Articles by Dave Patterson

When President Donald Trump activated the California National Guard to put down riots in Los Angeles in 2025, many in the media called it unprecedented. It was not. Only four years after all the states ratified the US Constitution in… Read More

On June 14, President Donald Trump commemorated the birth of the US Army, whose 250th birthday was celebrated with a grand parade in Washington, DC. In a prelude to the event, Trump spoke at Fort Bragg, inspiring young fighting men… Read More

Since the beginning of America, there has been a need for the citizen-soldier. More than three and a half centuries ago, the Massachusetts Bay Colony organized and trained what would become the National Guard. On Dec. 13, 1636, the colonists… Read More

The National Security Council (NSC) has been in the news lately. The NSC always figures prominently whenever a national security crisis or issue rises because it is authorized to establish an all-of-government response. National Security Gets a New Organization The… Read More

The calendar announced the year was 1950. World War II was in the rearview mirror. The United Nations was established to avoid another global conflict, and Americans were weary of fighting in foreign countries and were settling in for what… Read More

In today’s accounts of the tensions between the US and China, we often hear the following description: “It’s a new Cold War.” Ok, so what was the “old Cold War”? The end of World War II set the stage for… Read More

The US Coast Guard has served the country throughout its history, tracing its origin to “4 August 1790, when the first Congress authorized the construction of ten vessels to enforce tariff and trade laws and to prevent smuggling.” Consequently, with… Read More

The glory days of fighter aircraft dogfights are not gone — just different. On March 21, President Donald Trump announced from the Oval Office that the US Air Force had selected a winner in the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD)… Read More

Throughout human history, the end of one war has usually proven to be the makings of the next. So it was with “The Great War,” World War I. The peace negotiations held in Paris between January and June 1919 transformed… Read More

By its founding nature and culture, America has been reluctant to engage in foreign wars. However, in the early 1900s, things happened in Europe that eventually drew almost the entire world into war. The history of the US military in… Read More

“Space, the final frontier,” said William Shatner as Captain James Tiberius Kirk in the intro to every episode of the 1960s television show Star Trek. Kirk and his crew were military members of Starfleet whose mission was, among other things,… Read More

President Donald Trump is rapidly carrying out deportations of illegal alien criminals. He used military aircraft, most notably the C-17 Globemaster III cargo aircraft, to do that. However, the use of the large US Air Force airlifter has drawn criticism… Read More