Editor’s Note: The news this morning is trumpeting developments in Women’s Sports and a war over the roles of XX and XY chromosomes in a demonstration of the changing roles in our social structure. As the citation on Monica Lin Brown’s Silver Star denotes, there are other changes. Some of them are profound.

Like the story of an Army soldier named Sarah Beckstrom:

Army National Guard Soldier Sarah Beckstrom

Sarah Beckstrom was twenty years old when she and Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe were shot while serving on National Guard duty in Washington, D.C., on November 26, 2025.

Beckstrom died from her wounds the following day.

There are new heroes in a changing world. Monica Brown’s Silver Star reminds us that some of those changes were already underway on a battlefield in Afghanistan nearly twenty years ago. Sarah Beckstrom reminds us that service can still carry the oldest possible price.

There has been sacrifice.

And courage.

Copyright 2026 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com