J.B. Watson, Jr., Ph.D.

For 100 years, they have stood watch, for names we will never know. In 1921, an unknown American soldier was laid to rest at Arlington, chosen to represent every service member lost without identification. At first, the tomb wasn’t guarded. Visitors came and went freely, sometimes treating it more like a destination than a sacred place. That changed on March 24, 1926. Concerned by the lack of respect, Army leadership ordered a permanent military guard. And for a century since, the soldiers of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment—The Old Guard—have carried that responsibility. Through rain and snow. Day and night. 365 days a year. Under strict conditions. They are precise, intentional, and unwavering. Because this isn’t just a tomb. It’s a promise: that those who gave everything, even without a name, will never be forgotten. Happy Birthday to the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment. Thank you for your dedication for the last 100 years.

This might in fact be the worst idea anyone has ever had in history

C.S. Lewis, the English contemporary of these men, described well the dynamic that many faced in these heady and awful years: “The devil always sends errors into the world in pairs—pairs of opposites. And he always encourages us to spend a lot of time thinking which is the worse. You see why, of course? He relies on your extra dislike of the one error to draw you gradually into the opposite one.”

"The Glorious Revolution & the U.S. Constitution affirmed legislative war powers, even as the American Revolution exposed lawmakers’ difficulties exercising them. Nonetheless, the Revolutionary era underscores the risks of waging war without legislative support. Burke attributed many British setbacks to insufficient parliamentary debate on military policy."