Of history, warfare, leadership, and alcohol
Let's be honest: being a disciplined writer is tough. Writer's block is usually waiting in an L-shaped ambush somewhere, and has converged effects with Procrastination, leading to near collapse of efforts by yours truly. So, "Thursday Thoughts" is an attempt to break free, using disciplined initiative, where I place minimal words on the page in …
Continue reading "Thursday Thoughts: Developmental Counseling"
Taking command is a big deal. For most officers, we spend all our lieutenant time with that as the goal. But taking command as a National Guard officer versus Active duty is a pretty different beast. Look, we all want to pretend it's one team, one fight, right? And - once the bullets start singing …
Continue reading "5 Time-Saving Tips for National Guard Company Commanders"
By Sergeant Rick Our Active Component brethren take having access to a Department of Defense (DOD) computer for granted. Other than being on leave, active troops frequently have access to DOD systems in the field! As such, it only comes naturally for Pentagon J6 or DISA officials to haphazardly hand down systems access policies with …
Continue reading "Are Systems Access Restrictions Marginalizing Reservists and Guardsmen?"
Scene: Squad bay, Rebel Alliance, Hoth. The First Sergeant stands up: “Okay, listen up, quiet down. I said quiet down, you lot! Louder than a Bantha breeding barn in here. Just because we’re Rebels doesn’t mean we can’t have discipline. Now, because of recent...incidents around Echo Base, we’ve been directed to give a good safety …
Continue reading "Rebel Safety Brief on Hoth"
Just recently, the National Guard Bureau (NGB) released the news that it now had its own official song! Now, this was not something that the Soldiers and Airmen of the National Guard had ever asked for, or even desired, but like most things coming out of NGB, we got it anyways. And, like most things …
Continue reading "Army Branch Songs: Where Did They Come From?"
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"
We talk a lot about mentorship in the military, but for most of us, we don’t have a good example of what that even looks like. It’s not as though there are mentors dropping from the sky to deliver words of wisdom whenever we need them. No, we’re more likely to end up Googling our …
Continue reading "When the Force is Not With You: Mentorship and Star Wars"
By Matt Wright Accident Investigation Board - Rebel Alliance T-47 Airspeeder (Field Modified) Battle of Hoth, 3 ABY Executive Summary During the disastrous Battle for Hoth, a locally modified version of the Incom T-47 Airspeeder was engaged in close proximity to advancing Stormtrooper infantry and heavily armored All-Terrain Armored Transport (AT-AT) units of the Imperial …
Continue reading "If the Hoth Crash was an Air Force Investigation"
Guest post by XO of XOs Knowledge diffusion and leader development in the Army is at best, a slapdash effort. You finish the appropriate schooling level--maybe rotating through a leadership position, or not--and then get dropped into your newest assignment. Primary Staff, Command, on occasion the officer in charge of the officer (I had one …
Continue reading "Mentorship: Cross-Component Leader Development"
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"
