The alarms had gone off—again—at Cement City near Dammam, Saudi Arabia, in late January. The air war had just begun, and we’d spent the day filling sandbags and digging a hole, the wet sand leaching all moisture from our frozen fingers. The Scud ...
Opinion & Essay
‘Make Them Marines’ — What ‘Black Friday’ Looked Like 18 Years Ago
Last week, I traveled to Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego to document the arrival and start of recruit training for the first platoon of female recruits ever to train at the West Coast installation. In a way, the assignment was a homecoming. I ...
Delta Force and the One-Eyed Tank Gunner: A Tale of Respect and Patriotism
This article was originally published Feb. 10, 2021, on Sandboxx News. Follow Sandboxx News on Instagram. We had a one-eyed tank gunner supporting our unit. She lost an eye at Tikrit, Iraq skirmishing there with the Mujahidin. She was on the ...
I Made Angry Cops Join the Air National Guard Over a Super Bowl Bet
Super Bowl Sunday is a day of parties, drinking, and chicken wings for most Americans. For me, it’s a day I gamble on a sport I don’t follow (nor care about) and craft an extremely creative wager with whoever is dumb enough to agree. Some of you ...
In a Time of Mistrust, Remembering Ernie Pyle
The other day I received one of those compliments that makes a reporter uneasy. An Iraq war battle buddy called me "the only newsman he ever trusted." Happens the Army brother was a National Guard soldier, and a good one. His day job outside the ...
‘Stay in Place’ — a DC Guardsman Reflects on Military Orders to ‘Do Nothing’ During the Capitol Siege
Editor’s note: T.L.K. is a pseudonym for a national guardsman whose identity is being withheld to protect the soldier from retaliation. T.L.K.’s service and presence at the Capitol has been verified through photographs and military records. Ask a ...
In the Presence of Evil at Kyiv’s Babyn Yar Ravine, Site of a Nazi Holocaust Massacre
KYIV, Ukraine — I walk alone on a gray winter day. The bare branches bend in the cold wind. Beside the path through Kyiv's Babyn Yar memorial park, melted snow has turned the earth to black mud. I pass an old woman sitting on a bench. She has two ...
What Does It Mean To Be a Patriot? A Brief History of the Word and How It Could Unite Us
“Patriot” is a word that gets thrown around a lot. Probably too much, actually. If you check various major dictionaries, they all basically say some version of the same thing: “one who loves and supports his or her country.” But if you look at the ...
Police Use of Force Reform and Rethinking the ‘Reasonable Officer’ Standard
When the George Floyd homicide and subsequent civil unrest began earlier this year, police violence and its social implications were already on my mind. The 11th anniversary of my own experience using deadly force as a police officer was quickly ...
Learning To Live in the World — On Suicide, Surviving, and Saving Others
Too many dead friends. Some died in combat. Others died from suicide after they came back home. Not long after I was discharged I attempted suicide and was hospitalized. There were no easy answers. In the hospital, we had group therapy. Some ...
Foreign Aid and Why America Still Needs To Exert ‘Soft Power’
Days before President Donald Trump signed into law a $900 billion bill that provides financial aid to millions of struggling Americans, he decried the legislation on Twitter, citing several line items he objected to in the omnibus Consolidated ...
Navy’s Shipbuilding Plan Calls for Massive Expansion To Counter China, Meet Future Threats
The Navy recently issued its 30-year shipbuilding plan. It’s extremely ambitious. From a current force of 296 ships, in 2045 the Navy will field 403. Unmanned ships will make that 546. That’s nothing short of a transformation for the Navy. It has, ...
The Time I Pulled a Gun on Santa at West Point
Having been in the Army for almost 25 years and separated from my wife and/or children for much of that time, one of my greatest pleasures these days is telling stories to them during our family dinnertime. And when I say “stories,” I mean outrageous ...
What Will the Biden Administration Mean for the Military and Veterans?
In about a month’s time, President Donald Trump will transfer power to Joe Biden, launching a new administration with new policies. How will that impact the lives of veterans and the active-duty military? Undoubtedly, after four years of bombastic ...
Delta Force: Why Does America Need Us?
This article was originally published Nov. 4, 2020, on Sandboxx News. Follow Sandboxx News on Instagram. The Delta Force, like so many other organizations, is the answer to a problem. If you can consider that our country’s civic police force is ...
