Tag: Luke Ryan

ICEX18 (Ice Exercise 2018) was kicked off early March, beginning the five week exercise in one of the world’s harshest environments: the arctic cold. Every other year, the U.S. Navy conducts this training event that tests and train’s the Navy’s capabilities in the unforgiving northern temperatures, and to coordinate with partner nations while doing so. […]

A suicide bomber detonated his vest on Wednesday in the town of Raiwind, Pakistan, just south of Lahore. The attack was meant to target Pakistani law enforcement, as it happened at a police checkpoint as they were changing shifts. So far, 25 people have been injured, 13 of which were police officers. The death toll […]

A Russian nerve agent has been making the headlines after the assassination attempt of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. The former was a Russian military intelligence officer charged spying on his own, and the latter was his daughter. After some prison time, Mr. Skripal took his daughter and they were traded to England where they could be […]

On Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis made an unannounced visit to Kabul, Afghanistan, his presence there a secret due to security concerns. He was there to “take stock of the security situation — I want to talk to our Afghan partner leaders of the unity government, and I want to talk to our troops.” […]

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 […]

“I looked into his eyes and I saw the eyes of a killer.” I’m sure you’ve heard some variation of this line in the past. What do “killer eyes” look like? Is there some indicator of soullessness? Is there some look on a man’s face or some mannerism that signals his thirst for blood? Having […]

You know it when you see it, and you probably see it several times a day if you’re driving pretty much anywhere in America. Affixed on top of the flagpole, above the flag itself, stands a golden sphere, decoratively topping it all off. The golden colored or bronze looking orb is not at the end […]

When people think of the loss of life in a war, they generally think of soldiers sustaining traumatic injuries. However, conditions on the battlefield are anything but healthy, and disease has often inflicted serious casualties on forces that scramble through months of jungle mountains, or scrape through muddy trenches for weeks on end, and sometimes […]

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 […]

If you have heard of Sun Tzu and “The Art of War,” then you’ve probably seen this: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you […]

March 9, 1862:  It was the second year of the American Civil War, and the confederacy had acquired a frigate by the name of the U.S.S. Merrimack. They altered the ship, heavily armoring it and adding significantly more firepower, turning it into a formidable ironclad ship, the C.S.S. Virginia. The boat absolutely pummeled wooden Union […]

The VA has long been entangled in controversy, and they seem to constantly be going from scandal to another. There are many good-willed and honest officials, but corruption has certainly taken hold on a significant number of ranking VA employees. Of course there are the problems with slow and/or poor service, pitfalls with the transplant […]