Who Do We Choose To Be?

The Origin of a Great Line

I am sitting in a dusty café in the middle of nowhere—Fort Irwin, where the Army trains soldiers in tank warfare. This is a stark, endless desert linking Nevada and California. We flew in by helicopter. I am having coffee with a colonel whose name I don’t remember, but whose comments I remember with the clarity of today, even though this was in 1993.

We have been up before dawn to travel to a high hill that offers a panoramic view of everything going on for more than fifty miles. It’s a vast and desolate landscape. But we’re focused on what’s going on below us, at the base of the hill where well-worn tracks weave in ...