Of history, warfare, leadership, and alcohol
There’s a common phrase among military members who have deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq as part of the Global War on Terror: Fobbit. It is a play on the words “hobbit,” from J.R.R. Tolkein’s fantasy works, The Lord of the Rings, and the acronym for Forward Operating Base: FOB. Fobbit tends to also be synonymous …
Continue reading "How Forward Operating Bases Created the Illusion of War in Iraq and Afghanistan"
As I boarded my flight yesterday morning I realized that it was my first since my trip home from Afghanistan. As we took off, I looked at the New England countryside disappearing below me and I stared, captivated, at the glorious panorama that is America. It was similar to the way that I would stare out …
Continue reading "Thoughts On Beauty"
Two years ago, I was sitting in a conference room inside a dusty tent. HVAC systems and passing helos drowned out the voice of the briefer, but the map that was displayed was enough to get the point across: our footprint in Afghanistan was shrinking. And we were there to make it shrink more. Walking …
Continue reading "Closure is Hard to Find"
Let's be honest, we all watch far too much television. In the old days, when our ancestors had no electricity and far too many brain cells, they occupied their time by reading silly things like the Iliad and other such classics. Because of this, they were able to associate current events with Classical literature, forming …
Continue reading "If U.S. Wars were Arrested Development Characters"
Last week on the Twittersphere, a discussion began on the impact of sensory perception on memory. It was started with this tweet: https://twitter.com/CombatCavScout/status/564959464034668544 https://twitter.com/CombatCavScout/status/564960295001804800 https://twitter.com/CombatCavScout/status/564962272624525312 You can see the tweet he was referring to, and the subsequent discussion, by clicking on the link, but in short, it was a photo of a dead Taliban commander …
Continue reading "Memory as an Engagement Area, and what memory tells us about ourselves"
When I was a shiny new soldier, fresh out of Army basic and advanced training, I was placed in the rear detachment of a unit that was forward deployed. There were a few other brand new soldiers in the detachment, but quite of few of the soldiers were coming off of Active Duty into the …
Today, we will hear a lot about giving thanks, and giving, and family, and food, and sales, and consumer demographics, and (if you live in the Northeast) snow. There is always a lot of talking and yes, I could rant about consumerism, commercialism, and the basic cheapening of values. But I want to instead talk …
Continue reading "On Giving Thanks: My Perspective"
I will be perfectly honest (unlike a certain Senator): the inspiration for this post was spawned by a Washington Post opinion column by retired Army Lieut. Gen. David Barno. The opinion piece can be found here and I highly recommend it. Barno makes a series of excellent points concerning the so-called "end" of the thirteen years of …
I recently read a great article from Foreign Policy citing a lack of critical thinking skills on the part of U.S. Army officers, and it stated that a solution lay in a better groundwork in history. First off, anyone who's spent time working on staff at any level can agree to the lack of critical thinking. …
This post first appeared on Medium here. It has been reposted in its entirety. This was my first blog post. Some say that beginnings are hard to do. For beginning a war, this might seem to be the case, as the months of planning, logistical coordination, and troop movements come to fruition in the first …
Continue reading "Retrograde: The Least Sexy thing in the Army"
The Angry Staff Officer 
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