*Note: This essay was originally published on the Modern War Institute’s Commentary & Analysis site. While driving along the shore of Lake Wanaka on New Zealand’s South Island in September 2011, I saw them for the first time. Black Swans. My wife and I pulled over, jumped out, and spent a half hour with the…
Details*Note: This essay was originally published on the Modern War Institute’s Commentary & Analysis site. It’s here. Unless you’ve been slumming it on Dagobah or hanging around some empty desert planet, you probably noticed Star Wars: The Last Jedi consumed all of Earth’s attention this past weekend. Even the early returns indicate the movie will…
Details*Note: This essay was published in the Colorado Springs Gazette print edition on December 19, 2017. It can also be found online here. It’s been almost a week since the 12-foot-tall blue frame appeared at High Point in the Garden of the Gods, and the sounds of fury have been deafening. “Shocking,” “mistake,” “an eyesore,” and “piece…
Details*Note: This essay, co-written with Erica Iverson, was originally published on the Modern War Institute’s Commentary & Analysis site. “She wasn’t looking for a knight, she was looking for a sword,” wrote the poet Atticus, who might have been thinking of Star Wars’ Leia Organa. Over the forty years of the Star Wars franchise, Leia…
Details*Note: This essay was published in the Colorado Springs Gazette print edition on December 13, 2017. It can also be found online here.
*Note: This essay was published in the Colorado Springs Gazette print edition on December 4, 2017. It can also be found online here. While about 50 million Americans traveled recently for the Thanksgiving holiday, my family stayed put. Normally, as a military family, we’re on the road for the major holidays. One year it’s Christmas in Utah…
Details*Note: This essay was published in the Colorado Springs Gazette print edition on November 30, 2017. It can also be found online here. For some, it’s a once-in-awhile brutal workout. For others, it’s just a steep hill next to a hippy, happy town. For others, it’s a daily obsession. But to all, there’s no doubting the Manitou…
Details*Note: This essay was originally published on the Modern War Institute’s Commentary & Analysis site. The memoir that follows takes us on a “darkly imagined excursion into the future.” In it, an unknown brigadier general, identity sanitized through encryption, recounts “The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2037,” a series of trends that caused…
Details*Note: This essay was published at War on the Rocks on November 27, 2017. It can be found online here. Recently, Dan Helmer, a West Point graduate running for a U.S. House of Representatives seat in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District, released a list of eight retired generals and admirals he calls his “National Security Advisory Committee.” At…
Details*Note: This essay was published in the Colorado Springs Gazette print edition on November 11, 2017. It can also be found online here. While Veterans Day typically conjures up images of gray hair, cemeteries, and the flag flying through fall leaves, maybe our minds should make room for a different kind of combat soldier. Because some heroes…
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