The U.S. Justice Department might have difficulty defining Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. The media also have trouble setting a name to what he has done. He has portrayed himself as a cyber-age muckraker, crusading against government secrecy and skulduggery. Assange’s Wikipedia page says he’s “an Australian journalist, publisher, and Internet activist.” But if those words…

 Imagine the following scenarios: You’re a sergeant riding shotgun with an Army convoy in Iraq. An IED explodes next to your vehicle and showers you with sand, rocks, and flames. Seriously burned, you pull yourself from the damaged gun truck and wonder what will happen next. You’re a crew member of a C-5 Galaxy lifting…

Some thoughts on the Air Force’s mobility fleet…. These observations are my own and do not represent official military policy. Tonight, in Air Force jets over a black Atlantic, bleary-eyed aviators will sip coffee and monitor instruments on the first leg of an airlift run to Afghanistan or Iraq. They’ll maneuver their C-17s or C-5s…

The Campaign for the American Reader is a great initiative to encourage more people to read more books. The program includes a number of blogs and columns. One of them is called “My Book, The Movie,” in which authors imagine the film version of their works. Writer and producer Marshal Zeringue invited me to offer…

Thanks to Kim in Hawaii for the kind words on her blog about THE MULLAH’S STORM: http://sosaloha.blogspot.com/2010/09/celebrating-air-force-legacy-thomas-w.html As she quite rightly notes, we’re coming up on the birthday of the Air Force. Fly, Fight, and Win! Meanwhile, here’s a photo of me with some dear old friends from my Associated Press days, taken at last…

In a guest column for the Guide to Literary Agents blog, I offered a few thoughts on writing fiction. It’s at: http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog/

Here’s audio from this week’s interview on Northeast Public Radio. Thanks to Joe Donahue, host of “The Roundtable.” http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wamc/news.newsmain/article/231/0/1698621/The.Roundtable/Thomas.W..Young.-.The.Mullah’s.Storm

I had the terrific opportunity to discuss THE MULLAH’S STORM and the situation in Afghanistan in a podcast for National Review Online. It came as part of John J. Miller’s “Between the Covers” author interviews. By the way, John’s historical novel, THE FIRST ASSASSIN, comes out in a new edition on Sept. 14. Meanwhile, if…

In what seems like another life now, I used to work as a radio newscaster. So, radio is a medium that’s near and dear to my heart. And I thoroughly enjoyed my appearance on “The Jim Bohannon Show” on Wednesday night, August 25. Here’s a link to Jim’s website, which includes podcasts of prior shows:…

Kudos to Newsweek’s Jon Meacham for his essay on how thrillers and mysteries should get more respect as literature: http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/01/mysteries-thrillers-and-the-verities-of-the-heart.html Much of the literature we now consider classic was the popular fiction, drama, or poetry of its day. Dickens and Twain were commercial authors. Shakespeare wrote to fill theater seats. Robert Frost appears in many…