Letter from the Editor
On November 28, 2024, The Economist magazine published an article headlined, “American veterans now receive absurdly generous benefits.” Below that, they warned, “An enormous rise in disability payments may complicate debt reduction efforts.” I am always intrigued when those who never served begin to question the value of the money spent on ameliorating the long-term impacts on those who volunteered to do so. It smacks of knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing. But I’m partial. Unlike The Economist, which has a policy of not putting writer’s names on such articles, I must be honest. I am a VA disability recipient eligible for Combat-Related Special Compensation, a tax advantage applied to my military pension. The GI Bill paid for a Juris Doctor degree and a Master of Arts, and I still have a year of eligibility for the post-9/11 GI Bill, with which I hope to learn more about carpentry and masonry. I am, by any measure, treated well by the American taxpayer and extremely grateful for what the nation saw fit to bestow upon us. But, per The Economist, I am the problem. If you are reading this, there’s a decent chance you are, too. But what’s the real problem? Paying for the effects of war, or having them when they’re not needed? And who is in the causal chain for that one? Here’s a hint: uniformed service members EXECUTE the nation’s policies. Policymakers DEFINE and DIRECT them. No American service member has ever initiated a war absent the decision of civilian orders to do so. If veterans cost too much, who truly ran up the tab? And who should pay for it? 1% of the citizenry volunteers for military service. Moreover, military service by a parent makes the service of a child more likely. In effect, 99% of the citizens of this nation outsource 100% of their collective security to 1% of a demographic that increasingly shares the same names. I am the grandson and son of Marines. My best friend, a Marine veteran, commits his son to the Corps in May, and I run out of fingers and toes counting soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines with whom I share blood. Meanwhile, the 99% are free to pursue whatever their heart desires: college, graduate school, earlier entry into the workforce to build a career, van life, or maybe penning editorials to which they don’t attach their names. I don’t know what they do; I was busy spending twenty-seven years as part of the 1%. Samuel Johnson, famous for noting, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” also said, “Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.” I have had enough conversations in which someone told me why they almost joined to think Johnson was on to something, but I think he missed a key point. Every man may think meanly of himself for missing out on service, but not every man feels any real need to do something in return for the opportunity to skip it. Ultimately, the only people truly manning the wall with veterans are veterans, and that may mean defending ourselves against sunny day patriots who tell us we need to sacrifice just one more time. I recently asked a vet with tremendous experience in the political arena what veterans can do to defend the things granted to us when it was of value to people who count votes for a living. He told me to never forget that for politicians, it’s not about the money, it’s about the votes. Reminding them of that requires us to organize, something at which we vets are horrible, particularly the GWOT and later generations. Fortunately, veteran service organizations have been doing the hard work for decades. The American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and more recently, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America are on the front lines of looking out for veterans. The GWOT generation doesn’t join veterans’ organizations the way previous generations did, but it is time for us to take up the flag and stand on the walls. Go sit in a meeting at a VSO. Ask that older vet who has been doing it for years how to protect what is yours. Write your congressperson; they get elected every two years, so your vote is a near-term issue for them. Better yet, get on a bus filled with VSO members and fill a congressional chamber where matters affecting our lives are discussed. Make your buddies do it, too. More immediately, offer your thoughts here. Whether you agree with me or not, we exist for you, and I encourage you to make your opinions known. Fire for Effect, Russell Worth Parker Editor in Chief – Lethal Minds Journal Submissions are open at lethalmindsjournal.submissions@gmail.com.
Dedicated to those who serve, those who have served, and those who paid the final price for their country.
Lethal Minds is a military veteran and service member magazine, dedicated to publishing work from the military and veteran communities.
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In This Issue
The World Today
One Year Later Moldova’s Future Post-February 2024
Opinion
Musketry in the Pacific- Gambling Future Wins, and Blood, on Past Loses
The Written Word
My TBI Story
My Nightmare
The Tribe Apart
Poetry and Art
Tim Colomer
Health and Fitness
Building The Elite - Training for Special Operations Selection, Part 1: Physical
Transition and Veteran Resources
Warrior Rising - Part 1
Book Review
The Long Row Home - Odysseus, Healing, and The Warrior’s Return
The World Today
In depth analysis and journalism to educate the warfighter on the most important issues around the world today.
One Year Later: Moldova's Future Post-February 24, 2022
Jonas Frey
A year ago, I was writing my thesis on Moldova's future after February 24, 2022. How has the situation changed since then, how will it continue to develop, and what impact will the American presidential election have on it?
EU Membership
With the EU's December 2023 decision to open accession negotiations and their effective commencement in June 2024, a decisive step toward the Republic of Moldova's foreign policy goals has taken place – Moldova is getting serious.
This clearly demonstrates the mutual importance Moldova and the EU place on each other. The goal isn't merely to remove Chisinau from Russia's sphere of influence but also to better utilize Moldova's potential. Additionally, the negotiations included security policy aspects, such as improved cooperation in countering hybrid threats.
The progress made in modernizing Moldova's public administration and judicial system has been particularly noteworthy. The implementation of anti-corruption measures and the strengthening of democratic institutions have shown tangible results, though challenges remain. In this sense, a significant step has been made toward a European future for Moldova.
NATO Membership
According to a June 2024 survey, a majority of the Moldovan population remains opposed to NATO membership. In this context, Moldova's neutrality is often cited – which is viewed both domestically and internationally as an excuse to avoid taking a definitive stance on these issues.
Nevertheless, training cooperation, particularly in officer education and interoperability, has been further expanded and adapted to NATO standards. The establishment of joint training programs and the modernization of communication systems have enhanced Moldova's military capabilities while maintaining its neutral status.
Little has changed in Moldova's positioning, which is unsurprising given the republic's very limited military capabilities. The stagnating defense expenditure and a very cautious security policy can also be interpreted as appeasement toward Transnistria – why add fuel to the fire?
Presidential Election and EU Referendum
The referendum concerned anchoring EU accession as a strategic goal in the constitution, thereby legitimizing the accession process at the highest level. Coupled with the simultaneous presidential election on October 20, 2024, this was about more than just organizational efficiency: it was a fundamental decision about being for or against the EU; for or against Maia Sandu and her policies.
Despite numerous reports of attempted interference, the EU referendum was narrowly approved, and after a second round of voting, Maia Sandu was confirmed in office. The election campaign was marked by intense debates about Moldova's future orientation and significant attempts at disinformation, particularly through social media channels and traditional media outlets controlled by pro-Russian interests.
Several phenomena can be observed: A significant portion of the Moldovan population remains skeptical of EU rapprochement. The influence of various players on Moldovan politics remains substantial; the thesis that Russia is content with sowing unrest, keeping states in volatility, and acting as a destabilizing force has been confirmed once again.
Influence of the American Presidential Election
As Europe's poorest country, Moldova only peripherally excites political minds in Brussels and remains insignificant for the EU in many aspects. The situation looks different at the regional level: EU accession and pro-Western policies are in the interest of neighboring countries, Ukraine and Romania, would have a stabilizing effect on Bessarabia, and would make the frozen conflict with Transnistria, at least within the pan-European framework, a purely domestic problem for Moldova.
Thus, the influence of the US presidential elections can only be viewed indirectly as an influence on Europe as a whole or the Western Black Sea shore region. The outcome could significantly impact regional stability and security arrangements, particularly concerning Russia's influence in the area.
The continuation of American support for Ukraine will be all-decisive. If Trump, as he has repeatedly stated since his election, wants to broker a deal between Kyiv and Moscow, Chisinau must also worry about its modalities. The negotiations for this deal would likely take place directly at the presidential level between Washington and Moscow (without Kyiv), a novelty since the war began.
There are probably two approaches (with many sub-variants, combinations, and variables) how Trump could pursue peace in Ukraine:
1. Washington could try to get Moscow to the negotiating table by threatening to massively and unconditionally expand military support for Ukraine, forcing Moscow to compromise (more quickly).
