Photo courtesy of Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper and Phyllis participating with everyone in painful remembering on this day set aside just for that purpose with special ceremonies, followed by picnics in the parks, brats and beer, and baseball games. The keeper, as usual, remembers the two Michigan …
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Category:War
The Pen in Hand Guide to the Movies: Going Above and Beyond
In Honor of Memorial Day, 2026 The Ten Best War Movies Attribution: Capt. Saska Ball, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (Originally published in June, 2019) By Geoff Carter “…that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly …
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Dialogues on Strait Talk: “You Shall Not Pass!”
Attribution: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Featuring the Fabulous Dadbots: Dave S., Mark M., Mark O., Dennis C., John K., Michael D., and Geoff Carter David Sanger (NYT) asks the right question;’: “President Trump’s decision to blockade all Iranian shipments out of or into the Strait of Hormuz …
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Dialogues on Life During Wartime: The Price of Opportunity Costs
Attribution: Petty Officer 2nd Class Jordan Jennings, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Featuring the Fabulous Dadbots: Mark M., Dave S., Mark O., Dennis C., John K., Michael D., and Geoff Carter Bots, Allow me to interrupt your nonstop chanting of “USA! USA! USA!” for a few brief moments, with this unfortunate note of warning. Commandante …
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Kickass and War Experience
Attribution: Photo by Navy Medicine on Unsplash By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper ever anxious to recognize some benefit of war, particularly the one he participated in, wonders if his Korean duty, which was about taking the kinks out of the 38th parallel, might have some application with just how to get out of the …
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War Games
Attribution: Photo by Saifee Art on Unsplash By Geoff Carter One of the most popular films of 1983 was WarGames, in which our hero David Lightman, a teenaged hacker, runs across what he believes is a very sophisticated online computer war game, hacks into it, and initiates the “Geothermal Nuclear War” program. Unfortunately, the hacked device turns out …
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Kickass and Trevor’s Eighth Birthday
Attribution: Photo by Bill Stokes By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper and Phyllis heading out to Mazo for the 8th birthday party for Trevor one of the keeper’s great grandchildren, at which the keeper will bore Trevor and others by pointing out that he is old enough to have had eleven and …
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Kickass and School Shootings
Illustration by Michael DiMilo By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, works with the keeper to point out that the US’s global leadership in school shootings has been taken over by MAGA and the warrior POTUS with the remote style military “school shooting” in Iran, where at least 168 third grade girls were slaughtered along …
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Operation Epic Quid Pro Quo
Attribution: White House, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Geoff Carter On a Sunday morning eighty-five years ago, December 7th, 1941, our nation awoke to the news that the U.S. was at war. Last Sunday, we awoke to learn that we were at war once again, and that this time we were the aggressors. The …
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Kickass and Korean Letters
Attribution: Signal Corps Archive, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, looks over the keeper’s shoulder as he sorts through a packet of “Bill’s letters from Korea” as it was labeled by the keeper’s dear mother who worried and “prayed” him home from a year of combat with an Infantry …
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Kickass and the War Morning
Attribution: Fars Media Corporation, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Bill Stokes Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports the keeper reassessing his self-assigned responsibility to make a daily comment on whatever registers on his erratic flight plan, sometimes as a diversion from an impossible truth and other times to call attention to yet another absurdity or …
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The World at Risk
Atttribution: Photo by Dave Photoz on Unsplash By Geoff Carter When we were kids growing up in the 1970s, we had no gaming consoles, smartphones, or laptops. No Fortnite, no Minecraft, no Call of Duty and no Grand Theft Auto. We didn’t even have DVDs or videos. What did we do on rainy days? We had broadcast TV or the radio, but …
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