Jay Kopelman > Quotes

“When you spent your entire career on the fringes of violence, the dogs helped remind you that you were still human”
― Jay Kopelman, From Baghdad, With Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava

“Why wasn't my time spent helping people instead of a puppy? I don't know and I don't care but at least I saved something.”
― Jay Kopelman, From Baghdad, With Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava

“Every marriage that ends in divorce; every serviceman who kills him- or herself; and every time a young warrior experience substance abuse issues, we witness a casualty of war.”
― Jay Kopelman, From Baghdad to America: Life Lessons from a Dog Named Lava

“I have convictions, and the courage of my convictions allows me to overcome my fears and act in a courageous manner...”
― Jay Kopelman, From Baghdad to America: Life Lessons from a Dog Named Lava

“See, orders just came down and the Department of Defense hired contractors to kill all nonmilitary dogs found on American bases in Iraq. Seems word got out about the stray dogs eating dead bodies, and while it’s perfectly okay for us to make the bodies dead in the first place, it’s not quite cool to have dogs walking around eating them. There’s some fine line there I guess we’re not supposed to notice. Maybe it has to do with cooties.
Anyway, it also turns out that I’m not the only loon who wants to get a dog out of Iraq.”
― Jay Kopelman, From Baghdad, With Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava

“I head someone say once that passionate people live violent lives. At the time I didn't really get it but if what they meant was the way love waits in ambush traps your well trained sense of control and tortures you into a confession you'd just as soon not make I now understand.”
― Jay Kopelman, From Baghdad, With Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava

“The costs of military service are substantial. Many costs are readily apparent; others are less apparent but no less important. Among the most pervasive and potentially disabling consequences of these costs is the threat to the psychological health of our nation's fighting forces, and their families, and their survivors.

-- Department of Defense Task Force, 2007”
― Jay Kopelman, From Baghdad to America: Life Lessons from a Dog Named Lava

“Of course I apologized, but I couldn’t shake the sense that I was truly an asshole.”
― Jay Kopelman, From Baghdad to America: Life Lessons from a Dog Named Lava

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.” —MAHATMA GANDHI”
― Jay Kopelman, From Baghdad to America: Life Lessons from a Dog Named Lava

“The costs of military service are substantial. Many costs are readily apparent; others are less apparent but no less important. Among the most pervasive and potentially disabling consequences of these costs is the threat to the psychological health of our nation's fighting forces, and their families, and their survivors.

-- Department of Defense Task Force, 2007”
― Jay Kopelman