Clinton-Gatsby
Defense Gets Back to Basics
Confessions of a Marine Corps Sensitivity Trainer
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 ›
“Space Defenders”
Citizen-Soldiery Our Only Affordable Means of Defense
Soaring to New Heights of Irritation
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 ›
No Defense for This Defense Policy
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 ›
The Truth about the Military
Nuclear winter and military women
Let’s consider the possibility that women-in-combat may do to radical feminism what Nuclear Winter did to the anti-nuclear left 10 years ago. But first, let us recall just what that curious phenomenon was. In the 1980s, the anti-nuclear left got strange. A series of unworkable disarmament proposals, from the “Nuclear Freeze” to outright abolition, failed to mobilize the masses residing Read More ›
Reviewing military women
This is a review of a women-in-the-military novel that, given probably will never be published. It ought to be. “Placeholder,” written by Karen Dahbly, a former Air Force lieutenant, is a somber, no-nonsense assessment of the price-the military pays for having women, and the price women pay for serving in the military. It’s both a political statement by one who’s Read More ›
Reform the Navy? Fine. Humanity? No.
A quarter-century ago, as the final American combat units staggered and straggled out of Vietnam and the monthly draft quotas hit zero, the United States Army launched a new recruiting campaign. The slogan: Today’s Army Wants to Join You. On May 22, 1996, in an editorial entitled, “The Death of an Admiral,” the New York Times assessed Jeremiah Boorda’s contribution Read More ›