2. Washington offers Moscow a freeze of the current situation, where Russia can keep the conquered territories, and Ukraine's NATO membership is forever excluded and militarily guaranteed by the US.
In all American-led negotiations under Trump, Ukraine would have at most a junior role at the negotiating table, and with Trump's known skepticism toward international organizations, their credibility, in the maximum case even their decline, could reshuffle the cards in Europe.
Regional Implications and Economic Considerations
The economic implications of these geopolitical shifts cannot be overlooked. Moldova's economy, heavily dependent on remittances and agricultural exports, remains vulnerable to external shocks. The country's energy dependency on Russia continues to be a significant challenge, though steps toward diversification have been taken through increased connectivity with Romania's energy infrastructure.
The presence of Russian troops in Transnistria remains a complicating factor in Moldova's security calculations. While these forces are relatively small in number, their symbolic importance and potential role in any regional destabilization cannot be ignored. The ongoing modernization of Moldova's border control systems and customs procedures, supported by EU assistance, has helped mitigate some security risks while facilitating legitimate trade.
Conclusion
Moldova has positioned itself well for any potential upcoming deal by making its constitution pro-European and confirming Maia Sandu as president for the next four years – provided the parliamentary elections in summer 2025 allow for majorities in her favor.
However, if Moscow can extract an advantage from this very deal, Moldova's future would be called into question. The Russian-speaking population of Moldova and Transnistria leave little doubt about which way the scales would tip if a power vacuum were to emerge. Similarly, the EU, with all its internal European challenges (Orban, Fico, etc.), would have to show its true colors in such a case – a difficult undertaking in Brussels.
An expansion of the Moldovan armed forces into a serious stabilizing factor that remains constitutionally loyal to the head of state would be desirable but is not foreseeable, both from a financial policy perspective and Moldova's interpretation of neutrality – better to do nothing than do the wrong thing.
The development of civil society and independent media remains crucial for Moldova's democratic future. While progress has been made in these areas, sustained support from international partners will be essential to maintain this momentum.
Thus, 2025 remains uncertain for Moldova both domestically and in foreign policy terms, and Chisinau remains a weathervane in the winds of geopolitics.
Opinion
Op-Eds and general thought pieces meant to spark conversation and introspection.
Musketry in the Pacific - Gambling Future Wins, and Blood, on Past Loses
Sean McCaffrey
The old and tired joke of military intelligence not being a real thing is about as clapped out as that private’s new-to-them used Mustang purchased at 20% interest. And, yet, the U.S. Army’s new weapons initiatives and the Marine Corps getting rid of the infantry Sniper MOS have seen us put a new coat of paint on that rolling liability and beat the brakes off the joke once again.
If you’re still reading this, you probably don’t need convincing that the U.S. military (and its hide bound industrial complex) are once again wandering down the wrong path of armaments and strategy based upon wars we’ve already fought (and if you didn’t know, by the measures of many, lost). Suppose you’re somewhat concerned that what we learned in Afghanistan isn’t going to apply to our next major conflict (i.e. somewhere back in the Pacific or Asia, or even the Eurasian Steppe). In that case, you should be fully concerned about what I’m going to write next. This isn’t the first time the U.S. military has completely disregarded powerful information in deciding which rifles and cartridges will be available to the modern infantryman. It’s not even the second time.
While the U.S. has traditionally been immersed in full-scale survivorship bias of its successes in short conventional wars, relatively little has been studied about where the U.S. has failed. It has made mistake after mistake, largely paid for in blood by the lower enlisted. From a layman’s perspective, only two books detailing American military failures are needed to develop significant doubts about two relatively recent and significant military decisions with potentially disastrous repercussions; C.J. Chiver’s The Gun on the adoption of the new XM5 in 6.8x51mm, and Ed Kugler’s Dead Center on the elimination of Marine Corps infantry Scout Snipers with their array of specialized rifles, tactics, and ammunition.
If you’re a Machinegunner (one word, capital-M), then you should probably have already picked up C.J. Chivers’ The Gun. If you’re not a Machinegunner, then you should still read it, considering machine guns, and specifically the AK-47, aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Within The Gun, Chivers details the invention of automatic weaponry and sprinkles in the strategic and tactical changes machine guns forced upon militaries around the world. When it came to machine guns and their tactics and strategies, the U.S. was initially and decidedly ignorant of the deadly effects of the interlocking fire of German Maxims in WWI. Innumerable lives were lost in the trenches from almost every involved country, including the United States. If blood-learned lessons from dozens of earlier conflicts around the world were applied, many lives could have been saved. Almost a century later, the United States not only again failed to anticipate, but completely disregarded, the development of the only Cold War arms race that actually cost lives: the compact machine gun (or assault rifle).
When the AK-47 was invented, globally manufactured, distributed, and even modernized, the U.S. military simply ignored it. It’s not that they didn’t know about it, it’s that it was professionally unmentioned by U.S. military documents on Soviet weaponry for nearly a decade into the AK-47’s prolific propagation. Chivers beautifully summarizes why those educated in the white halls of war college chose a heavy, long, cumbersome rifle with an unnecessarily large ammunition pairing when the lethality of the AK-47 was already being witnessed on multiple continents.
“On the level of anticipating security threats, the Pentagon did not recognize the risks to its forces or its allies from the AK-47’s capabilities and global production. And as for designing infantry firearms, it remained obstinately committed to high-powered cartridges and rifles that fired them. Part of the bedrock belief was tradition… At the late date of 1916, after legions of men had died miserably in Europe, wasted in the trenches before the machine guns and artillery of the industrial age, the United States Army continued to operate a School of Musketry at Fort Sill. Names matter. This name spoke to a mentality that handicapped American ground officers through the twentieth century’s first six decades, and left the services unprepared for shifts in technology that were putting lightweight automatic rifles into its enemies’ hands.”
Here we are, in 2025, and yet again, we are making the same mistakes that we’ve already made several times over, and are forcing our youth to repeat blood lessons that have long since been printed into dusty unread books in the back-corner section of forgotten conflict shelves of war college libraries. By Einstein’s measure of intelligence (“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change”), military intelligence is not only asleep at the wheel, but appears to possibly be still drunk off of the victories of short conventional wars and throwing beer cans out the window at road signs that say “unconventional cliff ahead” or “watch for rocks and IEDs”. You know, all the signs from our most recent special military operation against terrorists.
After 9/11, stories about the standard NATO 5.56 bullet not having the “knockdown” power or “mountain-top to mountain-top” range started making their way through the U.S. military (read: military-industrial complex). With new fears that conventional opponents may field more sophisticated body armor, the Army's armor-defeating solution was rechambering (and therefore completely redesigning with achievement awards, promotions, and lucrative government contracts) the standard combat rifle. This is nearly the same thought progression that the Army used in its move from the ol’ reliable 30-06 to the venerable .308, while dismissing smaller and lesser powered cartridges that still had plenty of lethality at ranges where modern combat largely takes place. We could have developed and fielded a much more competitive automatic rifle when initially faced with the AK-47. Instead, we’re back, baby. Back to the same old song-and-dance. Back to ignoring that while we simultaneously teach maneuver warfare by suppressing with an accurate base of fire by volume with machine guns, and assaulting targets with rifles, long-distance rifle point target accuracy is the exception rather than the rule.
Of the thousands upon thousands of engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, if the rumored anemic 5.56 had not been doing its job as an assault rifle was designed to do (i.e. assaulting), we would have known about it. So, we’re replacing a rifle system that is well known, reliable, lightweight, easy to handle, has a proven logistics infrastructure, and is capable at ranges where combat engagements commonly take place, with a rifle system that is unknown, heavy, cumbersome, with an extremely limited and unproven logistics infrastructure, for ranges and situations that likely won’t present themselves in a conventional conflict or another asymmetrical or COIN-based conflict (which is what our peer adversaries will likely perpetuate via national or non-governmental proxies), especially in a tropical Asiatic environment.
