Of history, warfare, leadership, and alcohol
I have a confession to make. I don't want to be a battalion commander. I don't want to be a brigade commander. I don't want to command anything, ever again. For an Army officer to say, this is well nigh on heresy. I nearly expected George C. Marshall himself to descend from his lofty throne …
Continue reading "On Command: A Confession"
Language is a window to thought. In the Army, we often say that “words have meaning” and they do. But even more so, the manner in which we crystalize thoughts into language colors the thoughts themselves. The goods somewhat assume the shape of the vessel in which they are carried. Learning a language beyond one’s …
Continue reading "NATO Operations and the Unifying Power of a Common Language"
By Garri Benjamin Hendell Everyone in the American military community watched the (most recent) fall of Kabul with their mouths agape. For a generation who grew up in the shadow of Vietnam, to watch another ignominious American retreat was shocking and painful. This was, presumably, an immeasurably worse experience for those that served and lost …
Continue reading "The Day After Kabul"
Forget the enemy: can we overcome ourselves? The new hotness these days is large scale combat operations - or LSCO, for short, just because. Well, I should say, the new hotness other than cyber or Space Force. LSCO is supposed to be all about reorienting the Army to its roots. Back to the good ol' …
Continue reading "So, About that Next Wave: Planning for the Next War"
It's become cliche to say that social media is changing the world that we live in. But what the hell, I live for cliches, so let's go for it. I guess it would be more accurate to say that social media has already changed that world, and we just haven't seen all the effects yet. …
Continue reading "Pandora’s Inbox: The Army and Social Media"
WASHINGTON, DC. New reports have come to light that throws the much-publicized “Army National Guard 4.0” into near chaos. An unnamed officer inside of the National Guard Bureau, the head agency for the National Guard, revealed how Guard 4.0 was brought into existence.
Okay, so can we all admit that as military officers, we’re actually just another category of gigantic nerds? I mean, military society itself can basically be broken down as a cosplaying socialist death cult, but that’s another story. Suffice it to say, the officer corps contains its own special levels of nerdiness. This is to …
Continue reading "If Military Commissioning Sources were Hogwarts Houses"
Let’s face it: the Army can be a place that wears you down, both physically and mentally. It takes a special kind of person to be able to take the brand of crazy that the Army pushes year after year and walk away from it relatively unscathed. As such, it seems like you usually get …
Continue reading "The Military “Give a S**t” Spectrum"
It was Ben Franklin who wrote, "He who neglects his hair neglects his country." Well, all right, he never did say that but he would've had he thought of it, because Ben understood the importance of a well put together coiffe of hair. The military has undergone some variations on its way of thinking about …
Continue reading "Army Hair Throughout the Ages"
As an Army officer, I tend to spend a lot of time talking about, well, talking about officer things. And no, that does not mean discussing polo, the price of cufflinks, sipping brandy, and thinking of ways to make our NCOs lives harder, as some circles might believe. Although the brandy thing isn’t too far …
Continue reading "7 Characteristics of Highly Successful Non-Commissioned Officers"
The Angry Staff Officer 
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