My name is Joe.  I commissioned 13 May 2006 as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force (known to America's enemies as "the finest air force in the world").  I graduated cum laude from Texas Tech University in December 2005 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and a minor in Political Science.  I am an ROTC grad who, after starting off as a slacker, made good as an upperclassman and worked my way up to serving as cadet wing commander (the highest position an AFROTC cadet can hold, which has been coincidentally rendered 100% insignificant due to the fact that I'm in the real world now).  Now I'm waiting to report to Randolph AFB in June for the brief vacation known as "casual status" before beginning Undergraduate Navigator Training in October.  My goal is to fly aboard the B-52 (aka The BUFF), but I'll settle for anything that flies in combat (the rest of my choices being any one of several slow-moving, low-flying C-130 variants).

I was kind of a political guy in college but on this website you'll find no reference to my party affiliation, who I've worked for, who I've voted for or who I plan to vote for in the future.  I believe military officers have an obligation to limit partisan political discussions to their immediate circle of friends.  Suffice it to say it did my penance in the city of Satan as a Capitol Hill intern for the then-chairman of the House Agriculture Committee.  I will also concede to agreeing with Ayn Rand's statement that, "I can say -- not as a patriotic bromide, but with full knowledge of the necessary metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, political and esthetic roots -- that the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world."  (Okay, not the only one.  I'm a big fan the United Kingdom and most Commonwealth countries, as well as our NATO allies and just about anyone who subscribes to some version of Enlightenment liberalism.)

In keeping with that theme, I think it is incumbent upon every American (especially those who serve in uniform) to know our origins but understanding the history of classical liberal thought (exemplified by John Locke and Edmund Burke), the War for Independence, and our enduring charter, the Constitution.  On the book reviews page you can find recommend reading on all these topics.

I believe strongly in America's mission in the war against Jihadism (also known as the Global War on Terror).  Since 1979 from a broad cast of characters, and since the 1990s from Al-Qaeda specifically, we have been threatened by a movement that utterly rejects our notions of individual liberty, religious freedom, and cultural pluralism.  They confuse our open society with a morally decadent one, and feeling the pinch inexorable appeal of our liberty in their own lands, have declared war on American civilians numerous times in highly public forums.  I believe a moral nation, founded on individual rights, can never surrender to those who imposed a death warrant on author Salman Rushdie because of a novel he wrote, or those who murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh because of a documentary film he produced.  As such, winning the war in Iraq should be America's foremost national objective.  For a brief, well-written history of anti-western Jihadism, I highly recommend The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror by the respected Middle Eastern scholar Bernard Lewis.

In addition to the aforementioned, my interests generally include: Big XII Football, great leaders of the past (military, political, and athletic coaches), Christianity and its history, good movies, musical theater, and running.