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

• God Told Me I Wouldn’t Die September 1, 2026
  Colonel Keith Gentile is a tough guy. A former U-2 pilot, TACP ground controller, and combat veteran of Iraq as a commander of MNF-I, he was known by his nickname, “Spike.” He had retired from the Air Force and was working for a high-tech defense contractor. And in the middle of a big death by […]
  Stephen B. Lewis
• A Big Two-Hearted River Day September 1, 2026
  He walked along the road feeling the ache from the pull of the heavy pack. The road climbed steadily. It was hard work walking uphill. His muscles ached and the day was hot, but Nick felt happy. He felt he had left everything behind, the need for thinking, the need to write, other needs. It […]
  Tab Taber
• The IRS Knows the Answer and Would Like to See Your Work September 1, 2026
  Every spring, America celebrates its strangest civic holiday: millions of adults gather around laptops, locate documents the government mostly already receives, answer questions written in the emotional register of a hostage negotiation, and hope they have correctly guessed how much money Washington wants. This is called “filing your taxes,” because “annual federally supervised scavenger hunt […]
  Tammy Pondsmith
• There Are No Dangerous Weapons, Only Dangerous Men August 31, 2026
  “There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men.”— Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers (1959) Spend enough time around soldiers, police officers, hunters, or responsible gun owners and you will eventually hear some version of that quote. Spend enough time in the aftermath of a tragedy and you will hear the opposite: that the […]
  Charles Faint
• The War That Won’t Wait for Us August 31, 2026
  By Carlin McKeahow Picture a command post at two in the morning. The coffee has been sitting on the burner too long. Somebody has half a sandwich beside a keyboard, and nobody remembers whose it is. On a large screen, a cluster of enemy drones appears at the edge of defended airspace. The operators know […]
  Special Guest