Washington, Braddock and the Battle of the Mon Poor George, he comes down through history as a white haired, grimacing founding father with sore gums and a paunch. It’s hard to imagine the tough, hardened veteran who was fearless in battle again and again. Ah, but a chance to remember: this week is the 264th […]

There to Stay Much hullaballo surrounds June 6, 1944, but the events following seemingly drop off our radar; the battle surely didn’t stop, though. Success depended on pushing inland at Normandy and the Contentin peninsula, both to foil German counterattacks and to make way for succeeding waves of troops, weapons and support elements. Airborne troops […]

What Pat Tillman’s Death Teaches Us Pat Tillman was an NFL player who turned down a 3.6 million dollar contract to join the Army, along with his brother Kevin, after the 9/11 attacks. Their father said,  “We were at war and the idea that my kids would allow someone else to fight their battles for them… […]

  Ike Goes to Ohrdruf President Dwight Eisenhower understood, long before he took office, that true leadership means dealing with the thorniest issues. John Kennedy said the day before his inauguration, Eisenhower told him, “…no easy problems ever come to the President of the United States.” We expect our leaders to tackle the tough ones and […]

In Harm’s Way In this 17th year of the war in Afghanistan, we Americans express thanks to the troops, the question is for what? Two days ago, at least 55 people were killed and 94 injured in a suicide bombing in the capital, Kabul, during an event “commemorating the birth anniversary of the prophet Muhammad,” […]

So Much for Leading From the Front A favorite piece of American history is the vision of 56-year-old, Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., hobbling Utah Beach with a cane as troops landed on D-Day. He was the oldest man in the invasion and the only general to land by sea on that day. Roosevelt was […]

Schaitberger’s Cowardly Dithering Many will know that Harold Schaitberger’s latest excuse for sitting out Campaign 2016 is waiting to see who the respective vice-presidential choices are, as if that could, or should in any way influence the decision on who to support. He probably knows by now that HRC chose Virginia’s Tim Kaine, who has […]

“You Know I’m Not a Racist.” News services report that a North Carolina volunteer fire chief, Todd McNeill, who also works as a career firefighter in a nearby department, was ousted this week after referring to a Sanford, North Carolina, funeral home as the “nigger one.” McNeill applies the vilest racial epithet also to the […]