“Risk aversion and fear of the unknown are direct symptoms of a lack of context, and are the polar opposites of audacity. The way to deal with a fear of the unknown isn’t to avoid it by doing nothing, as our military and presidential planners did after the cruise missile strike in the late ’90s. The optimal way to deal with the unknown is to do what Lewis and Clark, and John Walker Lindh did: take action to develop the situation and make the unknown the known.”

— Pete Blaber in The Mission, the Men, and Me