An official website of the United States government
A .mil website belongs to an official U.S. Department of Defense organization in the United States.
A lock (lock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .mil website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Commentary Search

  • The Base Honor Guard - A great way to serve

    As we begin yet another year with our nation involved in active combat operations, there are thousands of brave American men and women doing incredible things every day to ensure our freedoms and protect our way of life at home and abroad. We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to each of them as

  • Copperheads observe Black History Month

    February is Black History Month - a month to remind us of the valuable contributions made to our nation by Black Americans.In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford was our Commander-in-Chief. He made a very enlightening statement, "Seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of

  • What is Cyber ISR?

    You're on a dark desert highway; cool wind in your hair...Up ahead in the distance you see some shimmering lights...*...and then they all go dark...What happened, did someone take out a utility pole? Was the generating capacity of the local electrical power plant exceeded? Or, perhaps, did something

  • The Next Generation of Air Guardsmen

    When I look at the Air National Guard today, compared to years past, many of today's airmen look at joining the ANG, get their college paid for, meet their original commitment and move on vs. looking at their enlistment as a part time career and investment. Today, the ANG has a huge retention gap in

  • Operation Desert Storm - 25 years have passed

    Operation Desert Storm began 25 years ago--I remember it like it was yesterday.  I was ten years old sitting in front of the TV with my parents as the skies above Baghdad lit up like the 4th of July. Until that moment, war was an intangible concept--something that happened in text books and old John

  • Why I don't know much about MLK

    An equal opportunity manager would likely caution me in discussing civil rights through a personal commentary, but I decided to be stronger than both of our misgivings.I'm likely among millions of Generation Xers who were not connected to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s history, by default.After all, I

  • Be Prepared; Now, More Than Ever

    As I look back over my 33 plus year career in the Air National Guard I have seen a lot of changes in the world and in our military.  In November 1989, the Iron Curtain fell and the Soviet Union disintegrated a couple years later.  Since that time, the U.S. military has been downsized in both

  • Graduating from the college of the wild bue yonder

    I wish that I could say I joined the Air Force because of a deep sense of pride and the honor of serving my country. The truth is, at 18 years of age, I had yet to develop the capacity to understand what that even meant.  Like many others I have served with through the years, I joined the military

  • The Waltermire apple and the Waltermire tree

    Dedication. It's an important aspect of everyday life. A lot of personal and professional successes wouldn't be possible without it, and there is a very specific part of the American population whose everyday lives are ruled by this principle. This is the less-than-one-percent of people serving

  • Zero Degrees of Separation

    "Six degrees from Kevin Bacon" is a longstanding cultural meme; indeed, it's so old that it pre-dates the term "meme" -- and the Internet that fosters them. Its eternal youth can perhaps be attributed to the truthiness of the statement (if not the similar timelessness of Bacon himself), which holds