Ethan E. Rocke is a senior editor for Coffee or Die. Born in Los Angeles and raised in California’s Sierra Nevada foothills, he is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning photographer and filmmaker in Portland, Oregon. He served as an infantryman with the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, deploying once to Kosovo for peacekeeping operations. After leaving the Army, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps as a “storyteller of Marines,” serving in Okinawa and the Asia-Pacific region with III Marine Expeditionary Force and at the Marine Corps Motion Picture and Television Liaison Office in Los Angeles, where he served as a consultant on dozens of television shows and documentaries and several feature films. His work has been published in Maxim Magazine, American Legion Magazine and many others. He is co-author of “The Last Punisher: A SEAL Team THREE Sniper’s True Account of the Battle of Ramadi.”
There is a famous phrase in American literature that goes like this: “Every love story is a ghost story.” The late, great author and tortured genius David Foster Wallace penned the poetic sentence in a letter to a friend in 1986, and Wallace ...
After retired Marine Lt. Col. Kate Germano took command of the Fourth Recruit Training Battalion at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in 2014, she sought to reform the Corps’ recruit training practices. “This job seemed perfect for me,” ...
After Washington, DC police officer Alexander Alvarez shot and killed 18-year-old Deon Kay in southeast Washington Thursday, it took less than 24 hours for the department to release Alvarez’s body-camera footage. The footage appears to show Kay ...
An Army Ranger assigned to the U.S. Army’s Special Operations Command will be awarded the Medal of Honor Sept. 11 for his actions in a 2015 raid that rescued approximately 70 prisoners from Islamic State militants in Iraq, according to the Associated ...
A Facebook livestream captured grainy video Saturday night that appears to show the moment a man — dressed in a white shirt, shorts, tube socks, and a black hat — shoots and kills Aaron J. Danielson, a supporter of the conservative group Patriot ...
Wisconsin Sen. Steve Nass released a statement Friday issued by the Kenosha Professional Police Association (KPPA) and the officers involved in the Jacob Blake shooting, providing the officers’ version of events. Kenosha Police Officer Rusten ...
The last time Tim Jeffers was on Okinawa, he had legs. That was in February 2006 when Jeffers, then a corporal assigned to 3rd Transportation Support Battalion, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, as a motor transport operator, left the island for Iraq’s ...
“Scars are not forever” was conceived for one Marine in the months of rehabilitation that followed an IED blast in Iraq, which left him badly burned and disfigured. Since then, the spirit of that ideal has evolved into an innovative partnership ...
Kasinal White felt like screaming with joy when she received the news Thursday — on her 62nd birthday — that 15 years of tireless work may soon culminate with the awarding of the nation’s highest award for military valor to her brother, Sgt. 1st ...
Investigators executed multiple search warrants at a sailor’s home and property and have questioned the individual suspected of intentionally setting a fire July 12 on the USS Bonhomme Richard as the ship was docked at Naval Base San Diego, according ...
Jacob Blake, the Black man shot seven times in the back by a Kenosha, Wisconsin, police officer Sunday, had a knife in his possession, the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) said in a press release ...
Former Army Ranger Thomas Owen Baker knows something about using deadly force in the line of duty. Baker, who served for nearly nine years as a police officer in Phoenix, was responding to a domestic violence call June 8, 2009, when he ordered a man ...
“One of the coolest, most creative videos I've ever seen produced by a military journalist.” That comment from a Vimeo user is a pretty spot-on assessment of Steel Rain — a brief but beautiful video of a Marine artillery unit mercilessly raining ...
BEAVERTON, Oregon — In a scene familiar to many Portland residents, political ideologies clashed in often violent confrontations between right-wing demonstrators and counterprotesters in the area around the Multnomah County Justice Center in downtown ...
After Adam Haner crashed his truck in downtown Portland on the night of Sunday, Aug. 16, and was beaten unconscious in the street, myriad videos of the brutal beating circulated in local and national media. Conflicting or inaccurate information ...
The FBI is investigating the credibility of a threat that a vehicle filled with explosives would hit a federal building in Portland, The Oregonian reported Friday morning. In response to the threat, all federal buildings in Portland have been ...
Federal prosecutors on Thursday arrested former White House Chief of Staff Steve Bannon and US Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage, alleging they and two other men enriched themselves by defrauding donors to the controversial "We Build the Wall" ...
When Metallica released ...And Justice For All in 1988, the album was a game-changer for the band. Helped greatly by the wildly popular single One and its iconic music video, the album, which went multi-platinum, is the band’s artistic high-water ...
The remains of seven Marines and one sailor who were killed in a training mishap near Camp Pendleton July 30 and recovered Aug. 7 were boarded onto a C-17 Globemaster at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and transferred to Dover Air Force Base, ...
This article was originally published Aug. 12, 2020, on We Are The Mighty. Historians don't talk much about naval action during the Civil War, certainly not as much as they do about the ground combat. If it's not about a riverboat, the Monitor ...
When news broke that “Someone finally made edible crayons for Marines,” Leathernecks likely read the announcement with confusion: When have crayons ever been anything other than edible and delicious? The colorful sticks of wax have been a dietary ...
Marine recruit Austin Ferrell has been shooting, building and machining rifles all of his life, so when he arrived to Chosin Rifle Range aboard Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, he felt right at home. Ferrell anticipated performing well on ...
While deployed to East Africa as a member of the 4th Combat Camera Squadron, US Air Force Staff Sgt. Corban Lundborg sought to create a unique illustration series inspired by his time in the region. Looking around the combat camera office, he found ...
The 52nd Civil Engineer Squadron Fire and Emergency Services flight go through extensive training day in and day out to ensure Spangdahlem Air Base and host nation emergencies are taken care of and everyone is safe. When real-life emergencies ...
This article was originally published July 29, 2020, in The War Horse. We’re piled on top of each other 15, sometimes 20, at a time, in a vehicle that feels like it’s built for 12. Our weapons and gear double our volume. Once in, we can’t ...
This article was originally published April 30, 2020, on The War Horse. Included in the $2.2 trillion rescue package in response to the COVID-19 shutdown was $17 billion set aside for firms deemed “critical for maintaining national security.” ...
The remains of seven Marines and a sailor who were killed when their amphibious assault vehicle (AAV) sank during a training exercise July 30 off the California coast near Camp Pendleton were successfully recovered Friday. After officials ...
Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown Jr. made history yesterday when he took the oath of office and accepted responsibility as the new chief of staff of the US Air Force, making him the first Black chief of any of the military services. Brown became the Air ...
Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried is one of America’s most celebrated pieces of war literature. The book, which was published in 1990, is a collection of linked, semi-autobiographical short stories inspired by O'Brien's experiences as a soldier ...
Early Tuesday evening, people in Lebanon’s capital city of Beirut watched as a massive plume of gray smoke from an explosion in the port billowed over the capital skyline. Then a second devastating explosion erupted from the site, blooming up with a ...
