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You have been out for a few years. But you still have the chance to interact with many in uniform, especially high ranking ones. When you meet the Commandant, or a star officer, do you still go into "junior enlisted" mode? Any residual fear of saying the wrong thing to a high ranking person? Do you actively have to navigate that in what you say in your comics, now that you have such a wide following?

You may be one of the more famous enlisted men of our generation of veterans. Other than faithfully telling our story, and relating our experiences, do we who saw the wars from the ground level have truth telling obligations to the public? To say, as you did in your Salon interview, that "Sometimes the Marine Corps kind of sucks?"

Military draw downs after wars are typical, and fit with our idea of democracy and the military. A core group of professionals stay, and if we need to, we spin up very quickly. This mechanism also ensures against capricious wars. It requires we find bodies willing to fight for whatever cause is being sold. This draw down is different, as you note in your "Age of Commando" piece in this Sunday's NYT.

Is a professional "warrior culture" good for the military, is it good for civ-mil relations, and is it good for democracy?

IS/ISIS/ISIL/Daesh is a regional power which the balance of powers in the Middle East are, with growing success containing, but not defeating.

Is inaction, allowing the stalemate in Syria and Iraq to solidfy, more dangerous than overreaction?

Does the current Middle East crisis end with a Kurdish state, and is it in the US interest to pursue an independent Kurdish state(s).

As we grow more involved in the current crisis, are our interests growing more aligned with Iran than with traditional allies, mostly Sunni regimes (Saudi, Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, UAE)?

Thanks for the reply Max!