Lethal Minds Volume 22
Lethal Minds Volume 22
Volume 22, 1 May, 2024
Letter from the Editor
It’s been a heavy month.
I attended three funerals since the last time I wrote you. One was unforeseeable and tragic. One was foreseeable yet still tragic. One was foreseeable and sad, as are all passings, but ultimately it was just the way of men in their ninth decade. That’s the one I want to tell you about.
My cousin Francis James Hogan was a Marine, an extraordinarily successful businessman, a philanthropist, and a gentleman of the old school. He died quickly of pneumonia at 88 after being as vital and engaged a human as I have ever known for the entirety of his life. He was a coat-and-tie guy, an external representation of who he was internally, a guy who knew where he meant to go and never once took a shortcut to get there. But I’m not asking you to read an obituary here, I have a point.
In 1959, Frank started in the company mailroom of the business of which he was the President and Chief Executive Officer when he died. He held that position for forty years. I knew Frank for forty-three years before I discovered he was the CEO of a company that did tens of millions of dollars in business. I still would not know had he not handed me a business card eight years ago so I would have his email and cell number in case I needed him.
Frank was a single enlistment Marine who won a lifetime’s worth of awards for philanthropy and professional achievement; a guy with ambassadors and legislators and generals on speed dial who never once mentioned those people to the people on whose behalf he called them. In a world of look at me social media, clout chasers, and insipid people making absurd amounts of money for “influencing,” Frank quietly used the business and the networks he built to make good things happen for people without saying a single word about it, particularly through his support of servicemembers and Fisher House.
He was all go, no show.
I had dinner with Frank one evening in 2016 when he was in Washington. I was assigned to the Pentagon and considering my future after retirement from the Marine Corps. That night he asked me if I thought I would like adjunct teaching at Georgetown University. I said I could not think of much I would like more and promptly forgot about it. Then came an email that led me across the Potomac and into the office of the retired US Ambassador who was the Director of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. I’ll save you the details of the two hours she generously spent answering a clueless Marine’s questions, but I will recount her answer when I asked how she knew my cousin Frank: “Well, he’s on the board of trustees for the school.” It was a big detail to me that Frank apparently did not think worth mentioning.
There’s no tragedy in the passing of a man who was healthy right up to the end of his 88 years, but there are plenty of lessons to be learned. One is have a bagpiper blast the Marine’s Hymn at the end of it all. But I think the most important is that we could all stand to be a bit more like Frank; a bit more about taking action rather than credit.
You can start here. We want your thoughts, opinions, and creativity. Submit them to lethalmindsjournal@gmail.com.
Fire for Effect,
Russell Worth Parker
Editor in Chief - Lethal Minds Journal
Dedicated to those who serve, those who have served, and those who paid the final price for their country.
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In This Issue
Across the Force
A Warrior’s Introspection
Marines Doing Cool Things
The Written Word
The Daily Operator
Review - Ascent to Power
Poetry and Art
Top of the Hour
Across the Force
Written work on the profession of arms. Lessons learned, conversations on doctrine, and mission analysis from all ranks.
A Warrior’s Introspection - Gonzalo Hernandez
Spirituality and camaraderie in the midst of chaos and uncertainty
It is 11:32 on August 15, 2023 and I’m in the back of a military truck waiting to go back to base from training at high altitude (3,500 — 5,500 meters) for 15 days. I’m mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted. I can sense how my body and mind are realizing that the training is over and that they can finally relax and decompress.
Before the raw emotions and thoughts dissipate and get stowed away in my memory bank only to be rediscovered ages later, I decided to grab my phone and write this article about the intense human experiences my classmates and I lived during these past two weeks in the mountains in the most unfiltered way possible.
Two main ideas are lingering in my head right now: spirituality and camaraderie. If you’ve ever ventured into the mountains on an expedition or long journey then you might understand why.