If the South Pacific is the next major conflict environment that the U.S. Marine Corps is envisioning by adopting the Force Design 2030, they’re joining the Army in survivorship bias and selective memory. If the U.S. Army has failed to learn past lessons by letting go of bigger rifles, the U.S. Marine Corps is failing to learn by not clinging to them.
In December of 2023, the U.S. Marine Corps qualified the last of its current infantry Snipers (MOS 0317, not to be confused with Recon Snipers who still carry MOS 0321). Somewhat quietly, the noble legacy of the Marine infantry Sniper has had another chapter closed. However, if the higher powers within the Marine Corps only read and seriously considered Ed Kugler’s Dead Center and reflected on the value of snipers in a tropical combat zone, the Infantry Scout Sniper (0317) might still be alive today.
In Dead Center, Kugler wrote about the virtually impromptu sniper schools established in Vietnam in response to the rapid demand for in-country snipers (which would undoubtedly arise again, even though we have those facilities stateside and ready to preempt this need and the casualties caused by a lack of available and ready snipers). Kugler details the relentless sniper marksmanship training, and his experience in the field where area commanders gave Kugler and his teams the latitude to operate creatively and successfully against an enemy that seemly had endless ways of creating death and dismemberment for Marines. Vietnam snipers, and their heavier and more cumbersome rifles, were problem solvers in ways that larger units of reconnaissance teams couldn’t be. After all, the Force Design 2030 “Scout Platoon” idea was already tested to one degree or another in Vietnam, and the harrowing tales of Long Range Recon Patrol or LRRP teams are only matched by SOG and other special forces missions with desperate odds. To the uninitiated, it might seem like both Sniper Teams and Scout Platoons do the same thing. In reality, sniper teams and Scout Platoons have different tactics based upon their size, tools, environment, and isolation. While both sniper teams and LRRP (Scout Platoon equivalents) had success in Vietnam, individual snipers, their larger rifles, and their teams were a highly efficient force in a country and environment that savagely taxed commands in every aspect of conventional and COIN jungle warfare.
While Kugler’s book isn’t the definitive treatise on the value of snipers in tropical theaters, it is an invaluable first step for the conventionally minded on a reading journey to learn the immense value of unconventionally unlearned lessons. John Stryker Meyer’s books on the Studies and Observation Group (SOG) are an easy next step to learning about the extreme efficiency with which snipers and other highly motivated, highly capable, and appropriately trained and equipped teams can disrupt an opposition force within an environment that can itself be a formidable enemy. These lessons could save servicemembers from spending a gallon of blood in a jungle war to learn lessons which could have been saved with a pint of sweat in training, or a drop of sweat spent at a desk designing a force appropriate for actually winning a war in the Pacific.
Kugler summarizes, “a lot of lives in Vietnam were wasted by the folks driving those big desks in Washington. It’s easy to make a decision when you don’t have to look the people in the eye who have to carry it out. And reminding people of that is my purpose with this book.”
It’s these decisions that we must scrutinize with an eye towards winning the next big one, regardless of other motivational factors and bias. We’ve failed in the Asiatic theater before (Korea doesn’t count as a win, more like a not-a-loss). It’s this aim, winning, that we should be evaluating every decision we make in equipping and training our military for the next conflict, and that includes looking towards arguably our biggest loss before the War on Terror. Big rifles still have their place in every combat zone; however they should be reserved for those who are trained, equipped, capable, and given the latitude to use them in ways that make them most effective in the environments we fight within. It’s simple errors in logic, hammed away by logisticians and administrators who have been removed from the field, and a good library, for too long, that set us up to repeat failure after failure. Are we willing to wager the lives of the next generation on the same institutional momentum and bias that couldn’t be bothered to find a measurable and achievable end to the Global War on Terror? Will we continue to not learn from the plethora of mistakes in Vietnam?
We cannot forget that the environment dictates the mission, and the mission dictates our tools. The Gun and Dead Center don’t need to be on your reading list to know these things. One week in a jungle warfare training environment or any book on any conflict in a jungle environment should give you the context you need to understand that we don’t need a heavier and more cumbersome standard-issue rifle in the challenges of jungle warfare. We still need heavy and cumbersome rifles, but not in the hands of every direct action servicemember.
If military intelligence isn’t the culprit in this future strangely disconnected from history (MI is not the problem, or at least not that we know of), then ego most certainly is. When the entire U.S. military apparatus is designed to counter the most dangerous threat to the nation (i.e. a conventional attack by a peer), these decisions may have some merit (if you don’t look at modern combat environments any closer than a map). However, history has shown that the U.S.’s biggest vulnerability isn’t to conventional peer opponents. Our biggest adversary is prolonged and nebulous conflicts where the enemy is unclear and the mission is undefined, and where harsh environmental conditions provide that extra layer of magic Clausewitizian friction that grinds American military gears to a halt. Those with an ear to, or for, military policy, and especially those who can influence tactics and strategy for the betterment of their team, their branch, and the nation, should at least read The Gun and Dead Center and reflect on how disconnected our current military strategists might be from the next “big one”, where future wins, and blood, will be gambled on lessons unlearned by choosing the wrong guns.
The Written Word
Fiction and Nonfiction written by servicemen and veterans.
My TBI Story
John Mulbury
I realize now that everyone doesn’t automatically think I’m dumb because of my traumatic brain injury. I felt, for the longest time, that people thought that I was “brain dead”. I’ve got to be more humble and realize that people are just trying to help me with my “wound” as best they can. My brain was wounded, so I’ve got to deal with that as I’ve dealt with other wounds in the past. I must let it heal. So here’s my story…my attempt to explain myself. Hopefully this can help someone else if they’re dealing with anything similar.
On 31 October, 2020, I was riding my ElliptiGO (it’s like a bicycle) when I was hit by a drunken driver in South Tampa, Florida. The guy that hit me changed my life forever. I don’t recall the guy hitting me. I don’t recall any of the first several months I spent in the hospital. I vaguely recall, about 6 or 8 months later, thinking that I was still in the Army. I had actually retired 4 years prior. I believed I had been captured by a foreign power - Iranians. I spent much of those first few months trying to apply what I learned in S.E.R.E. (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape) training that I went through as a Special Forces officer.
I have to apologize for treating all of my caregivers, at that time, as if they were “bad guys” who had captured me. They actually helped me out tremendously. They saved my life, and I’ll always be grateful to them for that. I spoke to several of my former commanding officers and told them about this, and they helped me out too, by making me realize that I was doing what I’d been trained to do. One of my former commanding generals explained that to me and it really helped me get over my feelings of guilt and “cluelessness.” I had played that down very much in the past, but I’ve got to recognize that some people literally saved my life, with the help of God.
I couldn’t walk for the first several months, and eventually “graduated” to using a walker and then a cane. I was in the PolyTrauma Rehabilitation Program for several months in 2022, and continue to learn more about my TBI all of the time. I also participated in a “Wounded Warrior” program, run by USSOCOM, to regain some physical fitness. All of this work to maintain my physical fitness helped me tremendously. Physical fitness has always been very important to me (at West Point one of our mottos was “every cadet an athlete”) and I think that stuck with me. I learned, through the VA Video Connect meetings, that other folks have gone through, and are going through, the same stuff I went through…and some people much worse than me. I have no reason to feel sorry for myself; I could have been injured much more seriously than I was. I have to be thankful for that.
I’m realizing now that “things” will never be as they were before. I’m not what I used to be, or thought I was and wanted to be. But that’s OK. I have to handle that, and adapt to a changed life. I can do that. It won’t be fun or even similar to what I spent my life planning for, but it will work. I’ve got to stop feeling sorry for myself and realize that I could have it much worse than I do. I can still run a little bit (I try for 4 miles a day, 4 to 6 days a week) and use an Elliptical Trainer and kettlebells to get back in shape. I’m trying to practice some Muay Thai again, and may even try to sign up for some classes nearby; although I don’t have the balance I need. But I’ll deal with that. Something is better than nothing!
