It’s obvious by now. We have a problem. Since 2015, we’ve lost more children to school shootings than we’ve lost soldiers to war. We’ve gone an entire calendar month without a child […]
Part of the Problem
A Story About a Band
Navigating the half dozen outposts between where I had spent the last six months in Iraq and the last checkpoint out of theater took me a day and a half of helo […]
Something New
Two things happened yesterday. More than two really, but two relative to the scope of this thousand-word blog. The first, was that for about the five hundredth Tuesday in a row, I […]
Vetocracy
Since the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act, the Federal Government of the United States of America has shut down 18 times, including last night. In the 16,000 or so days […]
Roll Tide
“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before […]
God and Politics
January 4th, 2010. That was my hardest day. It’s not close. In a parking lot behind SEAL Team One I said goodbye to my wife. It had been a month since my […]
Happy Birthday America
America turned 154 years old today. There were few celebrations. There were few parades or fireworks. There was no national holiday. But America, the version we live in now, was born 154 […]
Roy Moore is What Happens When No One Believes Anything
The incentive system in politics has a structural flaw. Our elected representatives are aptly named. They represent our values or our policy preferences. Hopefully both. Those representatives are people though; subject to […]
The Veteran’s Paradox
Dick Winters became a production supervisor at a plastics adhesive factory after the war. He eventually bought a farm and started a business selling animal feed in Pennsylvania. The books and movies […]
Thoughts and Prayers
I try not to write about gun violence. The gun violence won’t let me though. In the three years I’ve hosted this blog, I’ve written 200 essays, give or take. 11 of […]