Short Story
Prior to day one of this strenuous two-week training I wrote about risks, fear, challenges, disappointment and hope in my personal journal. It still shocks me to see how the world is crumbling and how society slowly sinks into a sea of desperate lack of meaning. It is sad and overwhelming, but there’s a hope factor in this equation. You see, everything can go to shit but I concluded that we must never lose hope.
So, I went on this training on that last note: hope. I think that was key to receiving that dose of raw positive energy and awe that you get from being so close to the mountains and surrounded by nature.
Throwing in a bit of perspective, we began our journey in a city a couple hours north of our starting point. The first few mornings before embarking on the main hike of the training were filled with outdoor workouts at 05:00. The temperature at that time of day was so cold and dry that your fingers would get numb within minutes if you were standing still. These morning workouts were necessary, though. Without them it would’ve been more difficult to adapt quickly to physical exertion at altitude.
After acclimating for a few days and having our first short two-day hike, we were ready to tackle the main event. Ahead of us was a three-day hike consisting of crossing two mountain ranges through their highest col while carrying our full military equipment (rucks, arms, gear, etc.), and we had to stay away from trails or roads.
That morning we woke up at around 02:00, ate something quick and got in the trucks that would take us to the starting point. At about 06:00 we began our own little odyssey.
From the very beginning, I was in awe. The vast rural landscape in front of us was covered by the shade of the imposing mountains that surrounded it. The rugged terrain hosted a herd of wild bulls that would run from one end to the other in a harmonious fashion. I remember feeling deeply impacted and humbled by this scene and realized we are just guests in this beautiful world.
As the hours passed, the bright light of the morning sunshine would get its chin over the mountain range on the east side and hit the snow-covered peak on the west side. All that energy reflected off the snow on the peak and greeted us with a light orange color so pretty that it made me forget about the 60+ pounds I was carrying.
A military hike like this is designed to test your mountain warfare abilities while taking your body and mind past their failure points. No matter how mentally and physically prepared you think you are, everyone eventually reaches their ‘limit’ and meets frustration, loneliness, fatigue, hunger, and disorientation. We were a couple of hours away from our first checkpoint: Punta OlÃmpica Col. We still had at least two hours to go and my fuel tank light was on.
I know it may sound corny but you get farther together. The team motivates you to keep going by staying in the fight. “How could I collapse if they’re still going?” I asked myself. There’s no other option but to keep pushing and try my best to keep a good attitude no matter how exhausted I am.
We eventually crossed through Punta OlÃmpica on our way to the small town of VaquerÃa. We walked for about 14 hours that day with an elevation of over 2 km.
The next morning we woke up with the sunrise. The nice old lady who had opened her arms and home for us the night before called us to have breakfast with her and her husband. They had cooked spaghetti with red sauce and tuna accompanied with a hot cup of ‘muña’. That’d be our first and last meal of the day.
We left the small town of VaquerÃa to continue our hike to our next objective: the “Portachuelo Llanganuco Col”. That was the climax of the event. Our minds were sharp that day. We had spent the whole morning talking, staying positive and looking forward to completing the mission. We hiked for about 10 hours before reaching the col.
I remember walking towards that last mountain range and seeing how gigantic it was. My thoughts, however, remained positive. I’ve learned to dominate my inner voice and use it to keep me motivated, to push myself further than expected and to trust in my training and abilities.
On our way to the col, we found a bull’s skeleton lying near a rock. I had never seen something like that before. The bones were bright white and thick. I took the horns and put them in my backpack as a reminder of how straightforward things actually are: you live and you die. There’s no way around that fact, which is why I like to remember this phrase:
Memento mori. Amor fati. Carpe diem.
Remember you will die. Accept that fact and embrace it. Love your fate and welcome with love all the things and people that cross your path. Finally, live in the moment, be present and fully focus in the ‘now’.
We did exactly that at the top of the col. It was stunningly beautiful! The sky was clearer than ever and the sun shone bright over the mountains in front of us, caressing their faces and ours with its soft light. The cold wind hitting our skin and brushing the giant rocks around us was refreshing enough to help us recover from climbing about 1,800 meters in altitude. The view was astonishing and I could not feel more whole and satisfied. Then I looked back. tears overcame my natural willingness to show off strong and controlled. I saw the tens of kilometers we had hiked for the past 10 hours.
