I grew up with a genuine respect for President Harry S. Truman, a Democrat and the man left to fill the shoes of President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the end of World War II. As a young officer, I learned that Truman, like me, was also an artilleryman. He commanded D Battery, Read more…
I received a call from a good friend and former Army colleague to talk about 9-11. He was one of my junior officers in the 1st Infantry Division and a very fine man. He is greatly disappointed these days. He loves his country. He’s ready to fight and die for it even now. He almost did Read more…
It’s hard to imagine peace in Afghanistan these days. Particularly now that the country has been abandoned to Taliban thugs and their roving assassination squads culling out former supporters of the U.S. to murder them in cold blood. There is no peace today. There was a modicum of peace before May of Read more…
The events of the last week in Afghanistan have given all of us pause. As a former soldier and combat veteran I have found myself oscillating from bewilderment to anger. I’m bewildered because I know that the U.S. has the wherewithal and leadership to conduct an orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan, Read more…
This week, Shelley and I have spent the week with kids and grandkids at Rosemary Beach, Florida near Panama Beach City. We have thoroughly enjoyed our time with our loved ones. Watching our grandchildren grow up—those with us this week and those in Kansas City who aren’t with us on Read more…
This week, Shelley and I are doing something we rarely do. Taking a vacation. Since we spend so much time at our place on the Potomac River, we feel like that is all the vacation we normally need. But who can resist a trip to Florida with kids and grandkids? After all, grandkids are the dessert of life, so Read more…
During his Administration, former President Donald Trump made a significant commitment in his budget to increase expenditures to refurbish the American military that had been—quite frankly—depleted during the two decades of counter insurgency (COIN) warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq. COIN also—while sharpening American skills in door-to-door combat—dulled the skills of synchronization Read more…
I don’t watch much news on television anymore. For me what passes as news is more akin to the stuff of a gossip column or a grocery market tabloid than serious information that people of a free society require to hold their government accountable. Gone are the days when the evening Read more…
Like others, I have a routine in the morning. It involves paging through the news to see what is going on in the world. And what I see never fails to amaze me, either the events that occur or the absurdity they highlight. Much of what we see in the domestic news Read more…
War is violent. It is not something we should take lightly. Nor is it anything we should engage in unless our vital national interests are at stake. The past two decades saw the United States military very involved in counter insurgency wars in what came to be known as the Global War on Read more…