Of history, warfare, leadership, and alcohol
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 …
Continue reading "Ballad of a Young Staff Officer"
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 …
Continue reading "What is Readiness and How Do We Get There?"
He bent low. His back ached. He could smell the earth below his face, the stinking, ever-present mud. Mercifully, free of gas. For now. The soft lip of the trench - or, what had been a trench before German artillery had blasted it to ever-living hell - was a dim reflection in the early morning …
Continue reading "“Of the Highest Order:” June 16, 1918"
Whoa there, high speed. Look at you, all brand new and shiny, right out of your basic officer leader course, hard-charging to take over your first platoon. Thing is, behind that brash exterior, you're probably confused as all get-out. After years of training in ROTC or a military academy (you OCS guys know all this stuff …
Continue reading "Thrown into the Deep End: Tips for New Platoon Leaders"
Today's guest post comes from Tim Shea (@trshea88), a former U.S. Army Captain hailing from Joint Base Lewis-McChord's now defunct 4th Stryker Brigade. In 2014, Tim traded the green pastures of Army life for the exhilarating, cutthroat world of economic development consulting. He maintains his sanity by writing here. To all the badge, tab, etc. lovers …
Continue reading "A Combat Badge Does Not a Soldier Make"
You can tell a lot about someone based on their uniform. Especially in the Army. In fact, we regularly violate the "Don't judge a book by its cover" dictum. Hell, we stomp that dictum into the dirt and build a fighting position on top of it. When meeting each other, soldiers tend to size the …
Continue reading "Integrity: The Unseen Skill Badge"
When I was seven, my mother did the worst thing I could conceive of: she took my Calvin and Hobbes books away from me. Why, why would she do such a horrible thing, I asked her at the time, probably kicking and screaming and waving my tiny fists. It was a very simple answer: I was acting too …
Continue reading "Seven Military Leadership Lessons from Calvin and Hobbes"
Land use and land rights within the United States have always been touchy subjects. Just ask the first colonists who landed and were confronted by the natives; for that matter, ask the natives. Right now, ask the armed occupants who are effectively "squatting" on Federal land in Oregon, who state that, "This isn't going to end …
Continue reading "Land Rights and the Formation of the U.S. Army"
Way back in the hazy days of Army history (1905), there existed a mythical bird: the Oozlefinch. First sighted by inebriated denizens of the Coast Artillery Corps Officer’s Club at Fort Monroe, Virginia, the Oozlefinch was quickly adopted by that corps as their mascot. Allegedly featherless but with large eyes with which to see the …
Continue reading "A Socratic Dialogue with a Staff Officer"
In the timeless children's classic The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, the character of the professor is attempting to explain how there can be parallel universes to the children, but is encountering disbelief. "Bless me," he says, "It's all in Plato. What DO they teach them in these schools?" Similarly, one could tell …
Continue reading "Tilting at Windmills: Army Officer Education versus Training"
The Angry Staff Officer 
You must be logged in to post a comment.