I couldn’t believe — but at the same time I did — how far I had come in just a few hours that morning. I immediately thought of time and how relative it really is. Caring your ruck, equipment, and arms all the way up is no easy task, but it isn’t impossible either.
People in the military are like everybody else. Human beings living life and doing the best they can. I’ve learned that the only thing that differentiates us from the rest is the power of our mind and our unbreakable willingness to finish what we started.
The warrior mentality applies not only to the combatant, but to the single parent that fights every day to raise their children, to the construction workers that build our cities, to the people working night shifts in the service industry, to the musician brave enough to expose his ideas against all odds… you get the idea: we all have the potential to acquire a warrior mentality, but not everybody is willing to do it.
We took a few minutes to enjoy the view before descending. My brothers and I stood together, one next to the other, and took in the mountains and the condors flying by. Nobody said a word.
There are moments in life that are transcendental and crucial in the development of meaningful relationships. That week we all embarked on a journey that seemed impossible. We were anxious and dubious at first, but it all went away once we began the mission. When you see your brothers walking next to you, suffering but still moving forward, all that doubt and fear goes away and is replaced by love.
Camaraderie is that deep friendship and trust that you develop with other people. Intense experiences like this one are crucial to consolidate that bond. So, when we were standing at the top of the mountain watching the condors fly, we had no need to say a word because we knew the other person, our brother, was also having his own moment.
We snapped out of it at the same time, looked each other in the eyes, smiled and nodded. We understood what we had accomplished. We had gotten closer to nirvana in those few fleeting seconds.
Boat Drop
Written Word
Fiction and Nonfiction written by servicemen and veterans.
Daily Operator - Levi Leet
Prologue
John Reeves was accustomed to waking up from a gentle pulse of his smart watch’s haptic alarm at 0530 each morning. This reveille time allowed Reeves to quickly shave, grab his lunch of leftovers from the previous night’s meal from the fridge, climb into the familiar cab of his Toyota Tacoma, commute twenty minutes from his house to the on-base gym, squeeze in a forty-five-minute weightlifting routine, change into his woodland MARPATs, and take his place in company formation outside the command post at 0700.
That was before he and his wife, Linda, had Miranda and Jeremy. With “two under two,” two dogs, and two full-time jobs, John and Linda had to make serious adjustments to the daily battle rhythm of the Reeves household. At first, the disruption to John’s perfected regimen of fitness and productivity annoyed him. However, every Marine loves a challenge and John quickly realized that parenting was a no-fail mission that could be embraced and enjoyed.
MONDAY
Nothing made Reeves more uncomfortable than scrambling to assemble his kit last-minute or worse, realizing he did not pack everything he needed for an operation hours after insert. He gained solace from a ritual of pre-staging and individual Pre-Combat Checks of his pack and kit the night before a mission. Getting a toddler out the door safely and efficiently for something as routine as a daycare drop-off was no different. Miranda’s standard packing list included two four-ounce bottles of organic milk, a fresh liter of ice water, a minimum of 700 calories of snacks. Monday packing list included a fresh set of sheets and a sleep-sac to use during nap time throughout the week.
Reeves grabbed the clear plastic stadium-compliant bag from the kitchen counter and inspected the contents. One Ziploc bag of Gerber cheese puffs, an individually packaged mozzarella stick, and half of a fresh avocado in a small Tupperware. Snacks were sufficient. He moved to the fridge and removed the two Grosmimi bottles he had filled the night prior after dinner. We’ve “got milk.” He scanned the counters and living room from his position by the fridge until he identified Miranda’s purple Zulu bottle protruding from under the couch. He quickly crossed the kitchen, grabbed the bottle, returned to the fridge, and refilled the bottle with freshly filtered water. Hydrate or die.
