Post Archive


Here you can find every post from Jack's Journal, even the ones I've hidden! 

An armed escort was waiting the bottom of the steps. They weren’t there for me. I wasn’t in the military anymore, so I joined the line of people making their way from the plane to passport control. The colonels and non-commissioned officers that shared my flight sped to the coalition airbase on the opposite side of the runway. They had a war to fight behind concrete walls an

On a visit to a region plagued by war, a former military officer seeks out a different side to Iraqi Kurdistan that dispels the stereotypes common across America, finding a place paved with peace, from Christian monasteries to pristine waterfalls.

Exhausted yet captivated, Jack reflects on a month racing across Turkey—its cities, religions, and history shaping every step of the journey.

Covering Elazig, Harput, Kayseri, and Konya, I catch up on Turkey’s mix of Ottoman, Seljuk, and modern heritage across four new cities.

Traveling from Spain to Turkey, Jack dives into Turkey’s rich history, shares hostel conversations, navigates passport checks, and rediscovers his love for Turkish food.

Therein lies the element of faith. Did Jesus really feed 5,000 people with just five loaves and two fish? Did John really preach and die in Ephesus? Is Christianity truly superior to Hellenism? The truth is, we don’t really know and likely never will. Archaeology and history are soft sciences, and without a time machine, we can only make an assessment of what actually happened. But I answered those questions with some of my own.

Prisoners from the front were moved to the Risiera, interrogated, and transported elsewhere for their wartime internment. Not all of them made it, however, as prisoners who died under torture or who were deemed undesirable to Nazi authorities were cremated on site. When the Allies invaded Italy, the Nazis retreated, destroying the crematorium and other parts of the Risiera in the process. Like the death camps, there could be no evidence of their crimes for Allies to find.