The Havok Journal | Military & Veteran News, Commentary, Culture

• In Leadership, the Enemy Is the Perfect of the Good February 18, 2026
  There is a quiet killer in the military that rarely gets named in after-action reports. It isn’t fear.It isn’t incompetence.It isn’t even cowardice. It’s perfection. Or more accurately, the pursuit of it. “The enemy of the good is the perfect” is a phrase most often attributed to Voltaire, though its roots trace back earlier to […]
  Charles Faint
• Combat Stress Reaction Treatment and Why It Works February 18, 2026
  When we first came home from Iraq, we landed in New Jersey. We remained on base for a couple of weeks to get “acclimated back to the civilian world.” I was laying on a soft bed in the barracks. I hardly slept because we were either drinking, partying, or just restless to get home. Then […]
  Sergeant Ayman Kafel, MSC
• Insomnia: Demon of Destruction and Peace February 18, 2026
  Night after night I lay awake, long after the light of day has settled beyond the horizon. The struggle that ensues is one all too familiar. It has been mine long before I possessed the words. It has been mine long before one should possess it, or rather before it should possess someone.  It never […]
  Jake Smith
• Before the Cut February 17, 2026
  The dream is back. I’m an Operating Room (OR) nurse again. The dreams always return when I get too close to the years I’ve sealed away. I’m in a different OR in every dream, but it’s the same sequences, the same rising tension. I’m always in ORs I don’t recognize but should. The patient is […]
  Mike Warnock
• You Sent Us to War Now Listen February 17, 2026
  My war has been over for nearly two decades. I took off the uniform, balled it up, and shoved it deep inside a musty green Army duffel bag. It now lives unceremoniously in my attic. I’m not sure why I saved my uniforms. I don’t have any children. I’ll never have an heir. There’s really […]
  Stan Lake