The Big Voice

  • The Front Line of the Front Line: EOD Techs – Remembering Staff Sgt Nicholas Sprovstoff

    Nick Sprovstoff didn’t have the usual pre-graduation insecurities that a lot of high school seniors deal with. He knew exactly where he was headed after high school and had it all planned out. Straight from mortarboard to Marine boot camp, young Sprovstoff didn’t waste any time joining up to serve his country, something his parents …

  • The Wolverines are Alive and Well

    On 07 April, 2022, Oleg Tolmachev drove out of Ukraine’s capitol city of Kyiv along a main highway to the east and past 15 miles of burned out IFVs (infantry fighting vehicles) and tanks. In the shocking carnage, one vehicle stood out, emblazoned with white, spray painted letters: “WOLVERINES.” Tolmachev captured what would become one …

  • In Flanders Fields

    BY JOHN MCCRAE  In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved and now …

  • Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot…

    As families across the nations trundle into airports and minivans to make their annual pilgrimage home, I found myself boarding a plane eastbound to Washington DC with my two youngest girls this December, to visit my family and make the obligatory rounds in the District of Columbia.  On our first night in The Capitol, we …