He is teaching me a remarkable lesson about survival during the pandemic — The sky over my house is gray. The continuous fires just over the mountain leave a thin layer of ash to sweep away in the mornings. Like just about everything else, the fires have been bad this year. On my morning walks, my mask pulls double duty against the virus…

For every heroic charge over Omaha Beach, there’s a My Lai massacre. For every Apollo 11, there’s a Tuskegee syphilis experiment. As it does with you and I, the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every nation. Nations are, after all, not real things; no more…

I was cut from the Little League team I tried out for when I was nine. They sent me back down to the lower level with most of the other kids my age. …

The first thing the commanding general of our Task Force told me when he visited the camp my team was deployed to was that we all needed haircuts. There was no pat on the back for maintaining readiness in an austere environment. …

When I returned from my last deployment to Iraq, a non-profit dedicated to supporting the Naval Special Warfare community rented out the Disneyland Hotel for our families. There was a reception hosted by Gary Sinise. The stars of the then recently released The Hurt Locker were there. …

My roommate on my first ship was a dozen years older than I was. He was a recovered alcoholic who had been sober for years. His arms were covered in faded ink. His ears were scarred with of rows of old piercings. He was married with four kids. …

This moment is hard for everyone. For parents of special needs kids, it’s harder. — I was on a ship headed out of the Gulf after three months of grueling summertime naval interdiction operations when 9/11 happened. We were extended indefinitely. For months, I spent six out of every 18 hours driving a ship. The other 12 were spent managing an engineering division and trying…

I met my wife three weeks before I deployed for the first time in the summer of 2001. We met as people met in the simpler days of the early 2000’s — at dollar beer night at a country bar. I’d been in San Diego a month. I moved there…

Brace yourself. It’s Veteran’s Day. And we’re all about to see just how much corporate America appreciates us vets. From car sales to discount pricing to parking spaces, corporations all over America have agreed. It’s good to honor vets. It may even be profitable. And while I’m genuinely appreciative of…