“Moral courage is not a complicated concept, really, for in it’s undistilled form it is merely the act of doing the right thing when it is much easier to do otherwise… The freedom that we enjoy today has been purchased with the blood and sacrifice of countless men and women who were simply doing the right thing, what they were supposed to do, when they needed to do it…For every person who has been recognized, there are countless others who have not, legions who performed extraordinary acts under fire with nobody surviving to witness them.”

Rick Whittle spins a fascinating yarn of science, politics, and intrigue as he tells the inside story of how the revolutionary V-22 rose Phoenix-like from the ashes to become a potential game-changer. The jury is still out on the “Dream Machine,” but in telling the tale of how the heli-plane survived setbacks that would have killed most over-budget defense programs, Whittle provides an enthralling window on how Washington, the Pentagon, and the Defense industry really work. Whittle’s easy writing style makes the brisk narrative appealing to the novice and aviation expert alike.

The lure of the so-called “Doomsday Plane” is like crack cocaine to magazine writers profiling Bob Gates… and its use as a metaphor is also apparently irresistible.

If you needed any clue to Gates’ propensity to jettison subpar performers regardless of prior success you need look no further than his tenure as President of Texas A&M University, where one of his first acts was to fire the winnings football coach in Aggie history. Gates would later joke privately that during his time at the CIA he’d overthrown governments of small countries with less blowback.

“You do not know what Christmas is, until you lose it in some foreign land.“
– Ernest Hemingway

Almost everyone agrees that allowing Osama bin Laden to escape Tora Bora in December of 2001, was one of the greatest military blunders in history. Except the belief that U.S. troops could have sealed off bin Laden’s escape route is by no means a safe bet.

Just when I thought I had made up my mind about the AP photograph of a dying Marine, an old issue of Life magazine started me thinking again.

It looks like the U.S. Army is taking page from the press relations manual used by Civil War Gen. George Meade, who banished an “embedded” reporter for libeling him with false statements “based on some idle camp rumor.” Once again history is instructive about the wisdom of trying to embed only friendly reporters.