Articles
How to Make a Great Cup of Coffee with Carl Churchill
Alpha Coffee co-founder and retired Army lieutenant colonel Carl Churchill joins Joe for a candid conversation on leadership, resilience, and what it really takes to build something that lasts after the uniform comes off. After serving more...
Four Reasons to Write a Book Review
by Caleb Miller Have you ever met someone with a goal to write a certain number of words a week? How much quality content are they actually producing? Have you ever met anyone with a goal to read a certain number of pages a day or books...
A Leader’s True North – Start with the Golden Rule (Yeah, that one)
By CSM Scott Dinse A young leader has plenty of reason to be confused about what effective leadership looks and/or feels like. We have books, podcasts, experts, and even celebrities telling us what we should be doing and how we should be getting it...
Adjusting the Learning Curve to Mentor the Workforce of the Future
by Chaveso “Chevy” Cook Recruiting and retaining top talent, especially from younger generations, is a hot topic, regardless of the workforce context. From managing Millennials, Gen Z, and incoming Gen Alpha in our workspaces, to garnering their...
The Need to Lead (Without Ego) with Dave Berke
Retired Marine Corps fighter pilot, Top Gun instructor, and leadership consultant Dave Berke joins Joe for an honest conversation about ego, responsibility, and what it truly means to lead—both in the arena of combat and in everyday life. As the...
An Open Letter to NCOs: Reclaiming Developmental Counseling
By: Gustavo Arguello Let’s be honest: most leaders feel that they are stretched thinner than a supply sergeant’s budget at the end of the fiscal year. Between deployments, training exercises, training meetings, and the endless admin requirements,...
The View We Never Get
By Joe Byerly It’s like looking down from a mountain top and seeing it all. I know everything that’s going to happen to him. As he struggles through college algebra, I know he’s going to be just fine and earn his degree. As he wrestles with...
From So What to Therefore
This is part II of a two-part series for intelligence officers. Read part I here. By Louis Crist Have you ever been told, “Just give me the ‘so what’!” I saw this over and over again as an OC/T, watching commanders frustratingly critique their S2s...
Think Like a Commander
By Lou Crist Several years ago, during an interview, I was asked, “What is the most important thing an S2 does?” The question took me aback. After some thought, I answered that the S2 should impart their understanding of the enemy to the commander....
Ep 165: Fascism, Communism, and the War for Middle-Earth with Joe Loconte
Dr. Joseph Loconte joins Joe for a powerful exploration of faith, imagination, and courage in times of crisis—how two Oxford professors used story to resist the darkness of their age and inspire generations to come. As a historian and author...
Why Military Leaders Should Study Human Nature
By Joe Byerly This is the first question, in a five question interview with author Robert Greene. Joe: You’ve spent decades researching and writing about power, mastery, and war. In your latest book, The Laws of Human Nature, you have written what...
Warfare Has Moved On: The New Rules of War
By Joe Byerly One of my favorite books this year is Sean McFate’s The New Rules of War: Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder. Sean challenges everything I’ve learned over the last 15 years, and I can’t help but wonder if...
Five Army Commanders Worth Studying
This post originally appeared at Modern War Institute on January 8, 2019 By Joe Byerly When we begin our military careers we have choices when it comes to how we’ll develop our leadership abilities. We can, for example, go through our careers...
Want More Military Leaders Reading? Use The Pabst Blue Ribbon Strategy
By Joe Byerly Most military professionals agree that reading plays a critical role in professional development, however, the practice isn’t as widespread as it should be throughout the services. Unfortunately, self-development is about as...
August Cole, Science Fiction, and Whiskey: It’s a Thing
As February comes to a close, where are you at with the status of those New Year’s goals you made over a month ago? Are those resolutions nothing more than a distant memory? Whether it was a plan to exercise more, eat healthy, or finally quit a...
From Hal Moore’s Bookshelf: What He Underlined
By David Moore My father, LTG Hal Moore, passed away two years ago on this day -10 February, three days shy of his 95th birthday. The purpose of this article is to not seek empathy but to use the occasion to reinforce a few beliefs that...
General Donn Starry on Leadership
By Joe Byerly As military leaders we should want nothing more than to give our enemies an unfair fight—with the advantage in our favor. And one way in which we do this is through training our forces. I can’t think of anyone who has written as...
How to Increase Your Professional Reading
We all can agree that reading is good for the brain. Leaders from George Washington to General Patton leaned on books to fill their knowledge gaps, and their efforts paid off on the battlefield. Former Defense Secretary James Mattis reflected on...
5 Lessons Books Taught Me in 2018
Since 2013, I’ve written an annual blog post highlighting my favorite books from the previous 12 months. This year I wanted to try something different. I wanted to share some of the lessons I learned from the list of 40+ books I read....
8 Must-Read Science Fiction Books
Within the last few years, we’ve witnessed the evolution of biohacking, the rise of a state-based social credit system, and a US election influenced by the use of artificial intelligence. Futurists might be able to follow the thread...