I need to understand that healing is a process that takes time, and maybe a little effort. I need to get past trying to hide injuries (as I did in the Army, so I wouldn’t be “de-selected” from or fail out of anything). So be it. I just thank God that I’m still here, and don’t have it much worse than I do.
My Nightmare
Heather O’Brien
“Move out!” My sergeant’s voice echoes as we run to the helicopter. I duck my head, mentally trying to forget that the rotors so close above me can chop it off in a single rotation. The terror of the flight dims only to the dread of the destination.
Suddenly I’m awake. The yells, aircraft, and whirring fading with my dream.
“Not real, just a dream.”
My nightmare isn’t the beginning of my deployment but the end of it.
The chant slowly lulls me back into the dream world. If I’m lucky the sequence will start again at the beginning and end when I wake up in the morning. I love the beginning of my dream; I’m surrounded by my friends, most of whom I haven’t seen in decades. Several of them my waking mind knows I’ll never see again.
I don’t dream as much anymore; my delightful VA drug cocktail subdues most efforts to bring up the past. But when I do, for a short, wonderful time, I’m with them again. All our crazy shit and wild adventures start up again. I’m the only one who seems to have aged.
Most people think the nightmare consists of death, chaos, and violence, but that’s where I’m comfortable.
It’s that damn helicopter ride.
When my buddies and I take last minute pictures, the joy of leaving all over our faces. Except our eyes; deep inside we know farewell is coming.
Duck my head, don’t hit my helmet against my M-4, shuffle jog, and pray my ruck doesn’t get caught on anything. Sit in the hammock seat that moves whenever anyone on the row breathes funny. A jolting lift that reminds me how much I detest flying, and we are off.
Seventeen years later and it’s more real now than ever. Up, up, up, over the prison; I’m certain the detainees will sling-shot rocks and take us down, but it never happens.
Then the wall; the towering berm that signals freedom and the inevitable end of our time together. Without so much as a breath of air against us the helo drifts over it.
No ceremony, no exhale of relief; it’s offensive really in its complete lack of momentous excitement.
This is where I usually wake up, probably because on that trip decades ago this is the point where I shut down. I had breakfast from a chow hall in Iraq and lunch at a dining facility in safe, boring Kuwait. The most exciting thing I did the first day was laundry. Ten months of having Iraqis wash and mold my uniforms made me appreciate a washer and dryer. But I don’t remember how we got to the Air Force base, just that we are back on an Air Force installation so the food is better, and I can finally have clean clothes again.
But this is where I watch my friends fly away.
Back to a home that we no longer understand. The good-byes, talk to you later, see you soon- phrases we all know will most likely never happen. We mean all the words but deployments, military careers, even getting out all but ensure that we won’t follow up. So do combat deaths, car wrecks, burn pit-related illnesses, and the always increasing suicides.
Names on headstones; see you soon turns to RIP and Til Valhalla.
It’s taken more than a decade for me to finally, slightly acclimate, but the dream continues to hold me in its intoxicating grip. I hate the end yet cherish the beginning.
Maybe tonight it will be different. Maybe this time I’ll stay and not get swept away by that helicopter. Sure, Bucca was a living hell, but I miss that place, that awful damn prison, because of my brothers and sisters who lived through it with me.
Maybe tonight the nightmare of waking to their leaving won’t begin.
Maybe just one more time, we will get to stay together again.
The Tribe Apart
A retelling of the French Canadian/First Nation legend of ‘Chasse-Galerie.’
Jim Burruss
There was a Tribe of Abundance. It consisted of a tight alliance of separate villages that stretched along the east shore of a great lake that ran north-south. The Tribe of Abundance lived well and in peace. All other known tribes existed in the boundary lands beyond the high, barren mountains that grew from the other side of the lake. The boundary lands enforced a hard life on the others.
One dark night, raiders from the boundary lands crossed the lake and attacked a small community of the Tribe of Abundance. The aggression was unexpected and brutal. The raiders left the bodies of men, women, and children where they fell and the hollow buildings burning.
The Tribe wanted retribution. They selected a war party. All were volunteers. It took three weeks for the war party to cross the lake and the mountains into the boundary lands. It took two months to find the tribe responsible. By then, winter had arrived.
The warriors waited till nightfall. The snow was the quieting kind, so they approached without notice. Every snowflake gleamed with the light of a full moon. They each chose a dwelling and, on signal, breached the door and put a tomahawk to the head of any male of age. Blood splattered black on the snow. They dragged the women and children out and set fire to the dwellings. Huddled against the cold, the fire reflected horror in their eyes.
The war party gathered outside of the flaming village. Wild, hysterical sparks flew up into the night sky, borne of the crackling flame. The sparks circled the Dog star, their light dying out before the end of the orbit. The warriors had retribution, but they were unsettled by the joy and clarity they had found inside the contours of the hunt and the violent abandon they witnessed in each other’s eyes. They heard the muffled sounds of grief over the snap of devilish hot flames.
The war party leader looked upon the huddle of shivering women and children. He noticed a young girl standing outside the circle, bowed up and fists clenched at her side. She did not shiver, and her unblinking eyes stared through him. They burned with a cold heat, like gleaming hot embers turned dark by bitter air. Beside her, inside the circle, a woman rocked back and forth wailing. In her arms and draped across her lap was the large lifeless body of a man, with the face of a boy, whom one of his warriors had deemed to be of that age.
Irritated by the girl’s unflinching gaze, the leader sank his tomahawk, still shining with the gloss of warm blood, deep into a hickory stump.
Upon the stump appeared the devil. The creature was small, imp-like, hard-skinned, and squatted on his haunches beside the buried blade. He turned his head to peer at the tomahawk, and then locked his gaze on the leader with sly, narrow eyes.
“Go back to hell,” the leader snarled at the devil.
The devil laughed, a crooked smile twisting across his face. “Friend,” he said, pointing at the consuming, hungry flames, “what makes you think I am not already there?”
The devil sat silent for a beat, then his eyes widened like the full moon and his hands drew apart. “You look like you need relief,” he said. With that, the devil looked down between outstretched arms and bottles appeared upon the barren earth below his dead, wooden perch. The leader picked one up and brought it to his nose. “Spirits?” he asked. The devil nodded, “the best.” The war party surged inward, pulling the circle tight around the hickory stump. They eyed each other across the devil’s bottles. Curious and unafraid, they picked up the bottles and began to drink.
Inside the contours of those bottles, inside those spirits, the war party found warmth and camaraderie and relief. They began to talk and laugh, drowning out the grief of the others. The devil stayed quiet, listening as the warriors talked of home where their tribe was holding the winter feast to celebrate the full Cold moon.
“Would you like to go home?” the devil asked, his voice crashing through the chatter. Hostile stares and silence met the question.
“Yes… but it is a three-week journey from here,” a warrior replied, disdain and disrespect for the small creature crackling in his voice.
Then, with a flourish of his hands, the devil pulled the tomahawk from the hickory stump without ever touching it. It floated for a few seconds at eye level, then melted down and grew into a long and wide canoe which hovered a foot above the ground. The circle of warriors loosened to make room for the craft.
“My guests,” the devil voice softened, “If you paddle hard in the flying canoe, you can be home before the celebrations finish.”
“What is the price?” asked the leader, stepping between the devil and his warriors.
“No price,” the devil replied, his right arm sweeping to invite them in, “my tribute”.
A moment passed. Then, filled with longing for home, one warrior boarded the canoe, testing his weight before committing. The boat sank to within inches of the ground but stayed airborne. He claimed a seat in the floating vessel and picked up a wooden paddle from his feet and examined it. Others followed, sitting two abreast. Paddles fell into formation. The leader, his legs spread wide and feet still grounded, stared at the devil, his brow hardened by deep, ancient instincts.
