Military

The Human Benchrest: The Enduring Legacy of MAJ Ernie Vande Zande

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Ernie Vande Zande was more than a national champion and record-setter; he was the rare competitor who made everyone around him better. Known as “the Human Benchrest,” the Army major and Camp Perry champion combined world-class precision with a quiet willingness to help any shooter who genuinely wanted to improve. His classic article Sights, Wind and Mirage still teaches competitors how to read conditions decades after it was written. Smallbore lost more than a legend when Ernie passed in 2018—it lost a mentor, a gentleman, and one of the finest ambassadors the sport has ever known.

America’s Quiet Military Draft Crisis: The Test That Won’t Lie

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For a century, the Department of Defense (now DoW) has asked a brutally simple question: can you read, can you reason, can you do basic math, can you learn a job without turning equipment into modern art? This isn’t about genius. It’s about baseline competence—the kind that keeps helicopters in the sky and generators from becoming bonfires.

Blue Wednesday for communists Iran is losing. Comey is losing. And America is having a great week.

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Things are not going as planned for the communists.

Jenni tweeted, “In case anyone isn’t aware, Trump is demanding Zambia to hand over its mineral rights by end of day tomorrow or the U.S. gov’t will cut off the country’s access to the AIDS medications that are literally keeping its citizens alive.’

The Life of an Army Staff Officer in Operations Research & Analysis: A Journey from Captain to Lieutenant Colonel

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The life of an Army staff officer is often defined by long hours, endless PowerPoint slides, and the constant demand for data-driven decisions. For those in Functional Area 49 (Operations Research & Systems Analysis, or ORSA), this reality is amplified. We were expected to be the Army’s decision scientists, using data and analytical rigor to guide strategy, resource allocation, and operational planning. However, somewhere along the way—from 1997 to 2017—the Army lost its way, shifting from genuine analysis-driven decision-making to an environment where analysis became a justification tool for pre-determined conclusions.

MV-75 “Cheyenne II”: Army Aviation’s Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft

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At its core, the MV-75 is a tiltrotor aircraft. It lifts vertically like a helicopter, then rotates its rotors forward and flies like a fixed-wing aircraft. That combination changes everything. Instead of cruising at traditional helicopter speeds, it moves at roughly 280 knots, covering distances that would have required multiple legs and refueling stops in the past. With a combat range pushing beyond 500 nautical miles, it allows commanders to launch from safer distances and still arrive with speed and precision.

Khe Sanh: The Siege We Won—and the Narrative We Lost

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There’s a reason Khe Sanh still gets brought up in war colleges, smoky VFW halls, and late-night strategy debates. It wasn’t just a battle. It was a live-fire experiment in something we didn’t have a name for yet—what we now call fifth-generation warfare. Not bullets versus bullets. Not even armies versus armies. It was narrative versus reality. And narrative won.

The Future of Armored Warfare in the Drone Era; Adapting to a Battlefield That Now Sees Everything

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The romantic image of armored columns rolling forward under cover of smoke and artillery has been replaced by something far less cinematic: vehicles hiding, dispersing, and moving like hunted animals under constant aerial surveillance. Cheap drones—$500 quadcopters and $20,000 FPV kamikazes—are hunting million-dollar platforms with ruthless efficiency. The lesson is not subtle. If you can be seen, you can be targeted. If you can be targeted, you can be killed.

The Cognitive Coup de Main of America

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I write these articles to sound the warning to our national security leaders. We are in the midst of a major war, taking place both domestically and globally. It is a Cognitive War for which our leaders remain unaware, unprepared, and unarmed. I hope you will read and pass this onto others, members of Congress, or members of our national security apparatus and this Administration. My warning remains unanswered!

Leave No One Behind

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The world watched fascinated as America recovered two pilots isolated behind enemy lines in Iran. Television screens were filled with pundits or veterans discussing everything from SERE* school to the impact of the successful recovery of both pilots on ceasefire negotiations. I was one of those pundits who helped fill the airwaves, conducting over 20 interviews across multiple networks, and being the first guest to talk about the recovery on Fox News, within minutes of the Pentagon confirming it.

Night Witches and the Art of Terror: How Improvised Bombers Haunted the Wehrmacht After Dark

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In 1941, the Soviet Union was being dismantled at industrial speed. Entire armies vanished. Cities fell. Aircraft factories were evacuated east while German armor drove forward. There was no time for elegance. The Red Army needed pilots, aircraft, and pressure on the enemy—immediately. So they did something profoundly unromantic and brutally practical: they took civilians who could fly and turned them into combat airmen.