Articles
Looking Down Under and Within: Three Recommendations to Address the Recruiting Crisis
by Aaron Pucetas Over the past couple years, the Army has been unable to meet its recruiting goals. In a highly competitive labor market with record low unemployment rates, some argue that the Army must immediately improve its compensation package...
Three Books to Improve Your Writing
by Trent Lythgoe For most of my 22 years in the US Army, I thought I was a decent writer. However, graduate school taught me a bitter truth: I wasn’t. But after accepting my failings, I found a powerful tool to help me improve—writing guides....
Mentorship: Finding Meaning Beneath The Surface
by James Duncan It’s Monday, and the scene is an all-too familiar one. After battalion formation, the Soldiers shuffle over to the truck line. After a few minutes recapping Sunday night football and griping about the cold from the morning’s run,...
Communicate Your Staff Estimates in the Language of Risk
by Tom Gaines and Micah Stedman “Gentlemen, we have run out of money; now we have got to think.” – Winston Churchill Somewhere out there is the perfect unit. The commander’s intent is perfectly understood by every member of this...
Why We Should Read Fiction
by Addison McLamb I recently spent an hour looking at lists of “top leadership books.” There were a few books on psychology, some on strategy, and some on decision-making. Most were published in the last 5-10 years. None of the lists included any...
What Reading Taught Me About Living in 2023
By Joe Byerly Essayist Maria Popova recently wrote, “To look back on a year of reading is to be handed a clear mirror of your priorities and passions, of the questions that live in you and the reckonings that keep you up at night.”...
Building Mutual Trust: Candor, Clarity, and Curiosity
by Ryan Cornell-d’Echert In our organizations, how comfortable are people admitting they do not know? How often do we respond with, “Sir, I don’t have that information. I’ll take it as a due-out,” or “Ma’am, we should have thought of that. We’ll...
A Brittle Force: Grappling with Surging Military Suicides
by Greg Wall and Jacob Mays As we near the end of the calendar year, it seems that 2023 is likely to go down as the deadliest year in history for self-directed violence in the US military. In 2022 the DoD reported the highest Q1 suicide rate since...
Social Media is an Essential Tool For Modern Army Leaders
By Michael Everett Leaders in the 2023 military need to interact on social media. Period. Whether you like it or not, modern leadership has spilled over into the digital domain. If you fight the social media current, you will almost certainly meet...
Prioritizing Realistic Tactical and Operational Training for Maintainers
by Melissa Anne Czarnogursky Behind every Army vehicle, weapon, night vision device and communication equipment is a maintainer ensuring our fighting force is prepared to execute complex operations on an ever-changing battlefield. Equipment...
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A Gut Worth Trusting
by Dilan Swift and Daniel Phillips Much has been written about Frederick the Great’s “Coup d’oeil.” In translation, “stroke of the Eye” was coined to define one’s ability to observe, intuit, and correctly act in each situation. As combat arms...
Balancing People First and Mission Always
by Jia Wu and Howard Zhou General McConville’s “People First” prerogative states, “Now with people as the Army’s top priority…the Army will deliver on our readiness and modernization priorities. When we care about people, we get them in the...
An Uncomfortable Conversation
by Thomas Krasnican If the military wants to retain the trust and confidence of the American people, its leaders – from the most junior to the most senior – will have to do something that might feel a little bit uncomfortable. If we want to uphold...
Leading from the Overflow
by Jason Reynado We need to talk about leader burnout. With over a year of COVID-related restrictions while trying to maintain normal mission demands, I’m sure many of us are feeling the threat of burnout or worse – already running on fumes. Like...
Ethics: Breathing Life or Hot Air
By Benjamin Ordiway As a military, we profess that we are a values-based organization. We excel at writing about our values. Just look at our posters, vision statements, or the latest memo you and your staff crafted. Why, then, when we talk about...
Why Army Sustainment Units Need Gunnery Training
by Alan Farr In the past, the Army geared its gunnery program towards combat arms Military Occupational Specialties (MOS). The gunnery program trained combat Soldiers to be highly proficient on their assigned weapon platforms, mounted or...
A Real Sam Damon, Wearing a Marine Uniform
by ML Cavanaugh Editor’s Note: This article comes courtesy of our partnership with StrategyNotes.co. It’s hard to admit as an Army officer, but I’d like to be more like a Marine. LtCol Ben Middendorf—my roommate at West Point—was one of those odd...
Reflection, Resignation, and Resilience
by Don Gomez Editor’s Note: The following essay was the winner of our From Their Green Notebooks essay contest. For the contest, authors were asked to reflect on lessons learned in their favorite episode(s) of the From the Green Notebook...
Killing Zombies: How to Preserve your Organization’s ‘Brainpower’
By Jake Conrad We are all familiar with zombies. We see them plastered across pop culture in movies, video games, and television shows. You may have even read a full length novel about them! Today, zombies are everywhere. But what if I told you...
Life Calluses
by Michael Philbert I knew it would be hard, but I decided I would try anyway. I looked up, anticipating the energy it would take to jump and grasp the bars above. Could these tiny legs get this 200-pound body off the ground? I coiled my body and...
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