My Gratitude
After three years of intense effort, RASPUTIN’S LEGACY was fully released today, July 28, 2017. There are so many people to thank, beginning with my 5th, 6th, and 7th grade teacher, Irene Fisk (RIP), who forced academic excellence on me despite my most grievous attempts to avoid it. Then my beloved wife, Barbara, and our […]
Continue readingBravehearts and Heroes
I Saw Heroism on the Outskirts of Baghdad during the first Provincial Elections in January 2009. As an official observer of the elections on behalf of the US Army, I had toured through many of the polling stations to see how smoothly the elections went. We wanted to know if Iraqis understood the process, and if […]
Continue readingAfghanistan Through a Muddy Window
Camp Leatherneck – I flew out of here yesterday (March 13, 2011) to visit a team at a subordinate unit, courtesy of our cousins from across the pond, and returned this morning by ground convoy, also courtesy of the Brits. Actually, it was a Scottish regiment that provided the ride today, and along the way, we […]
Continue readingFrom Whence Anger…
Veterans – They Include Our Sons And Daughters: Following is an article I wrote while still in Afghanistan, in April 2011. In light of the furor over treatment of veterans by our national government recently, remembering the challenges of our sons and daughters in harm’s way is poignant: Raison d’Être: I fall back again on the original […]
Continue readingThose Magnificent Troops In Their Flying Machines
Fighter Gymnastics – Cirque du Soleil cannot match the performance that US, British, Danish, Georgian, Jordanian, Afghan, Australian and other NATO and Coalition Force warfighters see every day when they ride in the indomitable machines that fly them from here to there. Pilots sit in their cockpits studying charts or flipping switches. At lift-off, we are […]
Continue readingSomber Note From A Combat Surgeon
I was deployed in Afghanistan for 17 months, came home, and then went back for an additional 2 months. For a short time while there, I published a blog. In light of closure of national monuments honoring our Fallen Heroes, I have here re-published a particularly moving guest article; it is a letter home from a combat […]
Continue readingWhen Good People Remain Silent, Evil Wins
Son Wounded – The six 40-millimeter live grenades that exploded within eight feet of my son’s head at a patrol base in Kandahar Province in Afghanistan left him, as he informed me over Secret channels later, “with his bell rung.” The attack was at night, he was asleep on the ground in a patrol base, and […]
Continue readingInextricable Cuban Link
Sweet and Sour History – Cuba is a country with both a sad and a proud history, and inextricably linked to that of the US. Few people know, for instance, that early in our own Revolutionary War, wives in Havana raised $25 million to send to George Washington to help fund our struggle for Independence. As […]
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