REFLECT
What Does the Chaplain Do?
By Benjamin Hockman “What does a chaplain do?” It was a question I had not really thought much about through the course of my military career up until then. It may have occurred to me, but if it did, it was too low on my list of priorities to...
Leadership in the Furnace: What Cancer Taught Me About Leading Others
By COL Ron Sprang Nearly three decades in the Army has taught me how to prepare for uncertainty. I trained for combat, deployed to war, commanded organizations, and learned to make decisions when lives and missions—not profits or promotions—were at...
Innovation Is a Command Problem
by LTC Yu-Sheng (Dave) Chen Military organizations operate with finite money, time, manpower, equipment, and leader attention. Picture those resources as a single pie. Every slice allocated to one priority inevitably comes at the expense of...
Teach Junior Officers How to Negotiate
By Jason Ruggieri A Coast Guard Boarding Team just denied entry of two million dollars’ worth of marijuana into the United States from an intercepted go-fast vessel somewhere in the Caribbean. As the flames from the sinking go-fast vessel faded...
Watchfulness and Industry: How a Revolutionary War General Conquered Imposter Syndrome
By Tanner Cook In the summer of 1775, a Rhode Island Quaker named Nathanael Greene experienced one of the most dizzying career leaps in military history. With no military experience of any kind, this career businessman was suddenly promoted from...
What Odysseus Knew About Coming Home: The Veteran’s Second Odyssey
By Joe Byerly Regardless of what you did in the military, how many times you deployed, how long you spent in uniform, or what rank you achieved, there is a common experience that unites all of us: the homecoming. And when I say homecoming, I’m not...
The Advice I Got From Outer Space
By Joe Byerly I was on a road trip with my family in May 2023 when I received a phone call from a Houston-area number. “Joe, this is Frank Rubio calling from the International Space Station. Our mutual friend Jon passed me your number. Is now a...
Congratulations on Your Promotion to MAJ! Here is a Dumpster Fire: Lessons from Two First-Year KD Majors
By Sam Balch and Sara Roger Nobody warns you. They just hand you the keys, wish you luck, and walk away. The first year of key development (KD) time as a Major is unlike anything that comes before it. For the first time in your career, the...
Protecting Patches of Weeds
By Joe Byerly One of the Czars of Russia, walking through his park, came upon a sentry standing guard over a small patch of weeds. Curious, the Czar asked what he was doing there. The sentry didn’t know. He simply replied that he had been ordered...
The Internal AAR: What to Do After a Bad Evaluation (or a Great One)
By Steven Prater “You just did your job.” Those words still resonate with me. The moment my Senior Rater hit me in my own self-worth during one of my previous evaluations. If you are in the military long enough, you will eventually hear words...
Leadership in the Furnace: What Cancer Taught Me About Leading Others
By COL Ron Sprang Nearly three decades in the Army has taught me how to prepare for uncertainty. I trained for combat, deployed to war, commanded organizations, and learned to make decisions when lives and missions—not profits or promotions—were at...
Watchfulness and Industry: How a Revolutionary War General Conquered Imposter Syndrome
By Tanner Cook In the summer of 1775, a Rhode Island Quaker named Nathanael Greene experienced one of the most dizzying career leaps in military history. With no military experience of any kind, this career businessman was suddenly promoted from...
What Odysseus Knew About Coming Home: The Veteran’s Second Odyssey
By Joe Byerly Regardless of what you did in the military, how many times you deployed, how long you spent in uniform, or what rank you achieved, there is a common experience that unites all of us: the homecoming. And when I say homecoming, I’m not...
The Advice I Got From Outer Space
By Joe Byerly I was on a road trip with my family in May 2023 when I received a phone call from a Houston-area number. “Joe, this is Frank Rubio calling from the International Space Station. Our mutual friend Jon passed me your number. Is now a...
Congratulations on Your Promotion to MAJ! Here is a Dumpster Fire: Lessons from Two First-Year KD Majors
By Sam Balch and Sara Roger Nobody warns you. They just hand you the keys, wish you luck, and walk away. The first year of key development (KD) time as a Major is unlike anything that comes before it. For the first time in your career, the...
Protecting Patches of Weeds
By Joe Byerly One of the Czars of Russia, walking through his park, came upon a sentry standing guard over a small patch of weeds. Curious, the Czar asked what he was doing there. The sentry didn’t know. He simply replied that he had been ordered...
The Internal AAR: What to Do After a Bad Evaluation (or a Great One)
By Steven Prater “You just did your job.” Those words still resonate with me. The moment my Senior Rater hit me in my own self-worth during one of my previous evaluations. If you are in the military long enough, you will eventually hear words...
