Ranger

What does “Boyd” have in common with Toltec wisdom?

To say that I am excited is to vastly understate the case. Before going to Teotihuacan, the ancient pyramid complex near Mexico City constructed by the Toltecs, I had been reading a book called “Boyd” by Robert Coram. It’s the story of Air Force colonel John Boyd, the most innovative military thinker since Clausewitz. I […]

The value of rest

“I slept like, three hours last night. Studied ALL night,” lied the college student, who still doesn’t understand the material even though they are plenty smart enough and allegedly spent their night “studying.” “Just be glad you got any sleep at all. I was up all night watching TV. Didn’t get a minute of sleep,” […]

Nerds in SOF

About three years into my career as a Ranger, I was assigned a team and therefore a fellow team leader. We had crossed paths several times in the past, but he was coming from another platoon so I had never gotten to know him all that well. He was a relatively normal guy, a good […]

Humanity Divided: Seeing the Sunni and Shiite conflict firsthand

The first time I ever heard gunshots take a person’s life, I was in the fourth grade. They would often blow up chunks of the surrounding mountain range with bundles of dynamite, but this sounded different. My Dad would later explain to me that a Sunni had shot a Shiite dead in the bazaar. It […]

The miracle of hot water

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 […]

Veterans and war: The ‘hollow shell of a man’ trope

You know the trope: the veteran comes home from “the war.” He is distant, has vivid flashbacks that send him careening to the floor, is always on high alert and can’t seem to turn it off; he digs foxholes in his backyard and drinks way too much. Countless movies and television shows have portrayed veterans […]

Ranger, Police Officer — The monikers that stick with you

“So, I’ve got three hypothetical stories for you,” Patrick Bacon said as he sipped his beer and leaned back into his couch. “Let’s say, right after high school, Pat Bacon drinks way too much and decides to drive. Let’s say he hits someone and it’s all over the news. ‘Pat Bacon kills bystander.’ It probably […]

TigerSwan: Former Delta Operator sought to incite violence at the Dakota Access Pipeline

It was early afternoon on October 11th, 2016 when TigerSwan’s program manager, retired Delta Force Sergeant Major John Porter, met with Silverton’s owner, Carl Clifton, inside a hangar at the Mandan Municipal Airport. The hangar was initially used by Silverton security as a clandestine office for their intelligence cell that collected information on the protesters, […]

The art of sleeping anywhere

The conditions are just right: the pillows are soft and plentiful and you rest your head after a hard day’s work. You hug a large, soft pillow on your mattress that threatens to swallow you whole it’s so soft. The blankets on top of you are a blissful, heavy weight that embodies the essence of […]

Veterans: Doing your ‘private time’ all over again

When a lot of veterans exit the military, they bring a lot to the table. They may have useful skills, that the military trained them in the highest levels of proficiency and that are directly transferable to the civilian sector — even if they were infantry, that brings along a plethora of abstract qualities like […]

Why being an ‘operator’ doesn’t make you Jason Bourne

You know the trope found in secret agent films and novels alike: the Special Operator that is fluent in four languages, can track phones, build homemade explosives, is a parkour fanatic, a highly trained driver, is an expert tracker, better hacker, a master of like four variations of martial arts, and of course, is an […]