Book Review – Dutch, From Rising Sun to the Rise of Jihad
In 1989, I showed up at the CIA’s training facility colloquially known as The Farm, and was introduced to man only known to us as Dutch. As we went through…
Review – The Berlin Exchange by Joseph Kanon
An American imprisoned in the UK for spying for the KGB is released in an exchange to East Germany. Set in 1963, this well-done espionage novel exposes some unique practices…
Book Review: Sting of the Scorpion, the Long Range Desert Group
The Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) LRDG Association newsletter from Italy , dated July 14th, 1945 begins, “It was decided by the War Office in June of this year that…
The Importance of Keeping a Fitness Journal
Exercise to stimulate, not to annihilate. The world wasn’t formed in a day, and neither were we. Set small goals and build upon them.~Lee Haney Why bother keeping a fitness…
Rites of Passage: Coming of Age in Cinema, Role Models and the need for boys to partake of them
Background My father took me to many movies when I was growing up. Thankfully I was able to watch thought-provoking stuff when I was a child. Mostly westerns and war…
Sailors in the Holy Land
The 1848 American Expedition to the Dead Sea and the Search for Sodom and Gomorrah. Following the success of his first book about a U.S. Navy flight crew’s desperate battle…
Review – Security Day
Dan Bing is brand new intelligence officer who has arrived in the midst of wind down operations in Uruzgan Province Afghanistan. He has to deal with venial warlord named Mir…
A Brief History of Ginger and Its Benefits to Your Body
The History of Ginger I eat raw ginger in its whole tuber form and even enjoy its spicy bite. I eat it raw because it has some very good therapeutic…
I Have a Rendezvous with Death, Alan Seeger
“What is this war? It is mud, trenches, blood, rats, lice, bombs, pain, barbed wire, decaying flesh, gas, death, rain, cats, tears, bullets, fear and a loss of faith in…
Review – First Casualty
I began reading First Casualty a few days before the disaster unfolded that was our exodus from Afghanistan. From the forward on, I was stunned by the timeliness and salience…