Knowing What Something Isn’t
By Joe Byerly There are some things I know with 100% certainty. I know purpose isn’t something someone else can hand you. I know you can’t warm up a Chick-fil-A sandwich in the microwave while it’s still inside one of those tinfoil-lined bags. And...
Family Fitness Opportunities: A Father’s Day Gift from Afghanistan
By Joe Byerly When I returned from Afghanistan as the world was shutting down in March of 2020, I struggled to regain my footing. I missed the mission, the people, and the sense of purpose that had been the heartbeat of deployments during the...
How LinkedIn Upped My Military Game
by Stephen T. Messenger As a U.S. Army officer, I never had much need nor desire to interact on LinkedIn. After all, it’s for people job hunting, not military professionals, right? I understood it to be like any other social media platform, only...
What Does the Chaplain Do?
By Benjamin Hockman “What does a chaplain do?” It was a question I had not really thought much about through the course of my military career up until then. It may have occurred to me, but if it did, it was too low on my list of priorities to...
Leadership in the Furnace: What Cancer Taught Me About Leading Others
By COL Ron Sprang Nearly three decades in the Army has taught me how to prepare for uncertainty. I trained for combat, deployed to war, commanded organizations, and learned to make decisions when lives and missions—not profits or promotions—were at...
Innovation Is a Command Problem
by LTC Yu-Sheng (Dave) Chen Military organizations operate with finite money, time, manpower, equipment, and leader attention. Picture those resources as a single pie. Every slice allocated to one priority inevitably comes at the expense of...
Teach Junior Officers How to Negotiate
By Jason Ruggieri A Coast Guard Boarding Team just denied entry of two million dollars’ worth of marijuana into the United States from an intercepted go-fast vessel somewhere in the Caribbean. As the flames from the sinking go-fast vessel faded...
The Advice I Got From Outer Space
By Joe Byerly I was on a road trip with my family in May 2023 when I received a phone call from a Houston-area number. “Joe, this is Frank Rubio calling from the International Space Station. Our mutual friend Jon passed me your number. Is now a...
Congratulations on Your Promotion to MAJ! Here is a Dumpster Fire: Lessons from Two First-Year KD Majors
By Sam Balch and Sara Roger Nobody warns you. They just hand you the keys, wish you luck, and walk away. The first year of key development (KD) time as a Major is unlike anything that comes before it. For the first time in your career, the...
How LinkedIn Upped My Military Game
by Stephen T. Messenger As a U.S. Army officer, I never had much need nor desire to interact on LinkedIn. After all, it’s for people job hunting, not military professionals, right? I understood it to be like any other social media platform, only...
In the Wake of a Leader’s Suicide: Leading Through Grief, Readiness, and Organizational Complexity
By Colonel Laura Weimer The burden of command is heavy. In early 2023, I felt that immense weight of responsibility coupled with personal pain and grief. Seven months into command of a division Headquarters Battalion (HHBN), one of my company...
Gambling with Influence: Don’t Bet Your Life on Someone Else’s Promise
By Joe Byerly I sat across from the Army general during my initial counseling, just a few months into squadron command. He talked about the two years of command ahead of me. But when he moved on to my next career move, I interrupted him. “Sir, I...
Saber Junction 25: Reflections of a Regimental Commander
By COL Donald Neal, 83rd Commander, 2nd Cavalry Regiment Just five more minutes of sleep. In the tranquil pre-dawn hours of Saber Junction 25, I learned a commander’s lesson that no field manual could fully encapsulate. I awoke to the sounds of...
What Does the Chaplain Do?
By Benjamin Hockman “What does a chaplain do?” It was a question I had not really thought much about through the course of my military career up until then. It may have occurred to me, but if it did, it was too low on my list of priorities to...
Leadership in the Furnace: What Cancer Taught Me About Leading Others
By COL Ron Sprang Nearly three decades in the Army has taught me how to prepare for uncertainty. I trained for combat, deployed to war, commanded organizations, and learned to make decisions when lives and missions—not profits or promotions—were at...
Innovation Is a Command Problem
by LTC Yu-Sheng (Dave) Chen Military organizations operate with finite money, time, manpower, equipment, and leader attention. Picture those resources as a single pie. Every slice allocated to one priority inevitably comes at the expense of...
Teach Junior Officers How to Negotiate
By Jason Ruggieri A Coast Guard Boarding Team just denied entry of two million dollars’ worth of marijuana into the United States from an intercepted go-fast vessel somewhere in the Caribbean. As the flames from the sinking go-fast vessel faded...
