The second administration of President Donald J. Trump has already started working its special magic across the Washington, D.C. capital region. Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)…
President Donald Trump has made no secret of his disdain for immigrants, particularly the non-white variety from south of our border. His statements that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of…
This country, once a haven for immigrants, is now on the verge of turning into a first-class nightmare for them. President Donald Trump often speaks of his plan to deport some 11.7 million undocumented…
In the early 1990s, doctors in Hiroshima, Japan, discovered a stress-induced syndrome they called Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, or “broken heart syndrome” — a condition in which the heart’s left ventricle, responsible for…
Images of homes that collapsed under mudslides or falling trees, waterlogged farms, and debris-filled roads drove home (yes, home!) to me recently the impact of Hurricane Helene on rural areas in the southeastern United States. That hurricane and the no-less-devastating…
Count on one thing: armed conflict lasts for decades after battles end and its effects ripple thousands of miles beyond actual battlefields. This has been true of America’s post-9/11 forever…
Many war stories end with hunger wreaking havoc on significant portions of a population. In Christian theology, the Biblical “four horses of the apocalypse,” believed by many in early modern Europe to…
An acquaintance who hails from the same New Jersey town as I do spends his free weekends crawling through the woods on his stomach as part of a firearms training…
We Americans have been at war now since October 7th, 2001. That was when our military first launched air strikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan in response to al-Qaeda’s September 11th terrorist attacks in…
Count on one thing: Donald Trump, who seems to gain Republican support with every new indictment, is not going away. He’s managed to capitalize on his 2020 election loss, using his failed insurrection,…
Recently, on a commuter train, I ran into an acquaintance who works for a government agency here in Washington, D.C. Soon after we started chatting, he indicated a desire to…
Despite Russian hints about the use of nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine, consider it strange — amid other world-endangering possibilities — how little attention nuclear destruction gets anymore.…
Seeking news coverage about the Adriana, the boat crowded with some 700 people migrating to Europe to seek a better life that sank in mid-June off the coast of Greece, I…
America’s War on Terror, launched in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, has had a staggering impact on our world. The Costs of…
The way mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and his private army have been waging a significant part of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine has been well covered in the American media, not least…
Here’s something we seldom focus on when it comes to war, American-style, even during the just-passed 20th anniversary of our disastrous invasion of Iraq: many more soldiers survive armed conflict than die…
During a Veterans Day celebration in my small Maryland community, a teacher clicked through a slideshow of smiling men and women in military uniforms. “Girls and boys, can anyone tell…
By any standard, the money the United States government pours into its military is simply overwhelming. Take the $858-billion defense spending authorization that President Biden signed into law last month. Not only…
The American military is now having trouble recruiting enough soldiers. According to the New York Times, its ranks are short thousands of entry-level troops and it’s on track to face the worst recruitment…
Dealing with Trump's Occupation of All Too Many American Hearts and Minds Increasingly, it seems, Americans have an anger problem. All too many of us now have the urge to…
Anyone who grew up in my generation of 1980s kids remembers G.I. Joe action figures — those green-uniformed plastic soldiers you could use to stage battles in the sandbox in your backyard…
What do a six-year-old in the United States and an 85-year-old in Russia have in common besides being on opposite sides of a war? They’re both feeling the strain of…
A relative of mine, who works for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) compiling data on foreigners entering the United States, recently posted a curious logo on his Facebook profile:…
As a Navy spouse of 10 years and counting, my life offers an up-close view of our country’s priorities when it comes to infrastructure and government spending. Recently, my husband, a naval…
I know what it means to be watched all too carefully, a phenomenon that’s only grown worse in the war-on-terror years. I’m a strange combination, I suspect, being both a…
Sometimes, as I consider America’s never-ending wars of this century, I can’t help thinking of those lyrics from the Edwin Starr song, “(War, huh) Yeah! (What is it good for?)…
Given the more than 60 Democratic and Republican votes lined up, the Senate is poised to move forward with a new bill that would change the way the military handles sexual assault…
A Military Spouse’s Perspective on the Pentagon’s Flawed Response to the Pandemic Herd immunity? Don’t count on it. Not if that “herd” is the U.S. military. According to news reports, at…
Perspectives on the Storming of the Capitol from a Military Spouse “Are you okay?” asked a friend and military spouse in the voicemail she left me on the afternoon the…
The Massive and Unseen Costs of America’s Post-9/11 Wars at Home and Abroad “I got out of the Marines and within a few years, 15 of my buddies had killed…
A Military Spouse’s Perspective on Bringing the Troops Home from Afghanistan and Iraq By the end of this year, the White House will reportedly have finally brought home a third of the…
It was July 2017, a few weeks before the “Unite the Right” Charlottesville riots, when white men marched through the streets of that Virginia city protesting the planned takedown of…
When it rains, pieces of glass, pottery, and metal rise through the mud in the hills surrounding my Maryland home. The other day, I walked outside barefoot to fetch one…
A Navy Spouse’s Take on Why We’re Not Getting Better American military personnel are getting sick in significant numbers in the midst of the ongoing pandemic. As The New York Times reported…
Recently, in this Black Lives Matter protest moment, my five-year-old son looked at me and asked, “Mommy, where did all the brown people go? Did the police here shoot them?”…
A Military Spouse’s Perspective on Fighting This Pandemic “When he first came home, it was tough.” So Aleha, the wife of an airman in Colorado, told me. She was describing her…
As each of my husband’s Navy submarine deployments came to an end, local spouses would e-mail me about the ship’s uncertain date of return. They were attempting to sell…
Last month, as hundreds of thousands of people showed up for the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., a few miles from my home, I was at a karate dojo testing for my…
One day in October 2001, shortly after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, I stood at the front of a private high school classroom. As a new social studies teacher, I had…
There is some incongruity between my role as an editor of a book about the costs of America’s wars and my identity as a military spouse. I’m deeply disturbed at…
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