After completing PCCs on Miranda’s load-out, the remaining preparatory tasks were breakfast and dressing the toddler. Reeves checked the Babysenseâ„¢ monitor as he slid a slice of raisin bread into the toaster. We’ve got movement. With about three minutes to complete breakfast before Miranda began screaming to be liberated from her room, Reeves quickly checked the weather. Low of 62, high of 75. Looks like a t-shirt with a light jacket day.
TUESDAY
Reeves’s Tacoma crawled through the North Gate’s ECP with the flock of S-shop personnel who routinely ended work at 1600 each day. 18 minutes out.
Miranda’s daycare closed at 1630. How anyone who worked normal hours on a regular basis could logistically support that pick-up time was beyond Reeves. Tuesday was one of Linda’s commuting days, so Reeves kept his afternoons clear to fulfill Mr. Mom duties. Other families must have similar arrangements.
Reeves passively listened to Rogan plummet down a rabbit hole about pizza toppings as he made the turn into the daycare. The key to a successful daycare extract was to avoid engagement with other parents and staff at all costs. Typically, Reeves tried to avoid looking like a gun-club-vet-bro when in civvies, but he made an exception on daycare pick-up days to project an image of someone who was not a prime suspect for entertaining small talk. His ALTAMA Maritime Assault High Tops hit the pavement as he stepped from the cab of his truck. If the 5.11 utility pants or OD green t-shirt emblazoned with “Nobody is Coming to Save You” over a skull did not properly dissuade exchanging pleasantries, Reeves’ stoic stare from behind his ballistic Oakley sunglasses normally did the trick.
Reeve’s appearance may have seen disarming or humorous to the casual bystander, but his attire and posture produced the desired effect as he approached the pick-up door. Those adults intimidated by Reeves at the daycare were always shocked at the rapid transformation he took as soon as Miranda scampered out into his arms. The warm embrace, exaggerated kisses, and silly voices produced by Reeves in those routine reunions between father and daughter left bystanders wondering if he belonged in a Prime Video series featuring bloodthirsty operators or a Youtube Channel for hauntingly addictive youth “education.” Reeves preferred the mystery; he knew how to flip the switch.
WEDNESDAY
Miranda stood in her room scrutinizing the leotards held in Reeve’s hands. The miniature dance outfit in his left hand featured a print of purple and green mermaid scales, while the one in his right was plastered with a rainbow unicorn and sequins.
“Pick one,” he said. He could see the burden of choice tormenting her developing mind as he waited for her decision. A Marine taking this much time on such a rudimentary decision would have earned a sharp rebuke from Reeves. As Linda periodically reminded Reeves, however, children are not Marines; not yet, at least. Reeves had grown to appreciate these moments of childhood simplicity. Their fears, desires, stressors, and motivations were refreshing to behold.
“Remember, baby, if you aren't five minutes early, you’re late,” Reeves said to Miranda as he walked into the dance studio carrying her on his hip. She skipped into her classroom to join her friends as Reeves sent her off with a kiss.
Reeves and Linda watched the gaggle of adolescent ballerinas from the parent viewing window outside the class while Jeremy enjoyed a milk-induced comma in his car seat at their feet.
“She has come a long way in just a few weeks,” said Linda as Miranda executed nearly flawless choreography of “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.” as part of the class's warm-up.
“Reps and sets, babe. Reps and sets,” Reeves said with a smile.
THURSDAY
Reeves adjusted the shoulder straps on the Babybjörnâ„¢ before lifting Jeremy to his chest and securing the chunky infant with the baby carrier’s prong securing features. It was easier to tag-team cooking duties when the parent-child ratio was two-to-one. Luckily, Jeremy was usually content with being snugly secured to one parent’s chest during dinner preparation while the other parent entertained the livelier Miranda. The Reeves family task organization worked well as long as one parent was not running late from work.
This evening’s dish was a John Reeves special: chipotle-honey glazed salmon filets with summer squash, cooked in foil packets on the grill. The keys to a good weeknight dinner were minimal ingredients and required preparation time. This meal hit both wickets as the glaze was a simple mix of melted butter, chipotle seasoning, honey, and minced garlic, and chopping the vegetables and packing the foils took less than fifteen minutes.
