KYIV, Ukraine — The Russian drone orbited over the Ukrainians’ position all day. Denys Antipov, a first lieutenant in Ukraine’s 95th Airborne Assault Brigade, recognized the silhouette of an Orlan-10, an unmanned aerial vehicle typically used for ...
Opinion & Essay
How Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Emerged as the Antithesis of Putin
Whatever happens in the coming weeks, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will go down as the face of Ukrainian resilience during the Russian invasion of his country. His response to the Russian invasion of his country has been widely praised, both at ...
Will a Bullpup Ever Be the Service Rifle of the Future?
You can learn a lot about the differences in national cultures by looking at the service rifles they issue their troops. In some ways, different countries, continents, and cultures take turns swapping in advancements in small arms technology. The ...
Opinion: Marvel Canceled ‘The Punisher’ Logo for Deeply Flawed Reasons
An all-new Punisher series is coming to the Marvel Universe in March of 2022, and with it comes a major change to the vigilante superhero’s iconic logo. In a strange step back from the well-established symbol, Marvel has decided to distance the ...
In Ukraine, Another Year of War Is Over — Has a New One Just Begun?
KYIV, Ukraine — When the clocks strike midnight this evening, it will mark a new year — and for Ukraine, the beginning of a ninth straight calendar year at war. But you’d hardly know it walking around the capital city of Kyiv today. Across town, ...
What Dad’s Snapshots From Vietnam Taught Me About the Power of Stories
When I was about 6 or 7, I discovered my dad’s pictures from Vietnam. In them, he and Marines from his infantry company — posed around the An Hoa Basin — were in the prime of their youth. Men I knew from fishing trips were 20 years younger, filthy, ...
A Loud Crash, a Trapped Horse, and a Harrowing Rescue — Decorated Veteran Fights To Save Her ‘Baby’
I was already awake with my usual insomnia around 2:30 in the morning on Thursday, Dec. 16, when I heard a loud, frightening bang. It sounded like something hard hitting metal. Then I heard it again. I rushed to the window, threw it open, and looked ...
Stolen Valor Is So Grubby — Stolen for What? To Impress Who?
In 2003, I discovered that a friend claimed he had been called “bloodthirsty, civilian-killing scum” in an airport after returning from 1991’s Desert Storm. I was the one who picked him up at the airport in 1991. He didn’t mention this interaction ...
Colin Powell Knew How To Win; We Should Have Listened
The day after Gen. Colin Powell died at 84, I was eating chili at a dingy bar in Austin, Texas, when a haggard, middle-aged waiter appeared over my shoulder, inquiring to the Willie Nelson look-alike behind the bar, “Did Colin Powell die?” Willie ...
Opinion: Here’s How America Can Fight Wildfires Better
This op-ed appeared first in The Conversation on Oct. 13, 2021. The Conversation is a community of more than 135,400 academics and researchers from 4,192 institutions. The views of the authors do not necessarily reflect those of Coffee or Die ...
After Afghanistan, It’s Time To Admit Counterinsurgency Is a Losing Doctrine
In April 1961, several retired French generals, aided by a coterie of active-duty colonels and their units, responded to pending Algerian independence by taking key territories in the occupied territory and initiating an ultimately unsuccessful coup ...
‘Do You Remember the Battle of Ia Drang?’ — A Salute to Joe Galloway, My Friend and Mentor
Do you remember the Battle of Ia Drang? The words echoed loudly in my memory after a journalist friend called me and broke the terrible news that my friend and mentor — one of America's finest journalists — passed away Wednesday, Aug. 18. The ...
How We Can Help Afghan Special Operators Fight the Taliban
As soon as the United States announced a final withdrawal date from Afghanistan, I knew the elite Afghan special operations warriors, who had inflicted the most damage on the Taliban, would be targeted first. I also knew these warriors, whom I had ...
Are All US Forces Really Leaving Afghanistan? Former CIA Officer Says No
On July 2, the Pentagon’s top spokesman announced that command of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan would be transferred to the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) from NATO’s Resolute Support Mission, which previously commanded U.S. forces in the ...
To BRRRT! or Not To BRRRT! Should the Air Force Field a New Light Attack Aircraft?
The Global War on Terror is nearly two decades old, and somehow the Air Force still hasn’t acquired a dedicated light attack aircraft to use for close air support (CAS) in counterinsurgency (COIN) operations. The beloved A-10 Thunderbolt, serving ...
