If you are strange like me, and dealing with today’s pandemic-saddled world by devouring novels, television shows, and movies about the apocalypse, pandemics, and post-apocalyptic existence, then you have probably come across these five novels. All five describe either the threat of human extinction — and the struggle to prevent it — or an Earth […]
About Frumentarius
10 worthwhile take-aways from the Year of COVID
LifestyleWe are a year-plus into the COVID-19 pandemic here in the United States, and — knock on wood — the worst seems to have finally passed us by. Yes, I know that we are not yet completely out of the woods, nor is the disease done adding to its grim toll. I also know that […]
Two former Navy SEALs’ plan to map the ocean floor
TechAccording to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), less than ten percent of the global ocean floor is mapped using modern sonar technology. If we put that into dry-land terms, for those of us who inhabit the (small) portion of the Earth that sits above the great seas, it would be as if […]
Navy SEAL community loses another legend: Bob ‘The Eagle’ Gallagher
Military AffairsIn March of 1968, SEAL Team TWO Detachment Alpha had been operating in the area of My Tho, in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, since the previous year. The commander of 7th platoon, Pete Peterson, along with assistant platoon commander Ron Yeaw, led SEAL operations out of My Tho, targeting Viet Cong forces in the […]
‘The Line’ podcast dives deeper than usual on Navy SEALs
LifestyleNavy SEAL fatigue is a real thing. I am not talking about the physiological effects of the grueling training, nor about the fatigue imposed on the individual SEAL’s body while engaged in a combat scenario. No, this particular fatigue has set in like a dense fog over the popular culture. Everywhere you look these days, […]
Build something awesome: Self-fulfillment in the modern age
LifestyleI met up with some family down in Savannah, Georgia recently to celebrate St Patrick’s Day in a low-key family affair on Tybee Island, just east of the city. According to family lore, and testified to by the name of the main street running through the town of Tybee, my three-times-Great Grandfather was one of […]
Should USSOCOM be its own military branch? A Navy SEAL weighs in
Military AffairsAn intriguing op-ed appeared in Military Times on March 7th, 2021, and it deserves a wide distribution given that it addresses a question that this author frankly did not know was percolating out there in the “SOFosphere.” It would have tremendous implications on U.S. Special Operations Forces (USSOF) if the question it addresses were answered […]
Drones will compete with crewed aircraft for AFSOC Armed Overwatch Program
Military AffairsI know what you are thinking as you read the title of this article: “Oh boy, a former ground and sea-based naval commando is about to write about Air Force Special Operations programs.” Go ahead and key up a big eye roll, if you must. However, since this program exists to support ground-based U.S. Special […]
That time a former Navy SEAL rescued Lassie’s buddy from a hole in the ice
LifestyleAs I shoveled snow the other day in the -2 degree arctic blast hitting a lot of the country right now, this weather got me thinking about the time I was part of an ice rescue involving a dog. Here in southwest Missouri, we don’t get a lot of iced-over waterways. It might happen once […]
‘Greyhound’ is a masterful tale of war at sea in the North Atlantic of WWII
LifestyleI served in the U.S. Navy, but never in the “regular” Navy. I was part of a very small community within the Navy that performed decidedly non-“big Navy” operations. I did do some time on a handful of big Navy ships, but never enough time to become a shellback (one who has crossed the equator, […]