After placing the packets on the grill and setting his watch timer to twelve minutes, Reeves brought a fresh glass of wine to Linda as she worked on a wooden peg puzzle with Miranda in the playroom.
“What should I prepare for the princess this evening?” Reeves asked Linda.
“She had mac’ for lunch.”
“Chicken it is, then,” said Reeves.
Like most toddlers, Miranda had a short list of dining preferences. Besides Panera’s macaroni and cheese, Reeves and Linda had discovered the healthiest food item Miranda would eat consistently were organic chicken nuggets from Costco. With three minutes remaining on the salmon packets, Reeves prepared Miranda's dinner and set the table for the family meal.
“Dinner is ready, girls!”
Reeves kissed Linda on the cheek as he hoisted Miranda into her booster seat. He took a quick moment to bow his head and thank God for the chance to break bread with the best unit he had ever been a member of.
FRIDAY
Friday liberty briefs used to set conditions to go grab a drink with his peers or Linda to decompress after a busy week. Today, with the sun shining and 72-degree temperatures, Reeves knew it was a perfect day to get home early and take the family to the neighborhood park.
Ascent to Power: How Truman Emerged from Roosevelt’s Shadow and Remade the World
By David L. Roll - Dutton/Penguin Random House LLC 2024
Review by: Nicholas Efstathiou
When most of us think of President Harry S. Truman, it’s usually in the context of the Second World War and the dropping of the atomic bombs. Some of us remember that he was President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fourth term vice-president, and that Truman inherited the office of the president when Roosevelt died on April 12th, 1945. Fewer can recall that Truman was president during the beginning of the Korean War and that he would eventually relieve General Douglas MacArthur of command for, well, being MacArthur. While author David L. Roll doesn’t delve into the Korean War aspect of Truman’s presidency, he gives us an unprecedented view into Truman’s time in office, and he reveals to us the great work Truman did.
David Roll’s subtitle, “How Truman Emerged from Roosevelt’s Shadow and Remade the World,” is entirely accurate. Roosevelt, despite being ill and warned that he might not survive a fourth term in office, made no attempts to inform Truman about the situation regarding the war effort or what different plans were in place to deal with a variety of scenarios. With Roosevelt’s sudden death in April, Truman was left holding the proverbial bag. In those first few months of his time in office, Truman found himself negotiating with world leaders, and faced with the decision to deploy the atomic bomb.
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With the war in Japan steadily moving towards its conclusion, Truman found himself on shaky ground when Prime Minister Winston Churchill was voted out of office. The loss of Churchill made negotiating with Josef Stalin difficult, a fact that would remain true for the rest of Stalin’s life.
By the end of the war in August 1945, Roll describes the change in Truman. Truman’s presidency begins to take on its own shape. Roosevelt’s New Deal advisors were slowly being filtered out, and Truman was building an administration that would guide the United States and the world into the post-war era. .
David Roll shows us how, with a well-rounded cabinet, Truman tooks on the economic situation of post-war Europe. We see the challenge of a powerful Soviet Union bent on encouraging the degradation of the Western European nations and the realization by Secretary of State George C. Marshall Jr. of the pending economic crisis in Western Europe. Marshall, during his flight to Moscow for economic negotiations had seen the devastation of continental Europe. He learned firsthand of the deaths from exposure, malnutrition, and starvation in Europe. His advice to Truman is to raise up Western Europe.
Truman does so, and even as he works to help those in Europe, he does not ignore the plight of Americans. While we learn of the financial struggles of American service members re-entering the workforce, we see the enormous pressure placed on Truman by unions seeking to obtain better wages for their members and businesses attempting to retain profit margins gained during the wartime economy.
