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

• D-Day 2026 and the Patriotic Screensaver Industrial Complex June 6, 2026
  Today America will pause for the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, which means we’ll spend eight minutes pretending to understand sacrifice before returning to our sacred national hobbies of arguing with strangers, buying tactical cup holders, and treating history like a discontinued cable package. D-Day was June 6, 1944, when Allied forces landed on Normandy and […]
  Tammy Pondsmith
• One for the Airborne Ranger in the Sky June 6, 2026
  The name was once conceptual. It was a name from a list, one all but forgotten, from a time beyond anyone’s living memory. The name is beyond anyone’s emotional response and firsthand experience. Choosing a name of recent memory often brought a barrage of harassment. The pain of a name such as those expressed in […]
  Jake Smith
• Practice Goes Before Belief June 5, 2026
  “Fake it till you make it.” Most of us have heard the phrase, and most of us have probably lived it in one way or another. But there’s a deeper truth behind that cliché: belief doesn’t always come first. Often, it follows. Practice goes before belief. In the military, this principle is a way of […]
  Charles Faint
• The Private at the Bottom of the Peer List June 5, 2026
  By James B. When my platoon formed up for Darby Phase, I felt out of place from the start. No one wears rank in Ranger School, but you can read the room. It was clear officers comprised the majority of my platoon: first and second lieutenants, a lot of them straight out of IBOLC, with […]
  Special Guest
• Snow Showers on a Sunny Day June 5, 2026
  By Ryan Mimna I look out my window at a curious sight. As sunshine sits still in a haze, dancing in the wind, snowflakes on a sunny day. In the twilight’s gaze, peerless to the blue sky, the snow moved its own way. Won’t you believe me? I saw snow on a sunny day. Haven’t […]
  Special Guest