John Fenzel

CEO of The Heroes’ Path Foundation | Author | Army Special Forces Veteran | Keynote Speaker | Historian

[John Fenzel @johnfenzel]

My Article: D-Day: 75 Years Later https://t.co/UDhLZjWpgq

[John Fenzel @johnfenzel]

Good Sunday Morning. A post for paid subscribers to our Heroes’ Path Substack.

https://t.co/eCHznc8zem

#HeroesPath #friends #friendship #substack #Dunbar

[John Fenzel @johnfenzel]

I was thrilled to lead our nation’s only master’s degree program of its kind, a joint program from Arizona State University and the National WWII Museum, with stops at Arlington National Cemetery, Washington, DC, and New Orleans.

That is where leadership lives

#ASU #WWIIStudies

[John Fenzel @johnfenzel]

We are now roughly 80 days into a war that many people believed would last four to six weeks.

This week’s Iran Update looks at the bigger picture behind the headlines.

https://t.co/fiMmwjBi5C

[John Fenzel @johnfenzel]

Day 2 of VetsRoll. 400 veterans, family members, and volunteers rolling from America’s Midwest to our nation’s capital. 11 Busses. Police and motorcycle escorts.

So many amazing people who have served. So many who serve those who have served.

Thank you, VetsRoll!

#VetsRoll

[JB Slear @JB_Slear]

In September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a History teacher at RobinsonHigh School in Little Rock, did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school, with the permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she removed all of the desks in her classroom. When the first period kids entered the room they discovered that there were no desks.
'Ms. Cothren, where are our desks?'
She replied, 'You can't have a desk until you tell me how you earn the right to sit at a desk.'
They thought, 'Well, maybe it's our grades.' 'No,' she said.
'Maybe it's our behavior.' She told them, 'No, it's not even your behavior.'
And so, they came and went, the first period, second period, third period. Still no desks in the classroom. Kids called their parents to tell them what was happening and by early afternoon television news crews had started gathering at the school to report about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of her room.
The final period of the day came and as the puzzled students found seats on the floor of the desk-less classroom. Martha Cothren said, 'Throughout the day no one has been able to tell me just what he or she has done to earn the right to sit at the desks that are ordinarily found in this classroom. Now I am going to tell you.'
At this point, Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it. Twenty-seven (27) U.S. Veterans, all in uniform, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. The Vets began placing the school desks in rows, and then they would walk over and stand alongside the wall. By the time the last soldier had set the final desk in place those kids started to understand, perhaps for the first time in their lives, just how the right to sit at those desks had been earned.
Martha said, 'You didn't earn the right to sit at these desks. These heroes did it for you. They placed the desks here for you. They went halfway around the world, giving up their education and interrupting their careers and families so you could have the freedom you have. Now, it's up to you to sit in them. It is your responsibility to learn, to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so that you could have the freedom to get an education. Don't ever forget it.'
By the way, this is a true story. And this teacher was awarded the Veterans of Foreign Wars Teacher of the Year for the State of Arkansas in 2006. She is the daughter of a WWII POW.
Do you think this email is worth passing along so others won't forget either, that the freedoms we have in this great country were earned by our U.S. Veterans?... I did.
Let us always remember the men and women of our military and the rights they have won for us.

[John Fenzel @johnfenzel]

Minor hive expansion underway. #beekeeping #spring #sendhelp 🐝

[Documenting Saylor @saylordocs]

Charlie Munger’s 1998 Harvard speech is the ultimate cheat code for life.

He compressed 74 years of billionaire wisdom into just 30 minutes.

Most people spend 4 years in college and learn less than what’s in this video.

Save this video, you will come back to this.

[John Fenzel @johnfenzel]

@Charlie_Ledezma Thanks, Charlie! It’s been interesting to see the reactions to the novel. Those on the far left have described it as “prescient.” And readers on the far right invoke it as an “impending warning”…

It was always intended to be completely apolitical.

