Of history, warfare, leadership, and alcohol
Civil discourse requires a shared allegiance to civil society “If every time you play chess, your opponent punches you in the face, getting better at chess is not the solution.” – Andrew Thomas An important life lesson came out of my early career as a civil litigator. I practiced law in Canada for eleven years; …
Continue reading "Don’t bother improving your chess"
Much has been written elsewhere regarding the unforgivable sin of failing to plan for known contingencies. Whatever one thinks of the current changes undergoing our Army here in the United States, the least controversial thing to be said about them is that they certainly represent a change from what has come before. And regardless of one what thinks, or refuses to …
Continue reading "“After me, the flood:” recovering the Army’s accountability"
Perhaps no period characterized chaos about the future of the Republic than the years 1866-1868. And perhaps no one individual did so much to save it in those years as the man who had labored so hard to preserve it from 1861-1865: Ulysses S. Grant. Pres. Andrew Johnson (LoC) One would think that having put …
Continue reading "The General Who Defied a President"
Weird, just the other day it was July and I was thinking that my book review post wouldn't be colossally late again. Yet, here we are, unaccountably in September and I'm still writing about June. Time is a construct and I am against it. Still, we press on. Maybe, unlike the US strike on Iran …
Continue reading "A Badly Belated June Reading List"
The other day I went and stood in front of the new section of the World War I memorial in Washington, DC and looked at it. Memorials are meant to make you feel something. I felt nothing. I felt nothing when I looked at the figures. So I looked at the equipment. I looked at …
Continue reading "Thoughts While Visiting the U.S. National World War I Memorial"
Spaceballs (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer / Brooksfilms) Editor's note (with apology built in): Reader, if as you peruse the following, you wonder whether the author is sick in the head or does not understand FM 6-22 but at all, rest easy. This, but for the negligence and oversight of the editor, should have run on the 1st …
Continue reading "All I Really Need to Know about Leadership I Learned from Spaceballs"
I was in Hawaii for the first time earlier this year. Expecting a sunny beach vacation, it was actually more of a profound learning experience. I was not expecting to be provoked in thought as much as I was. For our purposes, the thing that stayed with me most was the state motto, formerly the …
Continue reading "What are the Obligations of Leadership?"
I will not apologize for my horrendous title. You deserve it. When the world is a mess, you lean into your reading list. Hard. This month was a solid mix of military history and historical fiction, with author Naomi Novik once again dropping some bangers. She is rapidly turning into one of my favorite authors. …
Continue reading "April Showers Bring May Books"
The United States was born of a desire to leave behind monarchial government and instead live under a republic. Although the structure of the United States was explicitly crafted to have both democratic and anti-democratic elements, the perils of democracy have been part of the American discussion from the beginning (“When a majority is included in a faction, …
Continue reading "Failure Mechanisms in Democratic Regimes – an Army’s Role"
While doing some reading about the early American Revolution, I came across a famous sentence I’ve read a dozen times over the years in a variety of contexts. This time, though, it was as if I were reading it for the first time. The words belonged to famous patriot pamphleteer Thomas Paine: These are the times that try men's souls: The …
Continue reading "Did You Mean It?"
The Angry Staff Officer 
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