“… the decorous quarters of the Senate”

What an insidious sickness we have submitted ourselves to in the name of “comity”. A group of good old boys (and girls) have entrenched themselves on the shores of the Potomac in an almost ironclad posture that has been strangling the life out of America’s freedoms. How did we get here? Frankly, […]

"…the Italian Navigator has just landed in the New World…"

Compton: The Italian navigator has landed in the New World. Conant: How were the natives? Compton: Very friendly. December 2nd 1942 was the day the world changed forever. The title of this story is the coded telephone message confirming first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction on that day. On that afternoon, the Atomic Age began inside […]

AWOL

One of my recurring nightmares from many years in the service was missing ship’s movement. It was drilled into us from the very early days as boots that missing a ship’s movement was one of the worst sins you could do as a sailor. The cost was high. In times of war, you could even […]

Exceptional – Does it matter to you?

Look up the word exceptional in the dictionary and a few of the words stick out right away: Rare Unusual Superior Extraordinary By extension, the word exceptionalism is the condition of being exceptional which includes all of those superlatives. It is the belief that something as large as a country does not have to […]

The Die is Cast; Vandegrift does the impossible

America and her allies were woefully unprepared to fight the kind of war they found themselves with in the Pacific. The attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent attacks around the Pacific Rim decimated the plans and the resources of the forces that would become allied in their opposition to Japanese aggression. Traditional forces were […]

Two Battles that Determined the Course of a War

By July of 1942, the U.S. Navy had proven itself in two critical battles and a number of smaller but significant actions. The Battle for the Coral Sea and Midway proved that the American sailor was more than an equal for any naval force on the face of the planet. Despite numerical strength, the Japanese […]

The Roanoke Revelation Versus the American Revolution

It is a season of words Words are used by the two opposing camps in America to try and define the other side. Rarely, we get a glimpse into the true hearts and minds of the people who would lead us into the next part of the American journey and what many are now calling […]

What does class cost?

Growing up in a middle class house in America was really a blessing. We learned early on about manners and the importance of following the basic rules we would need later on in life. There were rules like no arguing at the dinner table no borrowing from your brothers things without their permission (it was […]

Random Actions Produce Random Results (No Matter How Big the Halo)

Leadership must be intentional. Okay, I will admit that this statement is rather obvious and won’t sell any books. The sad part though is how many organizations that promote from within expect that a perfectly good employee will magically grow leadership skills by the grace of that promotion. Then, when they fail, everyone wonders what […]

Royal Order of the Duck Rules for Effective Communication

The world we live in today presents us with more challenges to effective communication than at any time in history. Modern electronic devices, the speed at which most people live their lives, and cultural challenges in a shrinking global economy provide daily examples of the problems we increasingly face in effectively communicating with each other. […]