''In the summer of 1968, a few months after the Tet Offensive shook America's confidence in the Vietnam War, my father deployed for his second combat tour. He left behind six children and his wife of 21 years. Over the following year, he commanded an infantry brigade in combat, earned his third and fourth Silver Stars for valor, and all but secured his promotion to brigadier general. It was a career-defining tour. But for my siblings and me, 9,000 miles away, it was also a year without a dad at home. My mother carried the family with extraordinary strength. But we missed out on things: Dad wasn't around to watch baseball or coach basketball. The familiar figure renovating the old house my parents had bought after his first tour in Vietnam simply wasn't there. Parts of my father's life did not go smoothly. He made mistakes'as humans do. And if you assessed him strictly on his 'dad duties,' you may have found him lacking. Yet when he died at 89 and our family buried him at Arlington National Cemetery, I knew I'd had the best father I could have asked for....

The governor of California has found himself in a hot swirl of events: Federal authorities are patrolling streets, ICE agents are raiding Home Depots, and protests (mostly though not entirely peaceful) are spreading across the state. President Donald Trump ordered the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles, very much against Newsom's wishes. He also endorsed the idea of Newsom being arrested. House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested as an alternative that Newsom be 'tarred and feathered.' And Senator Alex Padilla of California, whom Newsom appointed to his job in 2021, was forced to the floor and handcuffed by federal agents while trying to ask Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a question at a press conference. 'We are not going away,' Noem vowed in Los Angeles, referring to the federal officials she said had come to 'liberate this city from the socialist and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country.' He got on the phone with me yesterday to debrief on the turmoil of recent days. Newsom was in his office in Sacramento, preparing for any number of contingencies'including what he would do if the feds actually tried to throw him in jail. He told me that he'd initially shrugged off the chatter about his potential arrest. Tom Homan, Trump's bull-necked border czar, was the first person Newsom heard mention the prospect. 'That Homan, or Hoo-man, guy,' is how Newsom referred to him. 'Whatever his name is'the guy with the hat on Fox.'...