But the hardness, thawed by the warm spirits, melted, and, drawn in by his men’s momentum, he waivered and surrendered the stare, looking down upon the now crowded boat. One position remained. The leader took his place, a single space in the back of the canoe, and picked up a paddle.
The war party turned inward and looked back at the leader. He nodded, confirming their question. He set the paddle as a rudder and the war party started paddling in a silent, solid cadence. The canoe glided forward as if on a still lake and rose, pushing and crashing through the icy treetops, the only sound was that of frozen evergreen needles scraping the sides of the boat. Some of the warriors ducked under and pushed through the branches, snow dropping off onto their shoulders and the bottom of the boat.
Then, they broke through and were above everything the moonlight touched.
Underneath them, as they glided across the quiet sky, they could see the high mountains, the snow-covered forest, and then the lake, frozen on the edges. The vessel, like a bird of prey, flew a straight, strong line towards the festive bonfires that flickered on the far side of the lake. The warriors paddled in a steady, crisp measure and traced in their minds the long, hard, winding path they would have taken to journey home.
From his place in the back of the canoe, the leader looked down at the sharp edge of the keel as it bent up toward the stern. He saw that it was covered in blood and brain matter like the blade of his tomahawk. Then the leader remembered the burning village and the exposed women and children. Most of all, he remembered the unrelenting stare of the girl who stood apart. But he let those thoughts leave his mind as the canoe descended, landing on the still waters of the lake and drifting to the shore, the brittle ice at the edges crunching underneath. The war party disembarked the canoe and dragged it forward onto shore. As the vessel cleared the threshold from lake to shoreline, it morphed back into the leader’s tomahawk.
The war party walked up from the darkness of the shore. Confusion, surprise, and joy met them as the crowd, their tribe, their people, recognized their return. Hugs, tears, and awkward speeches followed. The leader said retribution had been had and a cheer blazed through the crowd. The celebration, fueled by unexpected emotion, raged late into the night, until the moon sank below the horizon, its light fading along with that of the dying bonfires. Darkness crept back into every corner of the night. The only glow left was that of the pulsating embers of the smoldering fires, light and dark battling beneath the grain, and the searing radiance of the Dog star, now higher in the sky.
Only the tribe’s shaman was concerned. He saw the war party was full of spirits and that the leader’s tomahawk was still slick with fresh blood. He knew they had come home too quick, fresh from the battle, like the blood hardening on the blade. They had not taken the time to walk the path, to do the work, to become clean. Nor had the party endured the ceremonies to attune them to peace, harmonize them back to tribal life and reconcile their trespasses. The shaman noticed, as the festivities slowed, the warriors fell away from their loved ones and gathered within each other’s orbit, apart from the tribe, telling stories of the expedition, the hunt, and the bloodshed. Children and old men listened from the circumference.
The shaman walked through, confronting the war party and its leader, “You traveled over the border into war and violence but somehow found an easy way back”. Stepping closer, the Shaman motioned to the leader’s tomahawk and examined his eyes, “you are still unclean and your mind disarranged. This is no way to rejoin us.”
The war party leader felt his face flush with heat. “How could you know?”, he said in a cold snarl. The leader took a step forward toward the Shaman, invading his space.
At this, a young man, a son of one of the Tribal Council, who had not volunteered but found recent promotion regardless, appeared out from a crowd that was forming. He bowed slightly and, hand to heart, said to the war party, “We find our honor again through your actions. You should be proud of all you’ve done.” His voice was a little too loud, performative. His eyes upon the gathering crowd instead of meeting the man he was addressing. Both the Leader and the Shaman turned their gaze upon the tortured display.
The leader had felt the young man’s words reverberate through him. He saw the young man, his soft body, the ease in the young man’s eyes, the status woven into his clothes, and his young bride behind him. His anger, like a wave, rose in response and collapsed upon itself, becoming a vicious white tight heat that consolidated and then surged past his conscious mind. The Leader’s body moved with it, closing the few yards between him and the young man. In a single movement, he grabbed the young man’s throat with his left hand and, using his momentum, lifted the young man’s body, heels kicking, and drove him backwards through an opening in the crowd. The leader’s right arm arched back over his head and his body loaded the tomahawk for a strike. He had every intent to drive the blade into the young man’s skull, making a V shaped wound like that of a canoe’s wake.
Then his body shuttered to a stop and some conscious part of his soul caught up.
The leader hesitated, now aware of his intention. He felt the bewildered, fearful eyes of the Tribe upon him. His anger burnt out and became a cold shame. His body unloaded, releasing the young man. Even in the low light of the embers, tears could be seen forming in the Leader’s eyes. The young man, free now, struggled backwards and the crowd consumed him, forming a silent line. The leader looked at that line of eyes. He understood his actions were being judged, he was being judged. The memory of the young girl’s glare surged into his mind’s eye, and the realization came that he might have more in common with her than the citizens before him.
Without a word, the leader pivoted and retreated to the lake shore, walking strong and upright. Some of the war party followed him, without hesitating. Other warriors held fast, staying with the Tribe, but not easily.
The tomahawk turned back into the flying canoe as the leader’s feet broke through the thin ice at the lake’s edge. The party that followed quickly boarded to escape back into the other side. The shaman yelled from the shore as the canoe took flight, “You must find a way to walk back across. Only then will you be home, and you will be welcome… and safe.”
The war party drove the canoe back towards the boundary lands. But this time, without the light of the moon or the fires of home, it was as if they were flying into a chaotic abyss. They struggled to keep the boat upright. The canoe buckled and cracked, surging up and then dropping out from underneath as the war party pulled hard against the icy, turbulent wind raging down against them. They could not see the lake. They could not see the mountains or the trees. They could not see the long, hard walk home. Looking deep into that darkness, they saw the flames of the burning village still dancing, uninhibited. They headed towards it, thinking of it as salvation.
As they approached, the devil appeared in that darkness. He was no longer a small imp, but presented in strong human form, standing upright. He carried heavy scars, an ugly twist in the torso that suggested a limp, left shoulder bent lower than the other.
“What are you doing?” the devil inquired, a smirk showing through the pain and confidence on his face.
“We are returning,” said the leader.
“That was not part of the bargain,” replied the devil, “You will have to pay for the return trip.” At this, the devil’s smirk deepened into that crooked smile and, with the flick of his wrist, the canoe kicked up and skidded sideways, laying over on its side, still moving across the sky with speed but losing elevation. Some warriors fell, spilling one by one onto a steep, snowy hillside. Some held on for a while, their strength evident but waning. Then the canoe hit the treetops and spun with violent velocity hitting the thicker parts of the trees as it dropped, breaking into pieces, throwing flesh and bones and paddles. Bodies scattered and hit with a thud on the frozen, uneven ground. In a fall from that altitude, on that unforgiving terrain, the devil guaranteed the warrior’s brains and bodies would be broken and bruised and their souls unraveled.
When the motion stopped, every warrior had survived, but each was alone, cold, and injured. Each of the war party lifted their faces from the snow and searched the darkness. The only thing they could see was the scorching light of the Dog star, permanently framed by the frozen boughs of pine, reminding them of the flaming village and of the warm fires of home. Each warrior wanted to go home, to sit in the comfort and slow warmth of the hearth, but their brains, bruised with a dense fog, were unreliable and they could not recall the way back. Each warrior ached for another fight, to bond with their comrades in another battle, to feel the kinetic energy burn white hot in their nerves, but their bodies were unsound and could not be trusted to carry them through the engagement. They felt the spirits, once warm and light in their blood, now running heavy and bitter and reckless through their veins. The war party was left a constellation of afflictions, affixed apart from one another, unable to close that cold distance.
And, at the devil’s pleasure, they were stuck between home and conflict, past and present, cursed to wander this desolate divide, not quite alive but not quite dead, as the Tribe Apart.
