Check out my latest article.  A how-to guide for journalists covering the military — written for Northwestern University’s National Security Journalism Initiative.

Click HERE to read the article.

Following the death of Tim Hetherington, a longtime friend, by mortar shrapnel while covering the Libyan civil war, Sebastian Junger created an organization to train conflict journalists in combat first aid. A look at the author and filmmaker’s RISC program and the dangers faced by journalists in war zones.

As published in NEWSMAX magazine, April 2013.

Click HERE to read the article.

Does the threat of Iranian ICBMs mean we need an East Coast missile defense site?  A battle is brewing in Congress to decide the answer.

As published in NEWSMAX magazine, March 2013.

Click HERE to read the article.

“Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,                                                              And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’”

The final night before the climb, I was in the dining room of the lodge in Chukhung, eating a plate of Tibetan momos and enjoying an Everest beer.  While talking to a Canadian climber about Afghanistan, I heard an American voice call out across the room: “Holy shit, dude, were you in the U.S. military?”

Through the haze of burning yak dung fueling the stove in the middle of the room, I saw a young, bearded man.  He had on a black beanie and his short sleeves revealed arms covered in tattoos.  And there were scars beneath the ink.  I’d seen arms like those before on my brothers in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Before he said another word, I knew he was an American soldier, and I knew he was special ops.

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I stepped off the Russian jet that had just landed on a blue ice runway in the most remote, inhospitable place on earth.

As soon as I passed through the threshold of the aircraft door, the cold cut through my piled-on layers of down and fleece in a flash.

I felt it in my bones first.  It was a terrifying cold. In some primitive, reptilian part of my brain I knew that this was not discomfort, but this was death.  The body is not meant to thrive here.  It can only endure.

Four days ago I was baking in the heat of Baghdad, Iraq. In two days I would attempt to run a marathon across a glacier in the heart of Antarctica.  I had never run a marathon before.

Nolan, I thought, you’re in some seriously deep shit.

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A team of researchers on a college campus recently unveiled a technology that could allow terrorists to remotely hijack passenger jets.

In June researchers at the University of Texas successfully hijacked an unmanned drone aircraft – known in the military as a UAV– by “spoofing” its GPS data feed.  The reaction by the media and government to the demonstration focused on security concerns related to the FAA’s plan to safely integrate drone aircraft in domestic airspace.  But there is a much bigger story here, and no one is talking about it: GPS spoofing could potentially allow terrorists to hijack control of commercial jetliners without ever stepping into the cockpit.

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October 29, 2011/Island Peak, 20,000 feet

The summit ridge of Island Peak –with P.K. Sherpa in the foreground.

I kicked my crampon into the ice wall.  Shards of ice splintered off from the impact. I turned to watch them tumble down the length of the 40-story ice face I was attached to. I swung the ice axe in my right hand towards the face of the cliff. The low-pitched thud of the impact signaled to me that the point had firmly lodged in the ice, giving me enough traction to trust it with my weight.  My heart was beating at its maximum. I hadn’t been able to catch my breath for more than an hour.  My guide and I were on the last, most difficult portion of the climb to the summit of Island Peak.  And I didn’t think I could go any farther.

***

 We left base camp at two that morning.  P.K. Sherpa was my guide.  A Sherpa climber who grew up in the Everest region of Nepal, P.K. has climbed Mt. Everest six times.  His strength at altitude and steely nerve on the high exposure were an inspiration to a novice like me. He seemed to flow up the most complicated and difficult sections of rock and ice like water flows down a stream.

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