Crossing the Line of Departure as a Woman in Special Operations
Dense clouds filled the sky, suffocating all the light trying to break through. The February air that morning was cold and uninviting. He was standing in front of me in the parking lot at the flight line. Like the typical Mainer he is, everything ...
Spilt Milk, Giggling Girls, and No Use Crying in Afghanistan
I remember feeling the sun’s warmth on my face, my neck growing sweaty thanks to the headscarf I’d wrapped in careful layers around my head. It didn’t help that our Afghan hosts kept feeding us boiling-hot chai milk. Not one to shirk customs, I ...
BASE Jumping and Finding Peace in Free Fall — A Soldier’s Journey
Nobody in my unit knew I was there. I think I told a random captain I was going to Munich, but that was a good three hours north of Arco, Italy and the cliff where I stood. Work was the furthest thing from my mind as I triple-checked my parachute and ...
‘Like Iron-Filled Tears’—My First Time Seeing a Dead Body in a Combat Zone
The body was lying on an army field stretcher, nestled between the olive green metal bars, drooping lifelessly on the black mesh fabric. I could see black tufts of hair sticking out from the blue tarp they’d used to cover the body. Congealed blood ...
‘You Either Went to War or You Didn’t’—How Deployments Divide the Veteran Community
There is an unspoken caste system among veterans—one that no one talks about. The people who wind up in these castes have no choice about which group they end up in. It’s all a matter of luck and geopolitics. You either went to war or you ...
‘Brothers in Arms’ — An Unforgettable Family Reunion in Afghanistan, and the Meaning of Military Service
It was time to say goodbye. We both got out of the truck and circled around back to give each other a hug. It was hard to see his face in the dark black of night — they kept most of Bagram Air Base blacked out after the sun goes down as a defense ...
Thanksgiving in the Second Battle of Fallujah
By mid-November 2004, my platoon had been clearing houses from dawn to dusk for more than a week in the city of Fallujah in Iraq’s Anbar Province. It was tiring and monotonous work. The sounds of distant gunfire and explosions were incessant, but ...
HunterSeven: Toxic Exposure Is a Real Problem That Deserves Your Attention
It is 2017, a few months after you returned from combat in Afghanistan. You are on the phone planning your wedding with a caterer but need to hand the phone off and excuse yourself because you cannot stop that nagging, hacking cough you’ve had since ...
‘I Screamed Into My Radio to Ignore the Order’—Pardoned Soldier’s Comrade Still Lives With Guilt of Murdered Civilians
My name is Mike McGuinness. At one point in my life, I was a staff sergeant in the United States Army. I spent 12 of my 16 years in as a paratrooper, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division. I was also an infantryman, and I drank all the Kool-Aid that ...
‘War Never Changes’—a Marine, a ‘Hardcore Warrior,’ and a Connection Across Generations in Uniform
I was the only one sitting at the bar, my back to the entrance and a beer in my hand. But I saw him walk in, through the mirror that hung on the wall behind the rows of liquid courage and bottled vice. He sat to the left of me, with one chair ...
Effective Leadership Must Be Built Upon Trust and CARE
Effective leadership, and in fact all relationships, must be built upon a foundation of trust. If we have real trust, we can do many things wrong and still succeed. If we lack trust, we can do almost everything right and still fail. Trust creates ...
My Favorite Marine Corps Birthday
Third squad assembled into our proper order of formation for our dress blues inspection. It was Nov. 10, 2005 — the 230th birthday of the United States Marine Corps, aka the world’s finest fighting force. Humidity was common aboard Marine Corps ...
‘I Still Find Hope’ — Purple Fingers, Steel Rain, and Getting ‘Messy’ in a Combat Zone
By January 2005, I had lived in Baqubah, Iraq, for nearly a year. In a month, I would return home. Well, sort of home, as I would head back to a small village in southwestern Germany that hosted the headquarters for the Third Brigade Combat Team of ...
We Must Revisit Tarawa Amid the Marine Corps’ Renewed Focus on Amphibious Warfare
Clad in dress blues, the six Marines sidestepped in perfect unison, working together to support the weight of the flag-draped casket held between them. The brass of their buttons gleamed in the early morning light of Nov. 20, 2019. Rows of white ...
The Day Seven of My Fellow Blackwater Contractors Died in Iraq
April 21, 2005. Seven Blackwater contractors die today. This is the day I lose all compassion for Iraq. The day I realize I’m not a soldier in war. I’m a single-serve Starbucks coffee cup, useful for a time and easily discarded with no second thought ...