Poetry and Art
Poetry and art from the warfighting community.
My PTSD; Rage; Survivors Guilt
Charlie Soda; Great Pupsby
From Marine Corps to Artist: A Journey of Resilience and Creativity
Tim Colomer
My name is Tim Colomer. I served in the United States Marine Corps as an explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) technician. In 2006 and 2007, I deployed to Iraq to support Coalition Forces. I was stationed in Habbaniyah, one of the most volatile areas at the time. We received between 12 and 15 IED calls a day. It felt like the Wild West—every time we went out, something different happened. If you’ve been there, you’ll know exactly what I mean.
On December 11, 2006, I was blown up while inside a vehicle. I hit my head so hard on the roof that my helmet broke in half. It left me with a traumatic brain injury (TBI), a compressed spine, a loss of an inch in height, and PTSD. I left the Marine Corps in 2007 and started working for a company called AT Solutions, which focused on EOD-related work. I stayed there for about seven years, watching it grow and doing some incredible things. While there, I earned my first master’s degree, in Homeland Security, from George Washington University.
Eventually, I moved to Texas and joined Halliburton as their global explosive safety officer. While the job fit my skill set, the company’s toxic culture made it hard to stay. After a few years, I left to pursue something different.
I started a franchise business, partnering with a fellow EOD technician. We grew quickly and had some great opportunities, but by the end of 2019, we couldn’t meet the financial hurdles. The business closed, but the timing worked out—it was the start of COVID, and I got to stay home with my youngest son, who was five or six at the time. Being a full-time dad was incredibly rewarding, especially since I hadn’t spent much time with my two older sons due to a previous divorce.
During that time, I earned an executive MBA from the University of Houston. It was a small cohort, and though most classes were online due to COVID, I gained valuable knowledge and joined the alumni network. That connection helped me land my current role in corporate security at Kinder Morgan. My job involves protecting our pipeline infrastructure, analyzing trends, and working with regulatory agencies—a challenging and fulfilling role.
A Philosophy of Hard Things
Throughout my journey, I’ve developed two core philosophies that guide my life. The first is: Do hard things.
Doing hard things doesn’t always mean succeeding, but it does mean learning and growing. When I left the Marine Corps, my brain injury made it nearly impossible to read. I struggled to connect sentences and often forgot simple words. To rewire my brain, I went back to school, diving into a master’s program that demanded intense reading and writing. It was hard—pouring over books and forcing my brain to adapt—but I saw progress over time.
I also faced physical challenges. At one point, I weighed 350 pounds and was deeply unhappy. To change, I signed up for a Tough Mudder race: a grueling 12-mile obstacle course up a mountain. It was one of the hardest physical tasks I’d ever done, but completing it motivated me to get back in shape. I started exercising, eating better, and drinking less, transforming my physical and mental health.
Another hard decision was becoming a parent again. Raising a child is no easy feat, but my youngest son is now the center of my world. These challenges remind me that growth happens when you push yourself beyond your comfort zone.
Say Yes to Opportunities
My second philosophy is: Say yes to opportunities.
This doesn’t mean being a yes-man, but rather being open to new experiences, even if they seem daunting. Saying yes has led me to some incredible opportunities, from traveling to Costa Rica in high school to joining the Marine Corps and seeing the world.
More recently, I reconnected with a friend, Terry Weaver, who invited me to be part of a movie project. I said yes, which led to my artwork being featured in the film and even a small acting role. Saying yes to this opportunity opened new doors and allowed me to grow both personally and professionally.
From Recovery to Art
In December of last year, my wife and I were out Christmas shopping when I wandered into Michael’s and bought a small art kit. That night, I painted what I knew: a bomb suit technician in a surreal setting, combining Starry Night and The Scream. I shared it with some friends, and their encouragement pushed me to create more.
By February, I enrolled in an art school to improve my technical skills. I started exploring emotional themes in my work, using art to express what PTSD and a TBI feel like. One of these paintings was featured in the movie I mentioned earlier.
A turning point came when a friend asked me to paint a portrait of his service dog. I found so much joy in capturing the bond between humans and animals that I began focusing on pet portraits. Over the past year, I’ve been featured in galleries, done live painting demonstrations, and sold several pieces, including large works to collectors.
If you’re interested in commissioning a pet portrait, visit my website: LittleDogArtStudios.art. As a veteran, I’d love to work with you and offer a discounted rate.
Closing Thoughts
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my story. To my fellow veterans: we’ve all faced hard things, whether in war zones or in life. Keep challenging yourself, say yes to opportunities, and embrace growth.
Transition and Veteran Resources
Career and civilian transition guidance, geared towards helping servicemembers plan their careers and help transitioning servicemembers succeed in civilian life.
Warrior Rising - Part 1
Benjamin Bunn
When you exit the Military, you lose several things overnight. You lose your job, your home, your community, and sometimes, your purpose.
On my last day in the Military, I sat in a small office where a civilian woman dispassionately took my ID card from me and unceremoniously destroyed it while I watched.
On that card were several things that were sacred to me. My rank, which I had earned through hard work, loyalty, and merit. In the picture, I wore a uniform. I had worn many over the years, and across my chest and sleeves were patches and tabs that told anyone looking at me a short story about my accomplishments, both in training and at war—the things I had done and might do. Some of those uniforms had been torn, burnt, and covered in blood. However, for administrative purposes, the one I was wearing in that photo was clean and sharp-looking—something to inspire a smart salute when I drove through the gate each morning. And finally, on the card was the seal of the United States Army, an organization to which I had dedicated nearly two decades of honorable service.
I listened to the machine chew the card to bits and was handed a temporary identification card with no picture, no seal, and no meaning. I drove off the installation, then called Fort Benning, and said farewell to wearing the uniform that had defined me both personally and professionally for so long.
Everything in my Columbus loft had been packed up earlier in the week and would be in storage until I was able to find a place to live, which was, of course, contingent upon me finding viable employment. In the meantime, I would be living with my mother at the spry age of 35.
All jobs in the Military require physical competency as a measure of readiness for war. However, some jobs prize physical preparedness more than others. I had been lucky enough to be affiliated with units, regiments, and teams that encouraged physical excellence, friendly competition, and broad competence. My professional demands spilled over into my personal life. I found a hobby in the pursuit of health and wellness. I was drawn to CrossFit early in my Military career. Later, I would seek out educational and coaching opportunities when my schedule allowed. I slowly built a resume of both credentials and experience. Hobbies turn into passions and passions into dreams. I fancied myself a gym owner, and my recent foray into unemployment made turning dreams into reality a necessity.
I was met with both enthusiasm and ridicule from both friends and family members when I shared that I wanted to open a lifestyle business. Close friends would pat me on the back and say, “I hope you know what you’re doing.” Those closest to me saw my passion and vigor and were genuinely excited, but if I looked past their smiles, I could see the worry in their eyes, like shadows dancing across a firelit wall. I was functionally unemployed. However, in roughly 72 hours, I would be opening a CrossFit gym in Tampa, Florida. There was no guarantee of success or profit.
Tampa was my hometown, but I was hardly a tourist over the last two decades. I had bet my life's savings on the off-chance that I could open up a small business without formal training, loaned money, or the benefit of a support network outside of my mom and a cat named Pete, whom I had gifted her years prior. Previously, I was charged with leading men with guns, orchestrating large-scale acts of violence through both doctrinal and unconventional means. Now, my mission and purpose would be to help people have fun, make friends, and get results in a group fitness setting.
There were many times throughout my military career where I felt both fear and uncertainty. Over the years, I had deployed several times in support of the global war on terror to both Iraq and Afghanistan. The threat of violence, death, and dismemberment was not only possible but probable. But surrounded by the bravado of my peers and encouraged by constant training and preparation, my fear gave way to confidence. But this was different. I was mostly alone in this endeavor. No man to my left or right to pick me up should I fall, no training to reach back to, and no safety net should I fail. The stakes seemed incredibly high. Ironically, they seemed higher than when I was actively training for or participating in war.
