Luke Ryan

It’s easy to forget about ongoing conflicts, after the news reports the same thing over and over again. Africa seems like the type of place where the conflict never ends, and without a solid knowledge of the geography, demographics and politics of the area, it all just sort of blurs together. The same goes for […]

For those of you that subscribe to the method of evolution as the origin of our species, there are many types of “arms races” between species as they developed over time. For example, if you have cheetahs and gazelles then the cheetahs will likely kill off all the gazelles with the genetic predispositions that make […]

Tampa, FL — Seminole Heights, a neighborhood that has recently been plagued with multiple, seemingly random killings, has been under the heightened police attention for the last two months. A possible serial killer has been on the loose, shooting four people who were alone at night in the area. Security footage had caught him and […]

Let me start by saying that I loved “Dunkirk” and found it to be incredibly compelling and visually stunning. If you disagree then you’ll probably disagree with the contents of this article–no hard feelings. War movies are incredibly hard to make. For every classic war film, there are a dozen failed attempts by directors that […]

I use some variation of the word “catharsis” in a lot of my articles. I think it’s something a lot of veterans pursue—I think it’s something a lot of people across the board pursue. There is a deep-seated unrest scraping away at the soul of every human being and my experiences in the military, while […]

You wake up at 8 a.m. You get ready for work, you grip the steering wheel and yawn into your coffee cup. You shuffle through papers at your desk and you look out the window at the world shuffling through people on the sidewalk. You come home and maybe there’s food waiting for you, maybe […]

If you’ve read the previous installments of this series, you’re probably thinking that “The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane has no place here. It might be a stretch, seeing as there’s no outright war in this short novella, I’ll give you that. However, there are two reasons why I’m including it: Crane’s intimate connection to […]

Many people in my circles express a desire to go overseas and contribute toward some kind of cause at some point. Military veterans in particular are often interested in that kind of life–though it may not be easy, it’s rewarding, it’s an adventure and it serves a higher purpose. Like the military, it takes you […]

Some people have dubbed the ’70s the golden age of film. Movies had been around long enough for filmmakers to learn from their predecessors and perfect the craft, and most importantly it came after the end of the American government’s strict censorship on film, otherwise known as the Hays Code (Motion Picture Production Code) in […]

North Sinai, Egypt — On Friday, terrorists detonated a bomb inside a mosque. They surrounded the building and set up gun positions, firing upon surviving civilians as they fled for their lives. Eventually several of the gunman entered the mosque as well. Over 120 people are reportedly wounded and now it has been reported that […]

Karen State, Burma (Myanmar) has been an area of heavy conflict for over 70 years.  When most people look at areas of conflicts, they look at combat deaths, injuries or other trauma-related issues. However, the more serious issues are ancillary to combat—because of a war or other type of civil unrest, you have a severe […]

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, approximately 10% of veterans of the war in Afghanistan are diagnosed with PSTD, 11% from Iraq.  In “the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, about 1 in 10 (10%) returning soldiers seen in VA have a problem with alcohol or other drugs.” It seems like an easy match, if […]