I have tattoos. Like most vets, my ink represents my time in service. Like most former paratroopers, my stuff is mainly Airborne related (shocking, Continue Reading
Nick Perna
Tactical Regret
“A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once”. William Shakespeare I’ve had a lot of interesting jobs in Continue Reading
The End of the Conversation: What Soldiers Talk About
It's been said about combat that it consists mainly of boredom occasionally punctuated by moments of terror. But, mostly, there's lots of boredom. Continue Reading
The Ranger Road Project
Originally published in American Shooting Journal At first glance, Mikhail Venikov looks like he could be an extra Cobra Kai bad guy in a “Karate Continue Reading
“We the People of the United States…”
Way back in the 1970s when I was a kid a record came out entitled, “Free To Be, You and Me.” It had such hit songs as, “It's All Right to Cry” and Continue Reading
The Most Important Lesson I Learned from My First Sergeant
First Sergeants are the linchpin of the military community. They maintain tradition and continuity in a world where platoon leaders, company Continue Reading
“Not Quite One Weekend a Month”: Disaster Relief with the National Guard
In the summer of 1992, I was a college student on the “four and a half year” plan at a college in North Florida. I was in Army ROTC, waiting to get Continue Reading
COVID-19: My Chemical Romance
This first appeared in The Havok Journal on March 27, 2020. Perspective, it's how we look at something now can be light years away from how it Continue Reading
Why Special Operations Leaders are Bad Role Models
If you go to Amazon (or any book store) you’ll find no shortage of books written by former special operations supervisors on the topic of leadership. Continue Reading
A Cop’s Perspective: Classifying Veterans as Psychopaths (Guilt by Association)
In 2006 I was attending a Field Training Officer Class. Field Training Officers, or FTOs, train new police officers after they leave the academy on Continue Reading
Search Warrants: The Fruit of the Poisonous Tree
There has been much said, written, and posted recently about the Nunes letter that made allegations regarding the veracity and integrity of the FISA Continue Reading
82nd Airborne: Life in a New Sparta
There has been a resurgence of interest in the last five years or so over the warrior culture of Sparta. The Spartans are admired by the military, law Continue Reading
