Last fall, I was enjoying a quiet hike in a mountain forest in northern Lebanon. As I crested a particularly troublesome hill, I was expecting a lovely vista as my reward. Instead, I was greeted by a ruby-red sign leaning miserably, it seemed, against a thorny bush....
Stepping off the plane wearing shorts and a t-shirt in early 2020, Ratu Osea Melibua was struck by how cold New Mexico’s desert was compared to his home in the Republic of Fiji. Melibua journeyed over 6,200 miles from Rukua Village on Beqa Island, where he grew up...
August 4, 2020 – a date that is forever seared in the hearts of many Lebanese. Given all that's happened to our world since—pandemic lockdowns, social upheavals, and contentious elections—it's easy, somewhat understandable, to forget what happened back then, or to...
On December 16, 2020, Spirit of America supported a Returning Warriors Induction Ceremony at a newly inaugurated American Legion post in Majuro, Republic of the Marshall Islands. The event was held in collaboration with US Embassy Majuro, the Government of the...
Greetings, On August 27, roughly three weeks after the massive explosion that rocked Beirut — killing over 200, displacing hundreds of thousands, and causing billions in damage — I landed in Lebanon. I had one goal: find the right group of people to team up with to...
In an era of ubiquitous communications, social media, and by-the-minute news cycle, it was not long after the blast that my phone went off, streams of texts cascading across my screen. Something was off. “Zack, did you hear about the explosion in Beirut?” a friend...
Greetings, I thought you’d be interested in “Private Donations and National Defense” featuring Spirit of America. The author, Karl Zinsmeister, calls Spirit of America “an unusual and highly effective charity [that] has become a favorite partner of our Special Forces...
Though territorial ISIS, also known as the Islamic State, has been vanquished, the terrorist organization still maintains a significant number of fighters and supporters and has—predictably—reconstituted itself as an insurgency group capable of carrying out...
Greetings, As a multiple-tour Iraq War veteran, I distinctly remember the hardships civilians caught in a conflict endure. In Helmand province, Afghanistan, Afghan security forces and US special operations forces are engaged in some of the toughest battles in recent...
