Ever since Christmas I’ve been playing with army men. On a whim, one of my daughters gave me a bag of them, and they are positioned all over my office. There is one duct-taped to the dash of my delivery truck too. Although they represent the ugly facts of war or protecting peace, I love my little green men. Yes, I am a grown man with green men. You gotta a problem with that? Actually I wondered if this fetish is problematic for this civilian who has always maintained his civility.

Maybe I am reverting back to my boyish ways. My older brother let me tag along to a backyard battlefield meticulously staged with army men, tanks, pill boxes, bridges, camouflage, foxholes, and little jeeps on top of mounds. Colonels stood calling in air strikes on fixed coordinates as they gripped their binoculars with one hand. What took probably hours…