Of history, warfare, leadership, and alcohol
We’re in the early months of the centennial of U.S. participation in World War I, the so-called, “War to end all wars.” With the vantage of 20/20 hindsight, we now know that rather than “making the world safe for democracy,” as Woodrow Wilson hoped, World War I instead set the stage for the next round …
Continue reading "How Experience in WWI brought the U.S. Army to Victory in WWII"
When some search for the roots of the First World War, there is a tendency to look towards the Balkans. After all, it was the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Sarajevo in 1914 that precipitated the kick-off of the greatest and most deadly bar-brawl in the history of the …
Continue reading "Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars"
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 Defense. The …
Continue reading "How the Current Generation Is Dishonoring the Greatest Generation"
I sat down on the chair across from my grandpa’s wheelchair. Grandpa was 97. He was smaller, more stooped than he had been, but the eyes were the same: alert, focused, interested. His hands, rested on the arms of the wheelchair, were those of a man who had spent his life working. He had just …
Continue reading "A Life Well-Lived: Memorial to my Grandfather"
Back in 1941, the Army did something extreme: it tested its doctrine. Not on tabletop wargames, not in a computer simulation, not with an invasion of a small Latin American country. No, the Army mobilized over 400,000 Regular and National Guard troops, spent a year training them up, and then let them fight each other …
Continue reading "It’s Time for Another Louisiana Maneuvers"
Napoleon Bonaparte is credited with the saying, "Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them." This would generally seem to be the case, as while many may have heard of General Walter Krueger, commander of U.S. Sixth Army in the Pacific, very few have ever heard of Walter E. Pottle, the first sergeant for …
Continue reading "The Fighting First Sergeant: Walter Pottle and World War II"
Let's be honest, we all watch far too much television. In the old days, when our ancestors had no electricity and far too many brain cells, they occupied their time by reading silly things like the Iliad and other such classics. Because of this, they were able to associate current events with Classical literature, forming …
Continue reading "If U.S. Wars were Arrested Development Characters"
The Angry Staff Officer 
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