"Emily, I--" he starts to say, then rethinks the impulse almost immediately. "I'm sorry you got such a bad impression of them. I can tell you that in my--wow, almost twenty years doing this job that I've only met a couple guys that were really bad news. Most of us want to get it right. Keep things under control, if nothing else. I'm not that unusual or special--just a higher-up who still remembers his time on the ground, I guess."