I Asked My 'Libertarian' Friend A Question About Trump. His Silence Told Me Everything I Needed To Know.

When I got out of the Army, I had big plans to go back to college on the G.I. Bill, finish my degree in political science, and start working in the world of political journalism. But like so many plans and intentions, life did what it does and changed them. My wife became pregnant with our first child and suddenly my silly daydreams about being a writer who followed in the footsteps of Hunter S. Thompson and Bob Woodward seemed not only unimportant, but not even worth considering.

Going to school full time and working nights as a security guard would barely cover the rent, and with a new baby in the house, it wouldn’t cover everything else. I needed a real paycheck, health insurance and savings. I needed security.

I took a job in 2007 with a large corporation that had little to do with writing but paid well, had great benefits, and gave us some breathing room. I didn’t have a college degree, but the leadership skills I learned and honed in the infantry opened doors and allowed me to make a comfortable living. As an added bonus, I worked with some really great people and made friends there that I still talk to regularly, even though I no longer work for the company. One of those people was Zach.

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Zach and I hit it off right away. We had similar backgrounds. We had both served in the military and been deployed to Iraq around the same time. We both had young families, similar tastes in music and the same dry sense of humor. It made going to work, if not fun, at least not miserable.

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One place we didn’t always see eye to eye was politics.