Not Understanding the Fight Against ISIS: An Open Letter to Donald Trump

Today’s guest post comes from Barefoot Boomer, who is a glutton for punishment, this being his second post. Read his first post here. 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 author’s only …

Why ISIS Will Outlast the Coalition Arrayed Against It, and Why It’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 author’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 officer’s perspective to a blog post entitled “31 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 - From the Green Notebook - ran a guest piece called, 31 Things Your Senior Rater Would Like You to Know That He Probably Won’t Tell 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 …

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 “urgent” to wait just one more day. “See here, LT,” the S-3 had said, “This suspense can’t wait, don’t mark as read, “Write 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?

Let’s have a little chat about readiness. To be more specific, let’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 (that’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 …

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