A National Review Homecoming

Ten months ago, on January 3, I was granted leave from National Review for activation and deployment as a member of my rifle company. For much of the last decade at NR, I had double-hatted as a magazine editor and as an infantry officer and drilling reservist — and the time had come for Uncle Sam to collect his pound of flesh. As anyone who has spent time in the military will know — and I can see you all nodding and grinning in assent — Uncle Sam would not be denied!

Coming home, of course, isn’t always easy. As the world had the chance to remember this past summer, Odysseus’s famous homecoming was, to say the least, eventful. Jacob wasn’t quite sure how Esau would react to his return to the land of his youth. Marco Polo and his companions were — according to his Book of the Marvels of the World — nearly unrecognizable to his Venetian countrymen after 24 years of traveling throughout Kublai Khan’s Asian empire.

About the Author

Mark Antonio Wright

Mark Antonio Wright is the executive editor of National Review.

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Ten months ago, on January 3, I was granted leave from National Review for activation and deployment as a member of my rifle company. For much of the last decade at NR, I had double-hatted as a magazine editor and as an infantry officer and drilling reservist — and the time had come for Uncle Sam to collect his pound of flesh. As anyone who has spent time in the military will know — and I can see you all nodding and grinning in assent — Uncle Sam would not be denied!

Coming home, of course, isn’t always easy. As the world had the chance to remember this past summer, Odysseus’s famous homecoming was, to say the least, eventful. Jacob wasn’t quite sure how Esau would react to his return to the land of his youth. Marco Polo and his companions were — according to his Book of the Marvels of the World — nearly unrecognizable to his Venetian countrymen after 24 years of traveling throughout Kublai Khan’s Asian empire.