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?"
One would say that picking the day before the anniversary of D-Day in World War II is an odd time to talk about the first world war, yet, here we are. Because the more that I look at the war in Ukraine, the more I am drawn back to World War I. And no, not …
Continue reading "Why the American Experience in World War I Matters Today"
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"
Back in the late 1990s, when the Army was being all that it could be, the Army began leaning into the concept that soldiers should think of themselves as "warriors" in order to increase the fighting spirit of the force. I've already said my rant, er, I mean, my piece on this, which you can …
Continue reading "What’s in a Name: The Problem with “Warfighter”"
Collective memory is a fascinating thing. "Never forget." That's a phrase that we often hear associated with things like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, usually splashed across social media pages on the anniversary of those days. Or maybe there are calls to never forget the sacrifices at Normandy or Bastogne. These national calls for memory tend …
Continue reading "American War and American Memory"
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"
Like me, perhaps you've been watching the news from Afghanistan wondering how we got to this point. This piece is absolutely not an analysis of our twenty-year conflict there as I am neither an expert on the nation nor an unbiased onlooker. Instead, I've been thinking about the nature of these types of wars and …
Continue reading "The Distress Cycle of American Military Conflicts"
“War is a human endeavor—a fundamentally human clash of wills often fought among populations. It is not a mechanical process that can be controlled precisely, or even mostly, by machines, statistics, or laws that cover operations in carefully controlled and predictable environments. Fundamentally, all war is about changing human behavior. It is both a contest …
Continue reading "War as a Human Endeavor: How do we train for that?"
The Angry Staff Officer 
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