Civic Essays
What We Owe the Next Generation
There is a kind of conversation that has gone out of fashion in this country, and we are paying for its absence. It is the conversation older people used to [...]
The Havok Journal | Military & Veteran News, Commentary, Culture
- Want to Know the Morale of a Police Department? Ask the Cops October 8, 2026If someone asked me how to determine the morale of a police department, my first question would be simple. Who are you asking? If you are sitting down with the chief, deputy chief, captains, and members of the executive staff, you are going to learn something about the organization. You are going to hear about […]Sergeant Ayman Kafel, MSC
- Excerpt from Costa’s War October 8, 2026By Mark Rubinstein Editor’s Note: This excerpt from Mark Rubinstein’s Costa’s War follows a young soldier’s arrival in Vietnam in 1968 and the first moments of a war that will change him for life. Prologue I went to Vietnam thinking I understood danger—the way a man thinks he understands fire because he’s felt the heat […]Special Guest
- Your DD-214 Is Not a Doctorate October 8, 2026America used to have veterans. Now we have veteran brands. A man once came home from military service, found a job, raised a family, complained about his knees, and spent thirty years refusing to explain what happened overseas. Today he can come home, buy a podcast microphone, put an American flag behind it, grow facial […]Tammy Pondsmith
- A Million Zeroes Still Don’t Add Up to One October 7, 2026Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung once wrote something that should probably be posted in every headquarters, corporate boardroom, and executive office in America: “A million zeros joined together do not, unfortunately, add up to one.” Jung was writing about the individual and the dangers of mass organizations, not about military or business leadership specifically. But the […]Charles Faint
- The Only One Who Doesn’t Ask Why October 7, 2026By Nickolas Jacobs (N.C. Jacobs) There’s a specific kind of quiet that happens in a patrol car at three in the morning, after a call that didn’t go the way you wanted, when you’re not ready to go back to the station and you’re not ready to go home either. I’ve sat in that quiet […]Special Guest
