Archive for October, 2012

I’m going to depart from my usual war and cop stories to talk a bit about current events. To me, the most important issue in the public eye is the Benghazi consulate attack and our country’s response. If there is one single issue that’s going to drive my vote, this might be it. I’m not […]


I’ve been asked why I was so frustrated when I came home from Afghanistan. After my deployment, I was mad. Not at my family, not exactly at myself, not at what I personally had done, but at some of what I had experienced. I also felt guilt, for a few things. To explain how frustrating […]


We often see stories in the media of police officers doing something stupid, illegal or questionable. Contrary to what some believe, I do not automatically assume everything all cops do is right. I’ve been a police officer almost twenty years, and I know honest cops can make honest mistakes, and bad cops do bad things. […]


No joke, there I was, on a mountain ridge in the middle of a dark night in Afghanistan. Another American soldier and I were attached to a French Marine sniper team, which was part of a company setting overwatch for another French unit. When the sun rose, we would be in place to cover the […]


So there I was, minding my own business, in the officers’ work room at the start of night shift. This was in a small town where at shift change all the officers met in the work room and talked about what had happened during the previous eight hours. Evening shift officers were finishing up reports […]