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China Already Had Its War
“Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting,” (The Art of War, III:2, Sun Tzu). The people...
View ArticleFrankie’s in Lacey
We sang “Take Me Home, Country Roads” Because I killed it, drunk and buried in smokeA woman approached and told me we had to do “Rocky Mountain High”The woman took a drag and told me it would make her...
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Brave Men and Lost Boys
Peter Banning (played by Robin Williams): To die would be a great adventure! Captain James Hook (played by Dustin Hoffman): Death is the only adventure you have left. - Hook (1991) So the story goes...
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Writing with TBI
I speak much slower than I used to. In fact, I think much slower, too. Detached synapses are like abandoned off-ramps on the interstate of my thoughts. New roads have been built, and we all know how...
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Frontier Notes: The Mountains and My Azimuth
A cow elk moves across the ranch pastures just east of the Crazy Mountains. There’s a heartbeat out here. The organ is no different. The body it resides in is no different. But the ferocity she beats...
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Social Instability Among the Nacirema
Political anthropologists have been fascinated with various tribes and societies around the globe in recent decades. The Middle East and Africa are home to civilizations ripe for study....
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What Are We Waiting For?
In the spring of 2011, I was a fire team leader in Sangin, Afghanistan with the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment. My platoon was spread out between two different outposts, and we only had one...
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The Terrible Puzzle and The Terrible Prize
I’ve reached a point in my grief stage where I don’t have any more uncontrolled sobbing sessions. Not that I had many of them, anyway. When my brother died, I had seen it coming for ten years, the...
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Written in Taliban
The first time I saw you was in the Khyber Pass. You came with your technology, elite fighters fueled by revenge, and the hubris to believe you could disprove history.This was a war that you didn’t...
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10pm on a Tuesday
My dog is telling me to go to bedbut he has the same voice as my dead fiancé.It scares Me.I hear the echoes down the hall.and stumble to the kitchenRefusing to look into the bedroom againI see bright...
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To Hanoi with Poems
It was a rainy Tuesday afternoon in Savannah. As I finished my breakfast, I exited the pub and downed my drink. Wanting to break up the monotony of my usual day, I decided to check out a book shop...
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The Afghan Crisis: Helping Effectively
A Marine with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force-Crisis Response-Central Command (SPMAGTF-CR-CC) gives a high five to a child during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport,...
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Leaning Into Force Design
U.S. Marines with Force Reconnaissance Platoon (FRP), 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), conduct a live fire deck shoot aboard amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6) in the Philippine Sea,...
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3495 Bailey
Every step, a set of ribbons stitched on a hatReminds you of where they’ve beenAnd where you’re atWedged in a chair, relating to peeling linoleumNarcotics more present than the fiends holding themWe...
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Nonno’s Old Box of Memories
U.S. 2nd Armored Division soldiers look down into a fighting hole at a slain German soldier armed with two Panzerfaust rocket launchers. Germany, 1945. Photo colorized by Julius Jääskeläinen....
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The Legend Of Peg Leg McGillyson
Listen, my children, and you will hear the late-night legend of old Peg Leg McGillyson. A pro surfer with talent too spare, his face is often adorned with sparse sun-bleached facial hair. He may not...
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Fairweather Brotherhood
At the risk of sounding cliché, June 8, 2014, started like any other day. I woke up at 5 am, got my ACUs on, and began the 45-minute drive to work. My commute was met with the same excitement it...
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The Marine Corps’ Identity Crisis
Marines with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) participate in a live-fire range aboard the USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7) on April 16, 2021. (Photo courtesy DVIDSHUB) Without an active conflict, The...
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Perpetuating Success Stories - The One More Wave Floperator
I love veteran success stories. Growing up, my grandfather, a World War II infantryman, taught me to excel in life regardless of circumstances. Seen in his youth as the part-Indian bastard child of a...
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Moondust
What can really be said about OIF? Hindsight’s 20/20? A lot of us can remember being in bootcamp when Delta Force captured Saddam and his sons met their end. We thought then it was all over and...
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