[Blair Paddy Mayne @blair_mayne]

111 years ago OTD 11th Jan 1915 Robert Blair ‘Paddy’ Mayne was born in Newtownards Co. Down, 6th of 7 children & would go on to become one of most decorated solders in @BritishArmy history, command 1SAS, rising to rank of Lt. Col.
Happy Birthday to the great man 🥂

[Vala Afshar @ValaAfshar]

How not to be average is a must watch speech by Curt Cignetti, Indiana University

[Anton Gerashchenko @Gerashchenko_en]

Ukrainian Defender Valentyn Symovyniuk, 30, spent nearly six months holding a position in Luhansk region. At times, the distance between him and Russians was just two meters, and the clashes were so frequent that he asked his command to pull their group back.

The evacuation lasted a week. Over the final 600 meters, Valentyn stepped on a mine and could no longer walk or crawl. He even considered suicide.

"I needed about 20 seconds of holding the loosened tourniquet for me to bleed out. But I held it only two, three, maybe four seconds - and then I shouted at myself: 'Samurai, you idiot, what are you doing? Tighten the tourniquet, maybe you’ll survive somehow,'" Valentyn shared.

The Warrior was ultimately evacuated from the field thanks to a ground robot.

📹: Suspilne

[John Fenzel @johnfenzel]

First Photo of 2026!

[Phil Collins @PhilCollinsFeed]

PSA: If you hit play on “In The Air Tonight” by Phil Collins at 11:56:20PM this New Year’s Eve, the drum fill will welcome you into 2026. Start the year the right way.

📸 Terry O’Neill

[Black Hole @konstructivizm]

Beautifully said. The "Pale Blue Dot" remains one of the most profound images in human history—a humbling reminder of our place in the cosmos.Captured on February 14, 1990, by NASA's Voyager 1 from about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles) away, Earth appears as a minuscule speck—less than a single pixel—suspended in a ray of scattered sunlight.This was part of Voyager's "Family Portrait" series, the last images taken before its cameras were powered down to conserve energy for the long journey into interstellar space. The idea came largely from Carl Sagan, who later reflected in his book Pale Blue Dot:"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives... Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light."
In 2020, NASA released a remastered version using modern processing techniques, making our fragile world stand out even more https://t.co/GLnvaqR77R're spot on: it's not just a photo; it's a call to perspective, unity, and stewardship. In an era of division, this view from the edge of our solar system underscores that we all share this one irreplaceable home. Voyager 1, now over 25 billion kilometers away and still sending data, continues to embody that spirit of curiosity and exploration.Thank you for sharing this timeless reflection.

[John Fenzel @johnfenzel]

Gratitude is not a feeling.
It’s the discipline of staying:
setting a place for the absent,
arguing about nothing which is a luxury,
passing and receiving in our poor way,
and knowing that, for this moment,
we are still at the same table.

[John Fenzel @johnfenzel]

The Baltimore Sun called ahead of my Veterans Day talk on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Veterans Day calls us to recognize those who served, teach the values they upheld, and live them with intention.

#VeteransDay #Service #Maryland #EasternShore

[John Fenzel @johnfenzel]

Honored to spend time with WWII veteran 1st Lt. Edward “Bud” Berthold today at the Veterans Luncheon in Dundee, Illinois. At 106, this former B-24 pilot with the 8th Air Force flew 35 combat missions in 1944—including his D-Day mission

His secret to longevity? “Stay active!”

[John Fenzel @johnfenzel]

If you’re in the Northern Illinois area, join us on Thursday morning at 11:00am at the Dundee VFW!

8 World War II veterans will be attending—3 of them over 100 years old!

117 S 1st St
West Dundee, IL 60118

#veteransday

[John Fenzel @johnfenzel]

Remembrance without action? It’s just nostalgia.

Sponsor a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery now.

https://t.co/oEvF20nBTs

#Veterans #VeteransDay #RemembranceDay #Wreaths

[John Fenzel @johnfenzel]

Grateful for two full days at Gettysburg with great friends, old and new. We walked the hallowed ground, learned together, argued with the map, and translated history into decisions we can use on Monday.

It gets no better.

#Gettysburg #Leadership #Experience