This is our foxhole, and in foxholes, sometimes faith is all you’ve got.

It’d be easy to blame everything on 9/11 or the wars that came after. It’s really about the choices we made. By necessity we adapt to the realities of the world we live in, but...

It was too late to pray, though. The sky was clear. The helicopters were gone. Too late for so many things. My fists hit the floor. My head hit the floor. My heart broke, hardened,...

Spare the rod and spoil the Memorial Day rotisserie.

I have this thought, it’s horrible, and it makes me sick, but it’s true: one day these students will grow up and have their own kids, and they’re going to name them for men and...

He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword … unless he’s a general.

La t che première d’un commandant d’hommes est de préserver ses hommes de la mort. Autrement, de commandant on devient gardien de cimetière.

If you look at military and intelligence positions from the 1950s, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has always been against American national interests.

Question the answers, I repeated every class. Reevaluate your conclusions when the evidence changes.

Barack Obama’s military triumphs will come neither in long wars nor even short ones, but in a series of raids.

I became a marine mom with the signing of a paper, but it would take a phone call, late one night, for me to fully absorb the impact this new title would have on my...

The soldier is the Army. No army is better than its soldiers. The Soldier is also a citizen. In fact, the highest obligation and privilege of citizenship is that of bearing arms for one’s country

Maxim 11: Everything is air-droppable at least once.-The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries

Leaders must be good listeners. It’s rule number one, and it’s the most powerful thing they can do to build trusted relationships.

My mouth only does one thing well, and talking’s not it.

We were sexual targets, marked as eternal sluts for exploring the desires only acceptable in men.

Every war and conflict that the United States enters has its own ROE [rules of engagement]. Contrary to what most people think, the U.S. military does not have a complete license to kill, even in...

I was still a newlywed and certainly wasn’t to the point where I felt comfortable yelling, “I’m going to shit my pants any second!”But the sweating had started, which was followed by the tears. “I’m...

We all lose people. We all have to live in the aftermath. It’s how we move forward that counts, but sometimes we are tethered to something in our past that won’t let us move forward.

Ahead in the distance we could see the main gate, but there was a sea of cars, none moving, people standing, milling around, waiting nervously, perhaps fearfully, as heavily armed MPs and military working dogs...

We had been hopelessly labouring to plough waste lands; to make nationality grow in a place full of the certainty of God… Among the tribes our creed could be only like the desert grass –...

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.

We had it drilled into us time and time again: ‘If someone above you falls, grip tightly to the vertical rope and cradle that person in your arms until help can get to you.’…If someone...

The other day, we went somewhere, and did something.

We were not told how Alexander the Great was the last person in history to successfully ‘pacify’ what would become Afghanistan, over 2,000 years ago.

I see things in windows and I say to myself that I want them. I want them because I want to belong. I want to be liked by more people, I want to be held...

I talked with the admiral’s staff. Military personnel are the worst, no disrespect intended. They clam up tighter than a bullfrog’s ass.

No such private nights of ecstasy or hushed-up drinking and sex orgies ever occurred. They might have occurred if either General Dreedle or General Peckem had once evinced an interest in taking part in orgies...

Planning is really the hallmark of any large military formation, and it’s typically a weakness in new formations and new armies.

Kestrel’s cruel calculation appalled her. This was part of what had made her resist the military: the fact that she could make decisions like this, that she did have a mind for strategy, that people...

For the senior officers in Iraq, at least in 2005-2006, the responsibility was to the men at the top, the media, the message, the public back home – anything and everything, it seemed, but the...

The nations, of course, that are most at risk of a destructive digital attack are the ones with the greatest connectivity. Marcus Ranum, one of the early innovators of the computer firewall, called Stuxnet ‘a...

Have you ever stopped to ponder the amount of blood spilt, the volume of tears shed, the degree of pain and anguish endured, the number of noble men and women lost in battle so that...

Teaching isn’t rocket science. It’s about being engaged, listening, paying attention. Despite conventional wisdom, you don’t need to talk a lot to teach well. You do need to care, though. Not so much about what...

Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter.

Wellness Salute!

One more dance along the razor’s edge finished. Almost dead yesterday, maybe dead tomorrow, but alive, gloriously alive, today.

She oozes the kind of over-confidence that only comes to people who wear deep red lipstick and sparkly tissue sarees in bright daylight.

I missed the war and the freedom that came with it. When you are that close to death, you feel free. Every breath you take could be your last. So you inhale and savor each...

What you mons making all the racket about? You wake me again and I’ll put the voodoo hex on you. All you only call me Tuberculosis behind my back now. You want the real thing?”...

I have two brothers buried in the military cemetery in Texas. I don’t want to see any more of that.

Troops are everywhere in their modern, digital camouflage, designed to blend in anywhere at any time. Yet at night we wear bright yellow reflective belts.

In no other type of warfare does the advantage lie so heavily with the aggressor.

Good leaders know who they are—their strengths, weaknesses, passions, talents, and values. And, developing leaders always starts with self-awareness.

Our founding fathers did a decent job of framing our democracy. They wrote the Constitution and added a Bill of Rights that intended for people of all classes to enjoy the freedoms the Constitution offers....

They Served…reliving memoriesthat will not diegiving their allfor you and I -friends takenlives shaken…

I had no answer to those questions, only hope. With absolutely no one to turn to, no Mikey, no Axe, no Danny, I have to face the final battle by myself, maybe lonely, maybe desolate,...

As Lynn writes: “What angers me is the loss of control. At any moment someone could come to me, be dressed the right way and use the right code, and I no longer have free...

Cope? Adapt? Uh, no. These are military kids. They roll with it. I once asked a new student, ‘See any familiar faces?’ She pointed out various kids and replied, ‘Seattle, Tampa, Okinawa, New Jersey.’ For...

It felt like we were reliving the first day of the school year, when students and teachers do the get-to-know-you dance—teachers tell students something about who they are, students pretend to care, and then vice-versa.