Rich, sometimes you treat a wisp of intuition as though it were a four-lane highway. It's not that you shouldn't trust intuition — it's that you need to validate it.

I don't think there is anything about putting your country first that requires you to turn your back on the rest of the world. If anything, the opposite is true.

Firstly, pay has to be high enough to give people agency in their own lives and secondly, humans have to be treated like humans. Those are the minimum conditions for good jobs – there also needs to be a career path that enables people to learn and grow in their jobs.

It's not just the hostage who suffers, but their entire family. In some cases, families endure greater agony, living in uncertainty about their loved one's fate. For example, during my captivity, my wife was unaware of my survival for three and a half years.

As a prosecutor, I recognize that our involvement typically begins when it's already too late: when prevention, humanity, and common sense have failed. Violence, whether in families, communities, or at an international level, signifies a failure of humanity.