No, You Cannot Have My Dead Two years ago my wife and I lost a baby. We went to the 20 week ultrasound, expecting to hear if we were having a boy or a girl. Instead, we did not hear a heartbeat. The pain was sharp and immediate, though it has dulled with time. In our grief we sought comfort in…

Veterans Left to Die In the military, we learn to leave no one behind. Whatever the cost, whatever the situation, everyone comes home: unharmed, wounded, or dead. The importance of this principle is drilled into us from the very beginning of basic training, when our PT formations loop around to pick up those who fall out and the entire…

The First Casualty Recently we heard from Ukraine of a flyer distributed by Russian separatists in Donetsk. The flyer ordered the Jews of the city to register and pay a fee as a penalty for the support of Jewish leaders for the new government in Kiev. The flyer was denounced by American secretary of state John Kerry and…

Fernando Teson Doesn’t Learn Over at Bleeding Heart Libertarians, Fernando Teson is once again pounding the drums for … something. Presumably after being so hilariously, catastrophically, historically, possibly even supernaturally wrong on Iraq, Teson has decided not to overtly pound the drums of war. He’s just vaguely calling for “moral clarity” now, which is progress for Teson. After all,…

ANZAC Day In 1915, my country said, “Son- “It’s time to stop rambling, there’s work to be done.” So they gave me a tin hat, and they gave me a gun. And they sent me away to the war. Today is ANZAC Day, the 99th anniversary of the start of the Gallipoli campaign. ANZAC was originally the…

What We Talk About When We Talk About War Yesterday I read Cormac McCarthy’s wonderful 2006 novel, The Road. The book tells the story of an unnamed man and his son, as they move through an apocalyptic landscape in the hope of finding a safer place to live. McCarthy doesn’t specify the nature of the apocalypse, although nuclear war is strongly hinted at. The…