Historically, professional soldiers and warriors resided in that craft for a lifetime, transitioning into roles as advisors or trainers once their bodies no longer allowed them to participate in battle. It’s in recent history that professional soldiers have transitioned from their martial careers and assumed a peaceful mantle in society. I often wonder if this isn’t a modern perversion. Was I meant to fight and die?
I lost everything the day I left the Military. However, on the same day, I was granted the agency to seek out anything I could imagine without the strict confines of selected service, assigned duty positions, or the pomp and circumstance associated with volunteer service. I had lost everything but was finally free to gain everything.
Warrior Rising is a nonprofit organization that empowers U.S. military veterans and their families to achieve success as entrepreneurs. The organization provides mentorship, training, and resources to help veterans transition from military service to the business world. Through funding opportunities, networking, and community support, Warrior Rising equips veterans with the tools needed to launch and grow their businesses, fostering purpose and economic independence. Their mission is to harness the leadership and resilience of veterans to create thriving enterprises and stronger communities.
Benjamin Bunn is a former U.S. Army Green Beret and Infantry Officer who transitioned into entrepreneurship and community leadership after his service. He joined the Army in 2000, earned his Green Beret in 2006, and completed multiple deployments in support of the Global War on Terror before separating from the Army in 2016 as an Infantry officer. After his military career, Bunn founded Cigar City CrossFit in Tampa, Florida, where he currently serves as owner/operator. He is also the Deputy Executive Director for Warrior Rising, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering veterans through entrepreneurship. Bunn is an active veteran advocate, father and husband.
Health and Fitness
Guidance for improving physical and mental performance, nutrition, and sleep.
Training for Special Operations Selection, Part 1: Physical
Building The Elite - Craig Weller & Jonathon Pope
Successful SOF selection candidates are extremely physically fit, yet fitness in isolation is surprisingly non-predictive of success in courses like SFAS, SAS selection, or BUD/S.
Special operators frequently note how many highly fit people quit their selection courses despite doing well in screen tests and running and swimming at the front of the class.
In a study of Air Force SOF candidates, those in the top 10% of their class physically had the best odds of success, but those chances were still only about one in three. Put another way, for everyone who starts selection while being fitter than 90% of those around them, two-thirds will quit or fail anyway.
This is because fitness is only one piece of the puzzle.
Fitness is the entry stakes; what you need to start selection. It plays a role in supporting everything that you do throughout the course (for instance, the more aerobically fit you are, the better your cognitive function under high workloads), but from there, mental and emotional factors play just as much a role in success as how good somebody is at exercising.
This is the first of a three-part series, where we’ll talk about the physical, mental, and emotional factors for success in SOF selection. All these pieces matter. They work together as a complex system to produce something that none of the pieces in isolation could reliably deliver: an effective special operations candidate.
Just as it doesn’t matter how powerful the engine of a car is if the driver sucks or the tires are flat, if any of these factors are limiting, it will hold back the whole system.
Physical Training in SOF Prep
Movement Variability and Fidelity
Movement variability refers to the ability to move in a dynamic environment. Think of a surfer maintaining a balanced body position on a rapidly shifting wave or a Green Beret moving through rough terrain with a heavy ruck. It’s a form of adaptability.
Movement fidelity refers to maintaining a movement pattern despite internal or external disturbance. It’s a form of consistency.
For example, say you’re doing a team log carry. You need enough movement variability to pick up the log, press it, and walk it through uneven sand while maintaining good posture and avoiding injury.
You may initially be able to do this without sufficient movement fidelity, but you’ll break down and fall into injurious movement patterns as fatigue takes over. You’ll hyperextend your lower back, put your shoulders in weird positions, or maybe develop a gait compensation that endangers your knees.
If movement breaks down under stress or fatigue, the risk of injury and performance lapses multiply. However, you’ll lack the variability necessary to adapt fluidly to dynamic environments if you become too rigid.
Variety does not equal variability
It’s easy to assume that traditional gym training has a lot of different movements – you lunge, squat, deadlift, clean, press, row, run, walk, ruck, crawl, etc. Any good program designed for developing a special operator will indeed include these, but doing a variety of tasks does not mean you’re using different strategies to execute them.
For example, if you use your lower back, hip flexors, pecs, and lats to create stability during all of these exercises, you’re reinforcing the same attractor states and stressing the same tissues and joints in largely the same way.
You need the ability to fluidly shift movement patterns to distribute stress evenly across your body, compensate for fatigue, maintain tissue and joint health, and execute a wide range of tasks.
Strength and Power
How much you deadlift is a form of strength, but it only loosely correlates with the strength needed to carry a 70-pound ruck for 12 miles, scale a wall, or drag a partner. However, if you train according to the principles outlined throughout our book (and this article), you’ll develop a broad base of strength that will allow you to transfer those general capacities (squatting, lunging, deadlifting, pressing, pulling, etc.) to selection-specific capabilities.
Standards
These guidelines will ensure that strength is not a limiting factor and will give you enough of a buffer to stay sufficiently strong despite a training pipeline of rucking, running, swimming, and calisthenics that will slowly diminish strength levels:
Strength
Barbell Deadlift – 1.75x bodyweight (bw)
Trap Bar Deadlift – 2x bw
Barbell Back Squat – 1.75x bw
Barbell Front Squat – 1.5x bw
Weighted Pull-Up (any grip, usually neutral or supinated) – 50% bw men, 40% bw women
Rear-Foot Elevated Split Squat – 1x bw for 10 reps
Kettlebell Overhead Press – 45% bw men
Bench Press – 1.25x bodyweight
Power
Broad Jump – 8 feet men, 7 feet women
Vertical Jump – 25” men, 20” women
Methods
Extensive training blocks are used to refine movement quality, build movement fidelity, and drive work capacity. Loads are typically lower (50-75% of a one-rep max), and volume and quality (along with other psychological skills) are the primary goals.
Intensive strength falls into the more ‘traditional’ strength programming, with lower volume and a wider variety of intensities and speeds. These methods are used to develop maximal strength and to maintain it once you have a solid foundation.
For an overview of strength methods, see this article.
Work Capacity
Work capacity is a blend of power and capacity.
Power = the amount of force you can express in a short, fixed amount of time, i.e., a max power clean or broad jump
Capacity = how much force you express repeatedly over a long time, such as a 10-mile run.
Three primary components dictate work capacity:
Aerobic power and capacity
While you will need a robust central aerobic system built via plenty of sub-max aerobic training like rucking with a zone 2 heart rate, there are also important local muscular factors.
Especially if you’re a reasonably strong person with a fair amount of type II or intermediate fibers, you’ll need aerobic workouts that target fast-twitch muscle fibers throughout your body, particularly in patterns heavily called upon in selection courses, like those for pullups, pushups, and lower-body calisthenics.
See this article for an example of what this kind of training could look like.
Movement capacity and fidelity
Movement capacity refers to how much available motion you have, and as stated above, fidelity is how well you can maintain a good movement pattern under stress and fatigue.
Generally, you should maintain the ability to do a deep squat with your heels on the ground, put your arms overhead without arching your lower back, and touch your toes.
Do this movement screen to assess your movement quality and get individualized drills to help with any limitations you may have.
Relative strength
This is your strength-to-weigh ratio. Before you worry about work capacity training, you should meet these minimal standards:
Pullups – 5 chest-to-bar bodyweight pullups
Back Squat – 1.5x bodyweight
Deadlift – 1.5x bodyweight
Bench press – 1x bodyweight
Conditioning
Let’s use an analogy to help conceptualize how energy systems work.
