and wounded marines, the helicopters spotted lifeless body in a stretch. when i got there i immediately knew they were all gone. i didn't want to face it. surely it can't be all of them. it can't be chew.

so check each one of them and only confirmed what i heard a new. they all fought together doing their job as a damas in the military is never named as does a man less. they paid the ultimate sacrifice. the details that they are difficult to communicate to you, but i'm sure you get the same now. so now my action has been recognized as outstanding and courageous. for me, to be honest, it's only the exact opposite because we let that the word never leave a fallen marine behind. you get the mud of life for you die trying. if he didn't die trying, it's simple, you didn't try hard enough. i was just about my brothers or any other marine would have done to me. i've been honored by her country, the president of the united states and i stand before you as the medal of honor