There I was: my first deployment in Iraq, sitting in an idling Humvee, waiting for the moment when we would be released from the gates for our mission. My team leader pierced our lull when he mentioned our reason for being there was to fight the terrorists here in Iraq, rather than at home. Sitting there doused in testosterone, diesel... more...

When I tell people where my fiancé is from, I proudly recall that Churchill mentioned her hometown in his famous Iron Curtain Speech. Her town of birth, Szczecin, was once a part of Germany—and the northern end of Churchill’s Iron Curtain. If you wander through its streets you’ll see German buildings and,... more...

As a child I used to believe in just wars, trusting my elders and being able to isolate evil people in the world. All part of my miseducation, I suppose. I’ve come a long way and now look back at this time as an odd dream. I think back in anger at all that was fed to me through school and elsewhere. This is not to say that I am... more...

When I visited the Brooks Range north of the Arctic Circle many summers ago, I was hit with a curtain of ice that cut down much of my hiking. I was short on food at this point: oatmeal, cliff bars, and a block of emergency rations meant for shipwrecked souls. Perhaps I was shipwrecked, philosophically speaking, but I managed to take in... more...