Author: Michael

In 2023, the VA’s Veteran Population Projection (VetPop) Model counted 95,000. It estimated just 31,000 in 2026. And here we are. At last count (in 2025) the United States had only 45,418 World War II veterans still alive, a loss of just under half in three years. It’s a stark reminder that one day there will be no one left of the 16.4 million who served during World War II.

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Ukraine has made Russia’s rear a battlefield, and it is doing it at a scale Russia can no longer brush aside.

It has not found a clean path to victory.

Storm Shadow Missile. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Washington is prone to this kind of mistake. It sees a successful strike campaign and starts imagining a cheaper war, one in which Ukrainian ingenuity and Western technology can compensate for the grim business at the front. Ukraine’s drones and missiles can make Russia pay more for the war. They cannot, by themselves, make Russian troops leave Donetsk.

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Earl Shaffer never wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail alone.
He always saw the adventure as a tag-team effort with Walter Winemiller. The two men formed an inseparable bond while growing up in Pennsylvania and went off to serve their country during World War II.
Also Read: Mike Vining on Vietnam, Delta Force, and the sardines he never ateWinemiller died at Iwo Jima in February 1945, leaving Shaffer adrift without his best friend. His death understandably affected Shaffer deeply, as did what else he saw overseas while serving in the United States Army Signal Corps for 4½ years.

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