Earlier this month, Fort Benning, the military’s training base in Georgia, was renamed Fort Moore, after Lt. General Hal Moore who served as commanding officer of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in the first and perhaps, fiercest battle in the Ia Drang Valley in Vietnam. Surrounded by a massive force of the People’s Army of Vietnam,...

Along with Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa,” Michelangelo’s marble statue of “David,” is one of the two most recognizable and revered works in the art world. Both works of classical Renaissance art have been reproduced on everything from umbrellas to coffee mugs. But you probably won’t find a gift shop selling either of those iconic images anywhere near the Tallahassee Classical...

At the end of the month, 30 teams will step out of the dugout to begin another season of Major League Baseball. Thirty rookies are among them. Seventy-six years ago, a rookie stepped out of the dugout and into history. His name was Jack Roosevelt Robinson. In a conversation for my book, What Do You Stand For? documentarian Ken Burns...

Think about this. Because of Putin’s war against Ukraine, millions of Ukrainian men, women, and children are enduring the harshest conditions imaginable: nightly bombing; an absence of light, heat and water. Ukraine’s health system cannot keep up with the sick and injured. Schools have closed in much of the country. Despite help from European and Western allies, life in Ukraine...

Since this is a two-parter, I’m going to start with a little background. The Supreme Court is expected to have a higher standard than the other two branches of government. We rely on the accumulated legal wisdom of 9 justices—not their political persuasions—to make decisions that affect the entire country. Great idea, yes? Of course. But since all men are...

America is paralyzed by mistrust and extremism. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Intelligence Project” has identified 488 anti-government groups around the country that flourish exploiting lies and false conspiracies. “In 2021,” the project reports, “the conspiratorial and permanently dubious view of government was pervasive, as evidence by the movement’s popularity on such issues as COVID-19 regulations, local school curriculum, the...

In honor of Memorial Day, last Friday I began by describing the longest battle American forces faced in the the Hürtgen Forest during World War II. I wrote how my father, Private James Lichtman, survived an 88mm German canon attack, and a minefield as he crawled to an aid station to receive medical attention for his frozen feet. This is...

In chronicling one of the bloodiest battles of World War II, historian Charles Whiting writes, “Thirty thousand American G.I.’s were killed or wounded in the longest battle ever fought by the US Army—a battle that has been ignored for more than fifty years, a battle that should never have been fought.” My father, Private James Lichtman, was one of the...

“Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York.” —Richard III, Act I, sc. 1 In March 1954, Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson spoke to a crowd of supporters about the poison that had infected much of the American public by a demagogic United States Senator. “We are witnessing the bitter harvest from the...

Character is a word that’s rarely used today; rarer still is finding leaders who demonstrate character. But there are a few. Republicans Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, against their party’s wishes, chose to participate in an investigation into the causes of the January 6, 2020 insurrection. It takes character and courage to choose principle over politics. Where would we be...