I hadn’t shot a pistol in over three years. The one in my hand on the range at Fort Benning, Georgia felt like a foreign object. I remembered how to operate it like one recollects how to ride a bike after years of not riding. But it felt strange and I was not comfortable. We had to qualify before deploying and fortunately they gave a practice round for those of us who needed to regain familiarity with the 9mm hand gun. My practice set was abysmal....read more

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My brain hurts. It literally hurts. Not a headache. Rather, it feels as if my cranium is chained to a treadmill at max elevation and near top speed. This meeting has gone on for three and a half hours. My mind is exhausted. We’ve been in the Chief’s conference room all morning discussing the Afghanistan National Army personnel accountability process. The system itself is complex, but it is made more difficult because it’s being explained...read more

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I slept in this morning but was up before the alarm went off at 4:30 AM. I have made a commitment to always sleep in on the weekends. It’s Friday, “Juma,” the Islam holy day and the Ministry of Defense is closed so we only work half days. Today is my Sunday. The first hour of my day doesn’t change, weekend or not. I sleep in a room with 20 other guys so I am careful not to wake anyone up. I have a head lamp that is next to my rack and I...read more

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I walk out the gate of Camp Eggers and bid good morning to the guard. “Sub Ba-khair.” I say, employing one of the few phrases of Dari I’ve learned since arriving to Afghanistan nearly a week ago. He smiles at my frail attempt to speak his language and politely thanks me by replying, “Tashakur.” My battle buddy and I begin our trek through Kabul’s “Green Zone” to the Ministry of Defense where General John R. Allen, the Commander of the...read more

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My daughter Madelyn shook me out of a deep sleep, “Daddy, Daddy, wake up. Wake up Daddy!” I sat up immediately, still in a fog and said, “What’s wrong honey?” Excited, she spoke so fast her words were nearly impossible to understand, “He’s dead. He’s dead. Bin Laden is dead. They killed him.” I swung my feet to the side of the bed and stood up. She took my hand and dragged me to the television set that was playing in the living...read more

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Joe Fenty skipped over the trail’s rocks, roots, and ruts as I tippy-toed along trying my best not to fall on my face. Joe yelled, “Coming on your left, Fred.” He passed me as if I were one of the motionless trees next to the single-track path. He dodged a moss-covered boulder and then chop stepped his way up a steep incline, disappearing on a sharp turn. I didn’t see him again for almost three hours until I dragged myself, exhausted, across the...read more

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I think the first time I heard the phrase “If you’re going to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk” was my sophomore year in college. We were playing Georgia Tech and they had a hot shot freshman guard named Mark Price. Price was a high school All American in Oklahoma and touted as one of the best guards in the country. I was unimpressed and said as much in our review of game tapes as we prepared to make the trip to Atlanta for...read more

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In the Post Exchange the other day, I saw an old Non Commissioned Officer, now retired, from my first unit of assignment as an Infantry Second Lieutenant with 2-22 Infantry in the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, NY. We walked by one another, did a double take, and smiles came over our faces. We embraced briefly and he said, “Full bird! Are you kidding me? I can’t believe you’re still in the Army. I thought they’d kicked you out a long time ago.” I told him I...read more

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I grew up in a small city in Southern Illinois where two truths were indisputable amongst our townsfolk. The first was that the only baseball team in Illinois was the St Louis Cardinals and the fact the Redbirds resided on the Missouri side of the Mississippi was irrelevant. The second was that while baseball is America’s pastime, basketball is Illinois religion and the greatest honor most kids growing up in our railroad town aspired for was to play on the Centralia High School...read more

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John Mellencamp had a song in the early 90s called "Dance Naked." Not a bad tune, but I was reminded of it a couple weeks ago during the Golden Knights support to OpenCamp in Addison, Texas. The purpose of OpenCamp is “to educate, foster a sense of community, and remove barriers for webmasters and web developers, bloggers, podcasters, and social media enthusiasts.” The Golden Knights came to OpenCamp to learn more about social media but also to give...read more

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