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
- Accountability Is the VA’s Rarest Preexisting Condition August 6, 2026America has reached that invigorating stage of institutional failure when somebody suggests abolishing the Department of Veterans Affairs, because apparently the surest way to repair a hospital is to remove the hospital and introduce veterans to the warm humanitarian embrace of commercial insurance. The proposal has undeniable political appeal. Erase three letters, unveil a new […]Tammy Pondsmith
- Hard to Explain August 6, 2026By Benjamin Davis Where the Longs Peak Trail crosses the creek and turns right toward Battle Mountain, I stopped and let him catch up. I could no longer hear him, but I could see light coming from his headlamp, shining on the rocks and on the trees. He was thirty seconds back. Maybe a minute. […]Special Guest
- When You Don’t Have Answers August 6, 2026By Britta Reque-Dragicevic This first appeared in Britta’s blog, “Life After War” and is republished with the author’s permission. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to know where we are in life, to have answers, to see a clear path, and to walk on it. Society holds that expectation over us. If you’re […]Special Guest
- Curbside Gifts: A Pink Jeep and the Veteran Community August 5, 2026curbside gift: a physical object or an act of kindness that you give, often anonymously, without expecting anything in return I spent 27 years as an officer in the U.S. Army. Two of those years were spent in graduate school at Yale University, which ended up being one of the formative periods of my entire […]Charles Faint
- The Pentagon Is Taking Operator Syndrome Seriously August 5, 2026By Jennifer Byrne, OTD, and Kelli Cabrera, OTD, 5by5 Performance Therapy; Chris Frueh, PhD, University of Hawaii at Hilo; and Lyndsey Tuft, PhD, and Kayleigh Bealer, MS, A-G Associates Recently, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth signed a memo requiring testosterone screening for all active-duty and Reserve Component personnel age 30 and older as part of […]Special Guest