The Day I Took Command: Leading Through Crisis and Learning Command in Real-Time
By Joe Hap The call came late. My commander had been in a serious accident. Suddenly, everything I thought I knew about leadership changed. In an instant, I wasn’t preparing for command—I was living it. No ceremony. No speeches. Just a...
The Power of Patience
by CPT Benjamin L. Kenneaster Patience is power. Patience is not an absence of action; rather it is “timing”. It waits on the right time to act, for the right principle and in the right way.-Fulton J. Sheen A Forgotten Principle An article from...
The Walls We Build
By Joe Byerly About a year ago, I got into an argument with my wife that spiraled way beyond what we were actually talking about. It began with a question about where to go for breakfast, but escalated into a full-blown shouting match. She said one...
The Tone Range Fan: A Tool for Leaders at All Levels
By COL Ed Arntson and LTC Erik Miller “We must strive to become experts in the human dimension. Wars are fought on land, by humans, and we must always work to become better at how we interact with one another to build trust and cohesion.” – GEN...
What is Power?
By Joe Byerly Two Army officers stand across from each other. Both are in their mid-50s. One slightly older, but only by a few years. Both wear stars on their shoulders. Both have commanded thousands of troops—the elder, tens of thousands. The...
Representing the Uniform, Even When It’s Not On
By Noah Jager When we wake up in the morning and put on the uniform, sometimes freshly pressed or other times rumpled and grabbed from a rucksack, we are expected to uphold the standards that come with our service. With the American flag strapped...
My Commander Is Available 24/7: Is Yours?
By Mike Eads If military leadership is built on presence, experience, and decisiveness, then my commander is unmatched. He is always available—ready to provide guidance, review plans, refine decisions, and offer precise feedback at any hour of the...
Why ‘In the Meantime’ Is the Only Time
By Joe Byerly I’ve been thinking a lot about how we treat the present versus how we imagine the future We’re often too harsh on the present and too idealistic about the future. In the present, we don’t have enough time. We’re too busy. Too many...
![The [Re-iterated] Case for an Apolitical Military](https://fromthegreennotebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/what_does_the_army_do_trooper_ed2e097d-fe4d-45f3-a043-218f4b64bde1-1080x675.webp)
The [Re-iterated] Case for an Apolitical Military
by Brett Tinder We are not political pundits. Our service does not strip us of our rights to vote, but faithful adherence to American civil-military relations requires an ambivalence to political change. An apolitical military benefits the...
The Picture of Captain Dorian Gray
By Micah Ables There’s a portrait hidden in the closet of every company commander – one that bears every unspeakable thing they have to see, hear, and carry. To every young commander or first sergeant who’s seen more than any one person...
4 Tips for Selling Your Ideas
By Joe Byerly Have you ever had an idea you thought was solid gold, but when you presented it to your boss or coworkers it fell on deaf ears? Maybe it wasn’t that your idea was bad. Maybe it was you. Hear me out: Sometimes our ideas ARE solid...
4 Tips from Sir Winston Churchill to Write Better Emails
By Joe Byerly Emails- They are the bane of our existence, but they are how we communicate in the modern world. Each day, military leaders clean out their inboxes only to have them fill back up within hours. Unfortunately, quantity doesn’t...
A Toast to Small Wars Journal
By Joe Byerly Much like many of the biggest comedians today can trace their beginnings back to the same comedy club, there are countless national security writers and senior military leaders who can trace their intellectual roots back to Small Wars...
How to Write as a Thinker-Practitioner
By Vincent A. Dueñas In his treatise, Why Don’t We Learn from History, B.H. Liddell Hart opens the first chapter with a general discussion of history and its merit. In describing the advancements of the conduct of warfare over the course of history...
An Open Letter to Battalion Commanders: How to Use Social Media
By Scotty Autin Commanders- I feel like most of us are missing an opportunity. We’re missing a chance to get the command messages out to audiences and shape the narrative of our units. More so, we’re missing a chance to talk directly to...
Why I Write: Pressing the Button
By Joe Byerly The following is an excerpt from the book, Why I Write: Craft Essays on Writing War, scheduled to be published by Middle West Press in December 2019. The one-of-a-kind anthology from the non-profit Military Writers Guild features...
Feedback Matters: How Poor Communication Can Lead to Bad Job Performance
By Joe Byerly (This post originally appeared on ClearanceJobs.com) Have you ever been caught off guard with a performance evaluation? Have you ever found out that the great job you thought you were doing wasn’t so great after all? I believe that...
Learn and Look Before You Tweet
Some things you should understand before jumping headfirst into the information environment By Larry Kay Last week was “media literacy week,” which unlike national doughnut and Twinkie day, should be elevated to a more prominent occasion given how...
Risk and Reward
By Josh Powers Last week, General Abrams (@DogFaceSoldier on Twitter) published a short article encouraging more senior leader engagement on social media. Titled Social Media: Senior Leaders Need to Get on the Bus, the article provides ten reasons...
Avoiding the Echo Chamber: Digital Media Leader Engagement and Education
By: L.M. Hughes In the wake of #AUSADigital2019, one of the most brilliant conversations I’ve seen on effective leader engagement on social media, led by From the Green Notebook’s very own Megan Jantos, I kept noticing how panelists and...
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