Category: War Stories

I was trekking through the Burmese jungles in early 2015, primarily there to help create a series of videos for a field hospital in a conflict area in Karen state, eastern Burma/Myanmar. My group and I were pushing through the winding trails for a while — we had just carried a pregnant woman who was […]

Recently I have been speaking with many of the Kurds I had previously served alongside in the Kurdish Peshmerga military forces. Many have moved on to veteran status and found civilian jobs. Many feel disenfranchised with the Peshmerga because it is surrounded by family hookups and back door deals. Corruption is common practice among the […]

June 6, is the date on which one of the biggest operations in the history of human warfare took place. Operation Overlord was a massive undertaking. Logistics, training, planning, war material production; every man and woman participating in it was on high gear. The significance of the landing was such that tomes upon tomes have […]

I was in 7th grade when I attended Murree Christian School (MCS) in hills outside of Islamabad, Pakistan. It was a British boarding school, and the boy’s boarding facility was located a short drive away from the school itself. Every morning we would load up on a bus and head over to the school compound, […]

As I sat in church on Sunday morning, our Pastor asked the congregation if anyone had known a soldier who made the ultimate sacrifice. Along with a few others, I stood. Yes, I have known several Soldiers, Marines, Airmen and Sailors, but one sticks out on this Memorial Day Weekend — the mission that claimed […]

I received some odd assignments as assistant adjutant of the 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) in the fall of 1962. I supervised the carving of a large pair of parachute wings out of ice for a formal ball. I ordered the names of officers departing from the Group headquarters engraved on boxes of dessert bronzeware […]

“Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” – H.L. Mencken Every person has it in them — the demon. I’m not sure what it is exactly, whether it’s some inner spiritual rage or some biological instinct to spur one toward survival […]

This is the most horrendous combat story I have ever read. Just to put that in contest I have read about 1500 of them, in the course of editing around 200 and writing seven. I have heard but not read two that rival it, either on the phone or leaning on a bar. I mention […]

The following excerpt is courtesy of Robert A. Trivino’s book A Warrior’s Path: Lessons in Leadership. Robert is a former member of the US Army’s 18th Airborne Corps, 75th Ranger Regiment, and an operational member of the Army’s elite special missions unit. The book humbly highlights Trivino’s own successes – and particularly his failures – […]

There are certain memories that snap you back to the past. Smell can carry you all the way back to the earliest memories, like Grandma’s house on a Sunday, or freshly cut grass in the morning. The sharp bite of the cold can bring back memories of childhood Christmas, or training missions in the worst […]

Imagine you’re a German soldier during WWII, just for a moment. It’s nearing the end of December, and you’re in a coastal town in far west Norway — England is somewhere across the icy waters. It’s freezing cold, and British boats are closing in. Troops are about to charge the garrison, and the first landing […]

We were heading out on our first reconnaissance mission, our objective was located in the no man’s land (but mostly Separatist controlled) that divided the Ukrainian military outposts and Separatist trenches. The countryside was a lush green and seemed rather peaceful given the circumstances. Sitting at an outpost smoking cigarettes, we had to wait for […]