"Existential Threat."

In my last decade of active military service, to include a stint as a student at the Army's School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS, aka "the Jedi Knight School"), I heard this phrase bandied around on a fairly common basis. Al Qa'ida was called an "Existential Threat." North...

The return of tens of thousands of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan over the past few years, and the expectation of the largest wave of war veterans into US society since 1972 has become an important topic for the new administration. Paul Rieckhoff and the folks at IAVA are advancing...

In a bit over two years, it will be 150 years since Confederate troops opened fire on the Federal forces inside Fort Sumter, South Carolina. Four years and 650,000 dead later, the guns fell silent.

We have just elected our first African-American President. This singular act brings to focus...

Like many of you, I'm just now catching my breath from the election, the holidays and the inauguration. Unlike many of you, I had a wedding and a trip to Mexico thrown in, so I am just now getting back to the sport of blogging.

With the new administration taking...

I was appalled (and annoyed) this weekend by the newest wave of hypocrisy to come spewing perkily forth from the ever-smiling, ever-smirking, perfectly lipsticked mouth of Governor Palin. I'm actually starting to enjoy (for comedic reasons only) her interviews that are nothing more than disconnected prepositional phrases laced with stock...

Like everyone else on the planet, I watched Governor Palin attempt to debate Senator Biden last night.

In general, there wasn't a car crash of moose-killing proportions. It was just more of the same -- someone who was so far out of her league on the issues that she could...

As many of you, I was shocked today by the announcement from the McCain campaign of the suspension of his campaign so he can deal with the economic crisis.

What surprised me was in two major parts. I'll address this to Senator McCain, who I have long respected as an...

I was reading Jake Tapper's blog post on ABC News and became quite disturbed over Governor Palin's association with the secessionist Alaska Independence Party (AIP). I can slough off the baby rumors. I can live with the Governor's conservative ideology. What I can't stand for is the possibility that...

I received the following yesterday in my inbox, from Jim Campi, communications director of the Civil War Preservation Trust: "Stop the Wilderness Wal Mart!" http://www.civilwar.org/walmart08/

I'm a member of the CWPT, and have been for many years. It has done some excellent work in buying and preserving land that...

I have to admit it. There are somethings I admire about John McCain. Primarily, spending five years in a North Vietnamese prison. Like I used to tell my buddies when I was on active duty, there were two medals I had no desire for -- the Purple Heart and the...

"Would we desert you now,

The Irish-American's Song, 1864

In the dark...

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so...

"For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two o'clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and...

Originally posted on my own blog in May.

I've been pondering lately the whole bruhaha over Iran's nuclear program.

I like to think of it as my "Thankgiving Day Dinner" analogy.

When you were little, you sat at the little table. At the little table, you could throw...