You know, I never cease to be amazed at the things I find on blogs. I’ve been sitting on this link since New Year’s Day, but I still can’t get this amazing story about one of the greatest Americans you’ve probably never heard of, Colonel John Boyd, out of my head. He was a freakin’ modern day Sun Tzu and our nation owes him a debt of gratitude for his steadfastness in refusing to succumb to the Pentagon bureaucracy.

This is not a blog post, it is an extremely well-written essay and if you have any interest in history or military doctrine I promise you will find it well worth your time. Hell, I’ve given you two links already, what are you doing here?

Excerpting won’t do it justice, so go give it a read.

Ok, here’s a teaser to get you started:

This is a story about success and failure. It is a story about Iraq, and of something much bigger than Iraq. It is, perhaps, a small look into what makes victory, and defeat. It is a tale of infantrymen, of brave soldiers in dusty alleys a world away. It is a story of generals and strategies, too.

But to understand our newfound success there, to know a little of how we achieved it and most importantly, how to keep it, we need to move away from that Mesopotamian desert and those boots on the ground, and back to a different desert on the other side of the world a half century ago. For there, a vision was vouchsafed to a most unlikely warrior priest… the kind of insight that comes once or twice in all of human history.

Go ahead, I’ll be here when you get back and we can talk about it in the comments section.

Thanks to Proteus at Eject! Eject! Eject!

But all the tears in the world aren’t going to bring me back, so I would prefer that people remember the good things about me rather than mourning my loss. (If it turns out a specific number of tears will, in fact, bring me back to life, then by all means, break out the onions.) I had a pretty good life, as I noted above. Sure, all things being equal I would have preferred to have more time, but I have no business complaining with all the good fortune I’ve enjoyed in my life. So if you’re up for that, put on a little 80s music (preferably vintage 1980-1984), grab a Coke and have a drink with me. If you have it, throw ‘Freedom Isn’t Free’ from the Team America soundtrack in; if you can’t laugh at that song, I think you need to lighten up a little. I’m dead, but if you’re reading this, you’re not, so take a moment to enjoy that happy fact.

Andrew Olmsted, Soldier, husband, blogger, American. Killed this week in Iraq. The words he left us with are incredibly moving and thought provoking. Please honor him by reading his final post.

Andy, congratulations on a life well-lived.

“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

–attributed to Plato