Plagued by Shipbuilding Missteps, Navy Will Struggle To Meet Future Threats
As the US National Defense Strategy seeks to counter China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region and address future threats to trade routes that the US and world economy depend on, the US Navy has a lot of challenges ahead. Infantry and tanks ...
Section 60: Finding Peace in the Park
Glancing down at the park map wadded in my fist, I studied the road names. My vision blurring, I struggled to read the words as they danced rhythmically with my heartbeat. I trombone-tested my near and far sight, feeling the ...
Going to the Show: What War Taught Me About Preparing for the Future
War. It’s an experience that I craved from the first time I had memories. As a Gen-X, latchkey kid I was raised by Rambo, Commando, The Punisher, and Rocky. I was also fed a trickle of lies from a stolen valor dad while he was around. This ...
‘Where Freedom Is Won’ — A US Veteran Visits Ukraine’s Eastern War Zone
AVDIIVKA, Ukraine — When you hear the sound you remember it and there’s no mistaking it for anything else. The thunder rolls in from the trenches — from where you are, about a mile away across a field and behind a tree line. The intrusive sound ...
The Things They Don’t Tell You About a Dead Body
May 4 is International Firefighters' Day. After his first day on the job as a new firefighter in Asheville, North Carolina, Mike Schoeffel, wrote this essay about what he saw and felt. The thing they don’t tell you about a dead body is the way ...
Power Belts, Eye Protection, and Hand Grenades — Leadership Lessons From the Front
Power belts, eye protection, and hand grenades — oh my! And all the sergeants major said, “Hell yeah!” While the staff sergeants rolled their eyes. Let me explain. In the Army, the senior enlisted service member of any (battalion-level or ...
Anzac Day Tribute: Lessons I Learned From the Grandfather I Never Met
Even as a small girl growing up in Australia’s countryside, I knew April 25 was a day not to cry or complain or run amok through the dusty tracks. My father would pull my sister and me from our slumber at dawn, when the rouge light was still ...
‘Keep It Between the Ditches’ — Effective Leaders Are Peacemakers
In 2003, as the 75th Ranger Regiment shifted its attention to the war in Iraq, C Company of the 2nd Battalion, 75th, was doing time as “the forgotten company” in Afghanistan’s Kunar Province. Deep inside the Hindu Kush Mountain Range, narrow roads ...
Ukrainians Are Fighting for Us
Trench warfare is a true test of a soldier’s grit. The thing is, there’s no escaping the danger. You could die just as easily while walking to the toilet as you could while holding the line under artillery fire. You never know when the shelling will ...
Silver Wings, Silver Hair: Liberty Jump Team Takes Paratroopers of Yesteryear on a Wild Ride
CORSICANA, Texas — We are flying on “jump run,” cruising at about 100 mph in a World War II vintage aircraft dubbed “Southern Cross,” a C-47 troop transport like one of the 2,000 planes that dropped thousands of American paratroopers over Normandy on ...
‘Our Backgrounds Are Not Monolithic’— Inside the Military’s Conversation About Extremism in Uniform
The screen showed a noose left hanging inside a bathroom near the mirror. I asked a classroom full of soldiers what it meant to them. One soldier, white, said that it was probably a dark joke, maybe about suicide, or maybe even a coded message to ...
Marine Begging Elite School To Pay for His MBA Is Peak ‘Veteran Entitlement Syndrome’
Nearly two decades into a war on terror, American service members and veterans enjoy strong public support. And while a certain amount of “thank you for your service” is always warranted, even in peacetime, some veterans seem to suffer with what I ...
How Mandatory Body-Worn Cameras Benefit Cops and Those They Serve
The recent bill passed by the House of Representatives, known as the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021, is brimming with reforms and federal mandates for law enforcement. There is too much to unpack in a single article, but it is safe to ...
Cheating Death in Ramadi on the Luckiest St. Paddy’s Day Ever
Two days before we were blown up by an insurgent IED in Ramadi, my teammate got a letter from his dad — with a Purple Heart postage stamp on it. We looked at that stamp, sitting on Camp Hurricane Point in 2004, with incredulity. It was bad ...
We Must Remember That More Veterans Defended Against the Capitol Breach Than Participated In It
Eugene Goodman never expected to find himself fighting for his life again, but as he ascended the stairs inside the US Capitol building and shouted into his police radio, that’s exactly what he was doing. It was Jan. 6, and Goodman, a Capitol Police ...