Of history, warfare, leadership, and alcohol
Okay, so I’ve got a confession: I’m a veteran and a military nerd who doesn’t care for war movies. And it’s not because I’m anti-war, or because Hollywood doesn’t “get” us vets, or because the movies trigger PTSD: no, I just don’t care for them because they’re too obvious and in your face. We get …
Continue reading "Top Gun 2: What Might Have Been"
Scene: Galactic Courtroom. Defendant seems blissfully unaware of what’s going on, keeps talking about his training with a “Yoda.” Judge: “Commander Skywalker, let’s walk through the events that occurred during the Battle of Hoth, shall we?” Commander Skywalker: “Sure, it’s all the same to me, but I’m kind of busy and --” Judge: “Commander, this …
Continue reading "Skywalker on Trial: the Galactic Code of Military Justice"
A lot has been said about the role of artillery in World War I, in both its intensity and ferocity. On the opening day of the Somme on July 1, 1916, British guns hurled 250,000 high explosive and shrapnel shells towards German positions. During the beginning of the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917, over 3,000 …
Continue reading "Anatomy of a World War I Artillery Barrage"
We’ve all been there. It’s 1700 on a Friday and you’re still stuck in a meeting that began at 1300, and the S-3 still has twenty more slides to brief. What you could really use right now is a good stiff drink. Your mind wanders off to consider your options, as the monotonous drone of …
Continue reading "Army Staff Meetings and their Corresponding Cocktails"
This piece was inspired by Alice Rawsthorn’s TED Talk on design. Ever been that one person at a Revolutionary War battlefield who loudly questioned why the British were wearing bright red coats that made them extremely visible? Or looked at pictures of Polish winged hussars and thought they seemed preposterous? Or wondered why U.S. dragoons …
Continue reading "Is the Way the Army Looks at Uniforms Completely Wrong?"
When I walked off the ramp of the C-17 and the dusty heat of Bagram Airfield slapped me in the face, I went through the same thought process as thousands of U.S. servicemembers before me: what the hell am I even doing here? It was the fall of 2013, and I was arriving in Afghanistan to participate in the …
Continue reading "Is DoD Contracting Out of Control?"
So Memorial Day weekend is just about upon us, which means one thing: the proliferation of Memorial Day memes in my Facebook feed that waver back and forth between letting me know the differences between this holiday and Veterans Day, and letting me know that no fun is to be had this weekend. And like …
Continue reading "Mil-splaining Memorial Day: Stop it"
Today's guest post comes from Barefoot Boomer. Boomer is a career Army officer and strategist. He is also a historian with an emphasis in American and German military history. The content and opinions of this article are the author’s only and do not reflect the opinions of the United States Army or the Department of …
Today's post is by guest author, SoonerGrunt. He is a retired Army non-commissioned officer with twenty-two years of experience in both the Regular Army and the Army National Guard. My Twitter friend Angry Staff Officer had a response from a junior officer’s perspective to a blog post entitled “31 Things Your Senior Rater Wants You …
Continue reading "Get Out of the Way and Let Us Do Our Jobs: A NCO’s Perspective"
Since 2014 and their declaration of the Caliphate, this thing called ISIS has been dominating the news cycle. From destruction of antiquities to the massacre of civilians, ISIS has been losing friends and influencing people in negative ways for quite some time. But even as politicians call for carpet bombing of this non-state pretender-state actor, …
Continue reading "And Then? What Happens After Victory Over Daesh"
The Angry Staff Officer 
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