Politics

West Point and the Third Loyalty

“The ideals of socialism are anathema to them even though, paradoxically, the West Pointer is entirely cared for by the state from his birth in an army hospital (if he is born into a military family) to taps at government expense in a federal bone yard.”

October 18, 1973 issue

The Spirit of ’76

“Patience is short, prices are high, traffic is congested; patriotic pride runs rampant. The Disney in us all has created a nationwide American Revolutionland and, at least within these borders, there is no place to hide.”

May 15, 1975 issue

The Volunteer Army: Who Fights and Why?

“Over and over, I heard soldiers talk about being hard-pressed to pay the rent, of having a child and being without health care, of yearning to escape a depressing town or oppressive family, of wanting to get out and see the world.”

April 3, 2008 issue

The Lost Democratic Army

From 1948 on, nearly every able-bodied young man in the United States served and lived side by side with Americans of all colors, all in strict alphabetical order, sleeping bunk to bunk in what amounted to brotherly endurance of the cold, heat, discomfort, and misery of military training.

July 16, 2012

In El Salvador

“Terror is the given of the place.”

November 4, 1982 issue

Sad New El Salvador

“San Salvador had never seemed eerier. The streets were completely deserted, the houses all shuttered and dark. As we sped past block after desolate block, the city looked as if it had been wrapped in a shroud and was awaiting burial.”

May 18, 1989 issue

In the New Gangland of El Salvador

“From corner to corner…that’s how I’ve been all over El Salvador.”

November 10, 2011 issue

El Salvador's Violence

In recent years, El Salvador’s record-high murder rate has earned it the dubious status as the most violent peacetime country in the world. Could the strategy of one peaceful town be replicated at a national level?

January 27, 2017