David Roll shows us how Truman went further than economics in Europe and labor in America. Truman, we learn, was arguably the most civil rights-minded president. Truman made a number of efforts to ‘raise up’ the situation of African Americans in American society. In 1948, Truman desegregated the United States military. He attempted to repeal polling taxes, which prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote in elections. Truman established the Federal Employment Board, which was designed and implemented to ensure the fair and equitable treatment of minorities when they applied for jobs.Â
David Roll has created a magnificent work that shows the reader who Harry S. Truman was and tells the history of a president who did far more than most of us ever learn about in school. Some may remember seeing photographs of President Truman holding up a newspaper with the ill-timed headline “Dewey Defeats Truman!” Others may have seen his name beside images of the famous mushroom cloud of an atomic explosion. What David Roll does is bring us past this limited knowledge of Truman. David Roll brings to us a history of post-war America that is so much more than Baby Boomers, television, and the eventual counterculture of the 1960s.Â
Near the end of the book, David Roll refers to President Turman as “the Liberator.” This is an apt name for a man who desegregated the military and who sought economic parity for African Americans. This name of liberator comes not only from Truman’s good work in the United States. The name also comes from his work via the Marshall Plan in Europe. Truman’s goal was to liberate the people of Western Europe from the poverty and economic degradation the war had left them. Truman sought to rebuild not only towns and cities but entire nations. David Roll shows us that Truman understood that the national security of the United States was dependent, in part, on the economic security of nations and peoples who had been on both sides of the conflict during World War Two.
David Roll’s work is, in a word, magnificent. The history he presents is illustrated and defined with quotes from a wide array of sources. His research is stunning, and the notes and bibliography attached at the end of the book are well worth a read all on their own. His skill at working these quotes into the story of President Truman enhances an already powerful work. Ascent to Power is not a book to rush through. It is one to savor and enjoy, to read a chapter at a time and digest the importance of the history being shared. Throughout this work, you will find pieces of information that are enjoyable, frightening, and, at times, uplifting. There are a few works of presidential nonfiction that I have found so pleasing to read. Of those few, David Roll’s work on Truman holds pride of place.
Poetry and Art
Poetry and art from the warfighting community.
Top of the Hour - Evan Young Weaver
When I sit down to write I want it to be about dogs with
personalities too big for themselves.
I want it to be about James Taylor’s sweet baby James
and how sweet it is.
I want it to be about dusty, washboard roads in Vermont,
New Hampshire, and Maine.
I want it to be about a late summer golden hour on a Kansas
prairie, or a South Florida beach, or hell, even North Texas.
When I sit down to write I don’t want it to be about going to,
and coming back, but, thanks for letting me come back.
I don’t want it to be about the way dust shakes off everything
with an effect you can’t imagine because of 800 pounds of HME.
I don’t want it to be about how much I miss the trips to the moon,
to the land of misfit toys, or Peter Pan, all too foreign to be real.
I don’t want it to be about a list of weddings and births and deaths and people
that I missed and lost while too busy missing and losing people.
I don’t want it to be about helplessness, or proving yourself, or figuring out
why do any of these things even happen anyway?
When I sit down to write I want it to be weighted heavily
like a curled-up dog who will not budge.
When I sit down to write I want it to be as severe and as serious
as a James Taylor cowboy song, but Van Morrison will do.
When I sit down to write I want it to be like the first poem I was
ever proud of, about a Rural Route and dusty mail in a crooked mailbox.
When I sit down to write I want it to be gently powerful
like the best golden hours there have been in Asheville, in Oklahoma City, in Chincoteague.
When I sit down to write I want to be able to see the golden hour, wherever it is,
as not the jargon for survival, as not a dwindling countdown to the end,
as not a distant yet immediate frantic fight to stop a memorial service,
as the time to get to the ramp, again, and again, and again.
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This ends Volume 22, Edition 1, of the Lethal Minds Journal (01MAY2024)
The window is now open for Lethal Minds’ twenty third volume, releasing June 1st, 2024.
All art and picture submissions are due as PDFs or JPEG files to our email by midnight on 20 May 2024.
All written submissions are due as 12 point font, double spaced, Word documents to our email by midnight on 20 May 2024.
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