About Dr Waller & his work
by J Michael Waller / Serviam / February 2, 2009. Out-of-control wildfires out West show the severe limits on government’s ability to protect society from one of nature’s weapons of mass destruction. Federal and state officials waited for more than a half-million acres to burn last June and July before calling the National Guard for … Read more
by J Michael Waller, Serviam, January 2, 2009. Privately owned warships are so deeply at the heart of American maritime tradition that a reference to them is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. With their own contract crews who rushed to the fight for independence during the American Revolution and in defense of the nation during … Read more
by J Michael Waller / Serviam / January 2, 2009. First Sergeant Roland Williston lay on a gurney in the 100-degree Virginia heat, with gangrene consuming the amputated stumps of his shattered left hand and leg. The 26-year-old barber from Holyoke, Mass., had been among the first volunteers to answer President Abraham Lincoln’s call to save the … Read more
by J Michael Waller / Serviam / December 30, 2008. After a successful if rather uneventful career as a U.S. Army artillery officer, Capt. Robert Parker Parrott went into the private sector. That’s where his real contribution to American national defense began. Thanks to his West Point education and his 12 years as a commissioned officer, Parrott amassed … Read more
by J Michael Waller / Serviam / November 15, 2008. When American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan sit down for Thanksgiving dinner, private security and military contractors will have guarded the convoys bringing the turkey and gravy. If not for the private security contractor (PSC) business, there would have been no Thanksgiving at all. For it was … Read more
by J Michael Waller / Serviam / September-October 2008 Serviam’s person of the year, Project HOPE President and CEO John P. Howe III, MD, champions the military’s new humanitarian partnerships with businesses and charities, and comments on the role of health NGOs in global stability operations. Serviam Editor J. Michael Waller interviewed Dr. Howe in September 2008. Download … Read more
by J Michael Waller / Serviam / March-April 2008.* With war raging on the other side of the world, Charlie Meyers left his home in Brooklyn and headed for Canada’ Not to avoid a military draft, but to go and fight. The United States had not yet entered World War l, and Meyers, a young flier during … Read more
by J Michael Waller / Serviam / March 1, 2008. Download PDF: Contractors_Afgh_Serviam Kabul, Afghanistan—“I used to wear a burqa. I will never wear one again. Except to fight drug traffickers.” That’s what a female police officer of Afghanistan’s Narcotics Interdiction Unit (NIU) says with a shy smile. The bad guys can’t recognize a heavily armed cop under … Read more
by J Michael Waller / Serviam / January-February 2008. Al Qaeda has identified one type of enemy that it can’t fight against: Muslim rock stars. U.S. intelligence discovered evidence that the terrorist group had considered murdering top Egyptian performing artists for being “infidels” but decided against it for fear of creating a youth grassroots backlash from Arabs. … Read more
by J Michael Waller / Serviam / November-December 2007, When a private contractor for the U.S. government abides with the letter of the law, but the law is so flawed that it doesn’t correspond with reality, whose fault is it? The contractor’s, of course. That’s the apparent reasoning of critics in Congress and the press who blame private … Read more