A Couple of Remarkable Discussions

First:

Back in August I wrote about the difficulty, for instinctually gifted warriors, of transitioning to a normal peacetime life. Using an example from work I’ve done in the archives, I wrote about Lt. Col. Donald Downard, a leader of extraordinary strength and courage during World War II who struggled through many years of serious personal darkness after the war. Downard left behind a trail of broken marriages and abandoned children, a fact I discussed briefly. So then I opened my email, one morning, and saw a Substack notification about a comment posted by…

Donald Downard.

Who turned out to be one of Lt. Col. Downard’s sons. Another comment followed soon after from Lanny West, “birth name Boyd Anthony Downard.” Their comments are extraordinary, and speak for themselves. You can find them in the comment thread here:

Rough Men, Strange Peace

Or go directly to Downard’s comment here, and to West’s comment here. I’m grateful to both for sharing these thoughts, which explore the burden of growing up as the sons of a troubled father, and describe their journey to peace. Well worth reading.

Second:

I’ve done really poorly at mentioning media appearances elsewhere, and will do better in the future. Toward that end, I just had a great discussion with David Gornoski on his radio show “A Neighbor’s Choice.” We started with a discussion of people who are experiencing psychological despair over the loss of mandatory Covid measures, and went from there. You can find that discussion here, or find it on Rumble here.