Why ISIS Will Outlast the Coalition Arrayed Against It, and Why Itโ€™s Our Own Damn Fault

Today's guest post comes from Barefoot Boomer. Boomer is a career Army officer and strategist. He is also a historian with an emphasis in American and German military history.  The content and opinions of this article are the authorโ€™s only and do not reflect the opinions of the United States Army or the Department of …

Get Out of the Way and Let Us Do Our Jobs: A NCO’s Perspective

Today's post is by guest author, SoonerGrunt. He is a retired Army non-commissioned officer with twenty-two years of experience in both the Regular Army and the Army National Guard. My Twitter friend Angry Staff Officer had a response from a junior officerโ€™s perspective to a blog post entitled โ€œ31 Things Your Senior Rater Wants You …

And Then? What Happens After Victory Over Daesh

Since 2014 and their declaration of the Caliphate, this thing called ISIS has been dominating the news cycle. From destruction of antiquities to the massacre of civilians, ISIS has been losing friends and influencing people in negative ways for quite some time. But even as politicians call for carpet bombing of this non-state pretender-state actor, …

18 Things I Look For in a Senior Rater

Last week, one of my favorite blogs -ย From the Green Notebook -ย ran a guest piece called,ย 31 Things Your Senior Rater Would Like You to Know That He Probably Wonโ€™t Tellย You. Quite a mouthful. While I disagreed with nearly everything that the author said, he did start a good conversation on leadership styles that has bloomed …

Timeless Maxims of War

If you've been in the military longer than a day, you are bound to have heard your fair share of quotes about war that leaders like to drag out to show their book-learnin'. If I had nickel for the times I've heard that war is merely a continuation of politics by other means, I'd have …

Ballad of a Young Staff Officer

One Friday night, dark and dreary, At my desk I slumped, weak and weary. A late-night tasker, come my way, Too โ€œurgentโ€ to wait just one more day. โ€œSee here, LT,โ€ the S-3 had said, โ€œThis suspense canโ€™t wait, donโ€™t mark as read, โ€œWrite WARNO, write FRAGO, pen the order, And ensure your slides have …

Classic Military Quotes Brought into the Modern Era

Military doctrine is updated every few years, to reflect the changes in technology, tactics, operations, and strategy, as well as to keep several thousand doctrine writers employed. Next to military doctrine, famous quotes from past military leaders are the most commonly cited source when two strategists are arguing. But although we update our doctrine, we …

What is Readiness and How Do We Get There?

Letโ€™s have a little chat about readiness. To be more specific, letโ€™s talk Army National Guard readiness. First of all, what does readiness even mean? The word is being tossed around like a football these days (thatโ€™s American football to you other folks who refuse to acknowledge our arbitrary break with the rest of the …

How “Cups” is Actually About the U.S. War in Afghanistan

It seems just the other day that the song "Cups," as sung by Anna Kendrick in Pitch Perfect, was all over every radio station in the country. Now, it barely comes on over the waves. Not unlike another old forgotten favorite: the war in Afghanistan. Not only is it in the news less, it literally received no treatment …

Military Graphics: What they SHOULD Mean

I know you all are like me; you get excited when new doctrine gets released. Giddy, even. So I know that when the Army released Army Doctrine Reference Publication (ADRP) 1-02ย Terms and Military Symbolsย you immediately downloaded the whole thing and had a good read. Or not. One thing always strikes me when going through this …