HAYS, Kan. - After leading the Allied victory in World War II, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower was asked to speak in Canada's capitol city of Ottawa. He said, "I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense," he emphasized later, speaking to a gathering of the American Society of Newspaper Editors on April 16th, 1953.

In preparing to leave the White House in January 1961, President Eisenhower made these remarks in his farewell speech ...

HAYS, Kan. - Those of you who have followed the stories I've written at EverydayCitizen.com (such as this one) regarding Mabel Rawlinson may remember that finally last summer President Obama signed a bill authorizing the U.S. Congress to award her with a Congressional Gold Medal.

In World War II, over 1,100 women, called the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), were trained to fly for the Air Force. All 1,100 of the WASP will be honorees at the ceremony this week in Washington DC.

Of course, Mabel won't be there. I will go in her place. Mabel died in 1943 in the cockpit of her Air Force bomber. Only 38 of these brave women died in service to the country. My mother's sister, Mabel Rawlinson, was one of those 38 fallen heroes.

Wednesday morning, my heart will be heavy as I enter the United States Capitol building.

BASEHOR, Kan. - It's 23:00 hours. Do you know where your American officers are?

We had our farewell dinner with our Indian officer and his family last night. Wednesday morning they're off on their way, back to India. One of the main topics of our dinner was the similarity among people everywhere in the world. The same problems, concerns, annoyances, and daily trials that unite us all as human beings. But a troubling issue we discussed in our meal was this, according to the officer we sponsored: out of the 47 foreign officers in a cohort of 61 for this rotation, all 47 foreign officers joined in to create a Facebook page to commemorate their joint experience. Of the 14 American officers in the cohort, only two joined in the effort. Two.

GRAND TURK, Turks And Caicos Islands - The participants on the 12th Annual Nation Cruise engaged in lively debate on the issue of foreign policy at the second panel seminar on Monday afternoon.

Katrina vanden Heuvel, Robert Scheer, Steven Cohen, William Greider, Howard Dean Members of the panel included: Robert Scheer, a 30-year veteran journalist, Nation columnist and editor of Truthdig.com; Steven Cohen, retired head of the Russian Department at Princeton University; Willian Greider, journalist, Nation columnist, and author of numerous books including The Soul of Capitalism (2003) and Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country (2009); and Howard Dean, former chair of the Democratic National Committee, presidential candidate and six-term Governor of Vermont.

The stage of the MS Eurodam's performance theatre provided the backdrop as Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, set the tone for the panel discussion by saying that "the cost of war can undermine change." While this was a major theme of the Obama campaign, vanden Huevel also reminded the audience that while Obama ran as an anti-Iraq War candidate, he did not run as an anti-war candidate and that is a notable difference.

BASEHOR, Kan. - The United States Army's Command and General Staff College (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth is the premier military command staff training school in the world. In addition to training U.S. officers to assume command staff positons, it invites more than 100 foreign military officers to be part of each year's class. And because those foreign officers and their families are away from their home country for the 11-month program, the Army and People to People International have jointly put together a sponsorship program that helps the foreign families feel at home here in the Leavenworth area. My wife and I have had the privilege of being sponsors in the program for the first time during this past year.