Of history, warfare, leadership, and alcohol
A few months ago, this blog published the post "On Command: A Confession," wherein I talked about my personal struggles with the idea of taking a battalion command. Not unlike the USS Maine in 1898, that post blew up. Too soon? I got messages from other Army officers, Navy officers, even officers in foreign militaries. …
Continue reading "Are We Hearing What We Want to Hear?"
Guest post via an author writing under the pseudonym Lost CAC The military faces a recruiting shortfall. The Army, as the largest service, predictably felt the sting acutely, missing its recruiting goals by 15,000 or 25%. Army officials offered several reasons for recruiting difficulties: a tight civilian job market, pandemic-related restrictions on recruiter access to …
Continue reading "The Army, Recruiting, and Bad Faith “Woke” Criticism"
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"
The Angry Staff Officer 
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