This letter arrived this morning. I am running it with the author's permission:

My name is Major Charles V. Slider III and I am currently stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. I am an African-American armor officer, proud father, and husband and graduate of Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. I was selected for the recently convened Officer Separation Boards for the Department of the Army for a mistake over eight years ago. The mistake was a DUI in which I received a General Officer Memorandum for Record in 2006. Since this incident, I strived for excellence in every job that I performed.

Best Defense is in summer re-runs. This item originally ran on March 10, 2014.

There is a wonderful portfolio of photographs by Chase Steely in the first edition of the new magazine, the Pass in Review. He is a soldier who just decided to take photographs while deployed to Afghanistan, and he clearly has an eye for it. One limitation of his work, he told the magazine, was that, "I didn't get many action pictures because when stuff was going down I was either on the radio or shooting so I wasn't taking photos."

Tom's note: I sent a Navy IG report on the Naval War College to Professor Joan Johnson-Freese and asked her to review it.

By Joan Johnson-Freese

Best Defense is in summer re-runs. This item originally ran on December 18, 2013.

I've been reading the blog "War on the Rocks" with interest, and so am pleased to be able to recommend their year-end reading list. But I still don't understand the blog's name. Does it refer to running aground or drinking whiskey? Or to something else?

Best Defense is in summer re-runs. This item originally ran on December 9, 2013.

Here is a piece I had in the Washington Post on December 6: