There is a scene at the end of the film Apocalypse Now where Colonel Kurtz delivers a monologue on the ruthless tactics of the Viet Cong guerrillas. He relates how the Viet Cong had come and “hacked off” the arms of child villagers that the Americans had inoculated as part of an effort to win their hearts and minds.
I interview Ace Johnson, the co-founder of the knife manufacturing company Delta2Alpha, about his recent extended trip to Tasmania. Great experiences and adventure…with a 18 mile march to the airport thrown in for good measure.
Xenophon’s Anabasis is one of the primary classics of ancient Greek literature. For students of ancient Greek, it has served much the same function as has Caesar’s De Bello Gallico has for Latin; that is, it has been used as a foundational text in the study of the language.
I comment on an article written by a junior officer who doesn’t feel challenged by his job and is disillusioned with it. This is the article I’m referring to:
We’re Getting Out Of The Marines
I respond with some thoughts of my own.
In my Thirty-Seven, I wrote at length (Ch. 7, “A Program of Education”) on the educational views of the Renaissance humanist Paolo Vergerio. His ideas stressed the importance of character and discipline as the foundations and prerequisites for intellectual study; not to master one’s desires, he knew, was fatal to any meaningful progress in education.
Today we deal with two separate questions from two different readers:
1. How do I get rid of negativity in my life from people around me?
2. How can I get along best in a politically-correct environment?
I recently came across a remarkable story of endurance and survival. It hammers home the point–made repeatedly on this site–that when disaster strikes, one must dig in and use all available resources to fight on to final victory.
I recently wrote an article that featured some great adventure travel equipment tips from Robert Young Pelton, the hard-core author of The World’s Most Dangerous Places. As I was thumbing though my old copy of this classic (my edition is one of the first, and dates to the mid-1990s), I realized that there is some very useful travel wisdom here.
This podcast answers unrelated questions from two different readers:
1. What did I mean in a certain sentence from “Thirty-Seven”?
2. What guidance should a young guy get who isn’t sure he’s in the right career?
Here’s something for you to start (or end) your week with. I hope it speaks to you.
It resonates with me, and celebrates some of the themes of Fortress of the Mind.
Quintus Curtius 
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