A Picture Worth a Thousand Words Those dark splotches on the map, looking a little like coffee stains, outline the areas of Afghanistan under the control of either the Taliban (light gray) or ISIS (darker gray). They are mostly non-contiguous, floating zones where these groups have exerted enough muscle or influence to drive out government […]

Give the Douche Bag His Due Regarding the Civil War, Trump asked “why it could not have been worked out” and then observed that he “always felt that the South overplayed their hand.” In Trumpian language the deal on the table in 1861 was that President Lincoln, chief negotiator for the Union, was fine with […]

The Vietnam Veterans Wall, opened in 1982, is a shade under 500 feet long with over 58,000 names of those killed or missing etched into its shiny black panels. While other war memorials also list names, the Wall stands alone for its enveloping design and enormity. The names take center stage, a tidal wave of […]

July Fourth, Early This past Thursday the US military deployed the GBU-43, the largest non-nuclear weapon in the arsenal, at a cave site reputed to be used by ISIS in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province. For the military it’s the equivalent of  being able to take that brand new Harley you bought out for a spin after a […]

I toured with fifth-graders and their parents the other day and we concluded with an evening visit to the Pentagon 9/11 Memorial. (The Pentagon was struck by a commercial jet on that day and 184 people were killed either in the building or on the aircraft.) With the attack now 16 years ago, it is […]

Never-Ending Afghanistan We may have gone to war in Afghanistan in 2001 to destroy Bin Laden and al Qaeda, but yesterday’s deadly attack on a military hospital in Kabul which killed 30 and wounded 50, was staged by ISIS, our newest enemy there. Our actual “enemy of note” isn’t even ISIS but rather the Taliban, who […]

Sunset, Saturday, March 4, 2017

Last week I posted this beautiful image asking for ideas where it might be located. Today, the answer. The Second Infantry Division is known as “Indianhead” or 2ID. The Second was created in 1917 in France and fought at Belleau Wood, Chateau-Thierry, the Aisne and Saint Mihiel. During WWII, they came ashore at Normandy and […]

My third career has made a walker of me, first for work and now for exercise and pleasure, as well. Though I never would have guessed it before, there are few places I need to go in the city that are farther away then a 75-minute brisk walk. If you would have asked me how […]

“An Incredibly Inclusive Group” Today’s news may be dominated by Trump’s bungled attempt to institute a religiously based ban on Muslims entering the US, but as New York Magazine (NYM) points out, the White House offered up a  “Jew-less Holocaust Remembrance” on Friday, a nice bit of airbrushing. Perhaps the team over at the White […]