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 […]

Tuesday, January 10, 2017 Abdul Ali Shamsi, a brave young Afghan, who was also serving as deputy governor in the Taliban-laced Kandahar Province, was killed along with ten other people when explosives detonated inside a supposedly secure guest house during a reception for visiting Arab dignitaries. Here is how the NYT describes the remainder of […]

MIA That’s Miami International Airport, not Missing In Action, though it could apply. I was walking through the airport yesterday, something I have done many times, when I (finally) noticed what is a very public war memorial, dedicated to Miami/Dade area soldiers who have died since 9/11 in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s right in the […]

December 8, 1941 The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on the 7th of December was a rude wake-up call for Admiral Husband Kimmel and General Walter Short, the Navy and Army commanding officers there. Both had been individually and repeatedly warned of the imminent danger of war. Yet, they did little to prepare and seldom […]

The Bear Interferes The Washington Post has an opinion piece by Eric Chenoweth,  co-director of the Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe, upbraiding us collectively for our failure to be appropriately outraged at Putin’s supposed meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Chenoweth suggests we should have mouths agape at “the successful effort by a hostile foreign […]