GUNCRANK DIARIES

Talking guns with shot-up thugs was actually one of the bright spots of my time in an urban ER. They were all rank amateurs, but they spoke the language to...

I had one particularly unfortunate soldier when I was stationed in Alaska. We’ll call him Billy. Billy was a good kid, but he grew up with a dearth of...

I was on a remote rotation during my medical residency in a small Southern town. In many ways, visiting these forgotten parts of the Mississippi Delta is a...

I came of age in the 1970s hunting behind the levee in the Mississippi Delta with my dad. Though I took it for granted at the time, this was the coolest...

What would happen if a bunch of men were entrusted with a whole pile of nuclear bombs? They would dig an enormous hole and create the world's biggest gun.

Most people start out with about the same amount of raw material. As a result, everybody is the sum total of the choices they make in life. Some of those...

Everybody wonders how their grandparents first met. Rock didn’t admit the truth to me until three weeks before he died.

The Nazis are undeniably fascinating. Those guys were just such scum. Human history is dirty with tin pot dictators who coveted something and were willing...

One of the kids pointed out a beaver cruising around the lake. I retrieved my sound suppressed Remington 700 bolt-action rifle and dispatched the beast from...

I’m currently perched atop Hadrian’s Wall in Northern England near the Roman fort of Vindolanda. The weather is uncharacteristically pleasant.

It was 1938, and life was hard. The country and the world were still clawing their way out of the Great Depression, and people still knew genuine deprivation.

11.5-foot Tiger shark that had been caught by an angler a week before some two miles out to sea.

I have a nemesis. Webster’s Dictionary defines nemesis thusly, “The inescapable agent of someone's or something's downfall.” I think that about sums...

Nowadays Army helicopters can pull any mission at midnight that they might at noon. Night vision sensors displace the darkness so beautifully that aircrews...

As a species we are enthralled with seeing people explore their limits. Sometimes it is in the small things. “Would you rather do this by mouth or take a...

Kids today simply have no idea how cool it was to grow up in the 1970s. Telephones were the size of a loaf of bread and were tethered to the wall.

Lots of people talk about being a superhero, Phoenix Jones actually did something about it.

In the case of nuclear fission, a small amount of matter actually transforms directly into energy.

The President of the United States sat alone in the Oval Office behind the desk of presidents. The Resolute Desk was not as physically imposing as many...

Despite his relative youth, Derek Hanson was both an old soul and a saint. The kid seemed born to service. His capacity to articulate that altruistic spirit...

Humans go to war for a wide variety of reasons. During World War II, we fought against rank tyranny. We didn’t start it, but by God, we were going to...

Tolerance is the new holy gospel in America. Bigotry is the unforgivable sin of the Information Age. It doesn’t matter what good you might have otherwise...

Spelling is a poor metric of a person’s raw intellect. The modern American education system invests truly breathtaking time and treasure contriving ways...

Human beings are waterproof, and personal comfort is a state of mind. I actually used to believe tripe like that.

I studied mechanical engineering in college and got my commission in the Army at the same time. I was a pretty busy guy. However, each semester I made time...

I had a half-hour commute while in medical school. I needed a reliable low-mileage Ford Fungus with a decent air conditioner and a radio. What I bought was...

In the early sixties, a petite female college student was driving home alone for the holidays across rural Louisiana. She attended school another state...

Just what is it about politicians? It’s a bit like the timeless chicken or the egg conundrum. Were they all born criminals or does the system somehow make...

Back in 1997 I deployed to Australia as part of Operation Tandem Thrust. While I can’t say that I personally ensured the security of Western civilization...

Mail call was a holy thing back in the days before Facetime and Skype. Those letters and parcels from home were like cool water for a guy dying of thirst. I...