1973 was not a good year to be a Marine. Nam was over. Rebuilding hadnt begun. And an awful lot of us, myself included, just wanted out. I opted for grad school. But on three occasions in those final months before returning to the halls of ivy, I almost left via the brig. First came the Inspector Generals (IG) inspection. Read More ›
A cliché among airline flight attendants describes half their job as “taking people’s garbage and saying thank-you.” And so it seems with American civilization today. Politicians, athletes, entertainers, intellectuals, media, activists, business people: We take their garbage and we say thank-you . . . and often pay for the privilege. That resemblance points toward other similarities. Indeed, perhaps nothing captures Read More ›
Last October, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) hosted a remarkable three-day symposium: “Clash of Visions,” addressing the future(s) of the military. The participants were distinguished, the presentations and dialogue both sophisticated and frank. Toward the end, a member of the audience commented: “I’ve learned one thing here. You can say anything you want, if you preface it Read More ›