Imagine that your body is similar to a car with a combustion engine. An engine has three main factors that affect its performance:
Fuel system – how gas gets into the engine
Engine – where combustion (energy transformation) occurs that moves your car
Intake and exhaust – how air (½ of the fuel equation) and exhaust (waste products from the engine) leave the vehicle
This gives us three primary categories of energy systems training:
Delivery-Focused Training
Delivery-based methods are designed to improve your ability to deliver fuel to tissues and clear waste products from them. They involve these types of adaptations:
Your heart’s ability to move blood through your body
Capillaries’ ability to handle the movement of that blood
The density and capability of mitochondria in local tissues
Coordination of various subsystems to facilitate delivery
During these methods, you generally do lower-intensity, longer-duration activities where constant delivery (and consistent utilization) becomes the limiting factor over time.
Returning to our car analogy – this type of work is like improving your fuel system. It improves the potential of your motor by providing more fuel at a faster rate to the engine. You can have a 1000-horsepower engine, but you can't express that power if you have a tiny fuel pump that only provides a small amount of fuel.
Utilization-Focused Training
These methods stress how quickly you metabolize oxygen, glucose, lactate, etc in working muscles. Here, you’re using fuel faster than it can be delivered or replenished. Thus, it is traditionally called ‘anaerobic’ or high-intensity aerobic training (think threshold intervals).
Utilization training leads to the following adaptations:
Rate of metabolizing lactate and oxygen
Increased resistance to acidosis
Returning to our car analogy, this type of training is developing the engine's internal components so that you can produce more horsepower or use fuel faster. If your fuel system is more powerful than your engine can handle, then it doesn’t matter how much you step on the throttle; you still won’t be able to produce more power.
Respiration-Focused Training
Breathing is simple – it’s how you move air in and out of your lungs. Oxygen is the primary fuel, and CO2 is the main waste product. If you can’t move fuel into your body and get rid of waste, it doesn’t matter how capable the rest of your body is.
We wrote an entire article on breathing, which you can find here. Breathing training focuses on:
Movement is usually the primary limiter of breathing (poor position = ineffective breathing mechanics).
Once that’s taken care of, coordination and fitness of respiratory muscles become important.
In our car analogy, breathing is your air intake and exhaust system. If your breathing can keep up with your fuel delivery and engine, you’ll extract every ounce of horsepower you can from the entire system. If it can’t, it doesn’t matter how great your engine or fuel system is – you’ll quickly burn through the available oxygen, and the engine will sputter back to idle.
For a more in-depth look at conditioning training for SOF selection prep, read this article.
Swimming and Water Comp
Swimming is not a problem that can be solved with sheer physical effort. Your speed and endurance in the water heavily depend on your technical skill. As such, swimming programming for special operations selection training should focus on skill development, with fitness as a byproduct of that training.
Improving swim technique follows a basic sequence:
Reduce drag
Make a small hole in the water: Think of your body like moving a pencil through the water. You want to stay oriented in a straight line, moving horizontally, to make the smallest hole possible.
Stay long: At a given volume, longer objects have less drag in the water. Better swimmers hold lengthened positions while gliding for a greater proportion of their stroke.
Create power
Propulsion in the water comes from the full body moving in coordination. Arms and hands help to stabilize your body and counterbalance the force generated by your hips, working more like anchors that “grip” the water as you pull your body along while using full-body propulsion driven by the motion of the hips and thorax.
Read this article for more information on swimming and how to train it.
Like swimming, treading water is a technical skill more than a measure of fitness. Your primary method here is the eggbeater technique, essentially the same kick used in breaststroke but done in an alternating pattern. For more on developing the eggbeater, read this article.
Lastly, we have water confidence training, or the fine art of being hard to drown, such as during underwater knot trying.
Water comp training strongly integrates the ability to regulate the autonomic nervous system and manage emotional stress to control physiological factors like muscle tension, one’s stress response, and oxygen consumption.
We’ll cover the mental and emotional aspects of this in upcoming articles, where we’ll discuss the broader concepts of mental and emotional skills as they relate to special operations prep training and operational life.
Book Review
The Long Row Home - Odysseus, Healing, and The Warrior’s Return
Benjamin Van Horrick
What can an ancient myth tell us about reintegrating veterans into modern society and service members preparing for the mental and moral demands of future conflict? In Odysseus and the Oar, Adam Magers couples the ancient tale with Jungian psychological interpretation to offer veterans longing to return home -- and mental health professionals looking to assist -- a framework for their odyssey. Unlike most mental health professionals, for Magers, the work of reintegration was a personal struggle before becoming a professional pursuit. A decorated combat veteran who fought in the Battle of Sadr City, Magers floundered upon re-entry to American society, mirroring Odysseus’ epic struggle to return home. Born out out of Magers’ clinical work and close study of the myth, Odysseus and the Oar offers a compelling guide for the treatment and understanding of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), extracting insights from Odysseus’ epic journey home while preparing future combatants for the convoluted moral space they will enter should hostilities commence again.
Magers takes the reader by the hand as he examines The Odyssey, breaks down scenes and connects the myth to the modern re-entry of American veterans. Odysseus and the Oar gives the reader the roadmap to begin their own exploration the story and Jungian psychology. Each chapter focuses on a scene from the tale coupled with Jungian psychology interpretations as Magers draws examples from his struggles and clinical practice. Magers explains the deeper meaning of the plot points and then connects to the modern experience of veterans’ homecoming, including the perils of isolation, substance abuse, self-destruction, and compulsive behaviors. Unlike combat memoirs and veteran self-help books, Magers strikes a balance between personal narrative and meaningful insights. Mental health professionals benefit from Magers’ ambitious work as he offers concrete recommendations and thoughtful considerations when treating the veteran community. Speaking to his peers, Magers offers guidance on how to connect with the insular veteran community in need of the relief therapy can provide. For instance, Magers cautions his professional colleagues against purely addressing the trauma of veterans because trauma and triumph in conflict remain intertwined, according to his analysis. As demonstrated in The Iliad and The Odyssey, conflict amplifies and intensifies all emotions, both positive and negative. Odysseus seeks to return home to his wife and child but will remain forever besotted by the excitement and beauty of battle.
The recent attention paid to Large Scale Combat Operations often overlooks the mental demands placed on combatants. One can read Odysseus and the Oar as a guide to reintegration following war and preparation for combat. The book’s structure lends itself to a platoon or squad reading a chapter at a time discussing not only the leadership lessons but identifying the emotional fortitude needed to endure during LSCO. Odysseus is a cunning small unit leader with deep flaws, which end up costing the lives of his men and time on the journey home. Fate and uncertainty test Odysseus and his men, but their will to return home prevail over fate and circumstance. Unlike the recent rash of speculative fiction focusing on the war in the Pacific and the use of high tech weapons, Odysseus and his men rely on their wits and will, not technology, to determine outcomes. The degree to which speculative fiction authored by Flag Officers will shape the public’s perspective of future war remains unknown. Still, the decreased emphasis on human decisions and facing the consequences of those decisions leave out critical details for the reading public. Magers’ work fills in the gaps. Preparing service members for the mental, emotional, and spiritual demands of combat does not inoculate them, but can insulate them from some of the negative effects of prolonged exposure to peril. Odysseus and the Oar is an ambitious, serious, and timely contribution to veterans, healthcare providers, and servicemen looking to understand how to prepare for when hostilities commence and how to return home when conflict ends.
Maj Benjamin Van Horrick is the 3d Marine Expeditionary Brigade's Current Logistics Operations Officer
The views presented are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of the U.S. Marine Corps, the U.S. Navy, or the Department of Defense.
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This ends Volume 30, Edition 1, of the Lethal Minds Journal (01JAN2025)
The window is now open for Lethal Minds’ twenty fourth volume, releasing February 01, 2025.
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Moldova is one more instance that exposes how the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact collapsed and disappeared but following a well worn handbook Moscow left behind its contacts, networks, and influencers. Knowing already that both NATO and the EU had rules against accepting member nations troubled by internal corruption and unresolved border disputes with neighbors it was easy for the Kremlin to take advantage of such problems and manipulate the political situation to its advantage.