Peace through strength
Mingling with the masters of the military-industrial complex.
Paul Szoldra
Dec 8
HOBNOBBING WITH THE NATIONAL SECURITY ELITE at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California. I find myself drinking a beer next to the Director of the National Security Agency and constantly saying excuse me after bumping into defense contractors.
I spot Senator Lindsey Graham and text my wife that he’s two feet away. Strangely, an alert hits my phone from Google Photos, reminding me where I was exactly 18 years earlier: loading up the Humvee before another patrol in Afghanistan. In the frame, Doc P. and G. are hunkered down in the back of a thin-skinned truck before we head outside the wire into the mountain snow.
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I take a selfie. Now out of camouflage and unblemished by the windblown dust of Khost Province, I’m wearing a suit jacket and tie as I mingle with the masters of the military-industrial complex.
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