Watchfulness and Industry: How a Revolutionary War General Conquered Imposter Syndrome
By Tanner Cook In the summer of 1775, a Rhode Island Quaker named Nathanael Greene experienced one of the most dizzying career leaps in military history. With no military experience of any kind, this career businessman was suddenly promoted from...
Congratulations on Your Promotion to MAJ! Here is a Dumpster Fire: Lessons from Two First-Year KD Majors
By Sam Balch and Sara Roger Nobody warns you. They just hand you the keys, wish you luck, and walk away. The first year of key development (KD) time as a Major is unlike anything that comes before it. For the first time in your career, the...
In the Wake of a Leader’s Suicide: Leading Through Grief, Readiness, and Organizational Complexity
By Colonel Laura Weimer The burden of command is heavy. In early 2023, I felt that immense weight of responsibility coupled with personal pain and grief. Seven months into command of a division Headquarters Battalion (HHBN), one of my company...
Saber Junction 25: Reflections of a Regimental Commander
By COL Donald Neal, 83rd Commander, 2nd Cavalry Regiment Just five more minutes of sleep. In the tranquil pre-dawn hours of Saber Junction 25, I learned a commander’s lesson that no field manual could fully encapsulate. I awoke to the sounds of...
Non-Judicial Punishment: The Authority We Are Least Trained to Wield
By LTC Steven Huckleberry Commanders are entrusted with many authorities, but few are as consequential, and as little prepared for, as the execution of non-judicial punishment (NJP) under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Unlike...
From Participation to Domination: How Units Can “WIN” the Officer Army Talent Alignment Process (ATAP)
If you don’t invest in the people who power your mission, don’t be surprised when the mission fails. – General Stanley McChrystal by Edward Prueitt The Army Talent Alignment Process (ATAP) has fundamentally transformed...
Family Fitness Opportunities: A Father’s Day Gift from Afghanistan
By Joe Byerly When I returned from Afghanistan as the world was shutting down in March of 2020, I struggled to regain my footing. I missed the mission, the people, and the sense of purpose that had been the heartbeat of deployments during the...
Why We PT (Together), and Why You Should Too
by Garrett M. Searle In 2014, Admiral William McRaven, then Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, made a famous speech at a commencement ceremony for his alma mater, the University of Texas. The thesis of his address was the importance of...
Why FightCamp Is the Perfect Garage Gym Setup for Veterans Getting Back in Shape
By Joe Byerly After 20 years in the military, staying physically fit is hardwired into who I am. But I’ll be honest, my body doesn’t bounce back the way it used to. My knees aren’t fans of long runs or high-impact workouts like CrossFit anymore,...
Make Combat Arms Fit Again
by Michael E. Pittman While serving as a basic training drill sergeant for incoming infantry soldiers at Fort Moore, Georgia, I saw a steady decline in overall fitness. In the past, trainees were easily able to pass the 1-1-1 assessment (1 minute...
Welded Into a Fine Unit of Teamwork: The Role of Recreational Sports
By Shayne Harrell In December of 1946, my grandfather, Private First Class Peyton E. Harrell, received a letter of appreciation from Colonel Percy E. LeStourgeon, commander of the 349th Infantry Regiment. The letter recounts the outcome of the 88th...
Mission and Motherhood: Tools for Leading Pregnant and Postpartum Soldiers
By Katie Walter I was terrified when I discovered I was pregnant as a young Second Lieutenant in the Armor branch. Among the other stressors of pregnancy and raising a child, I was nervous my Squadron’s leaders might view me negatively for being...
Don’t Read This, Just Go To Bed
by Chris Murray In 2015, as a young Infantry lieutenant, I found myself once again in a crowded, overheated battalion conference room. I was attending what seemed to be the hundredth staff meeting since I had arrived at the unit two months earlier...
Who Cares if Soldiers Look Fat? Reimagining the Army’s Body Composition Program
by Brennan Deveraux & Katie Haapala For the past few years, the Army has prioritized a holistic approach to health and fitness, epitomized by the service’s overhaul of its physical fitness test. However, the Army’s establishment of its new...
ACFT 3.5: How the Army can Meet Congressional Guidance without Resorting to Gender Discrimination
by Kristen M. Griest I wrote an op-ed through the Modern War Institute in February advocating against the implementation of ACFT 3.0, the latest version of the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT). The new updates to this test include the option to...
Lessons Learned in Large Scale ACFT Testing
by Sarah Ferreira Since 2018, my unit has been executing the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) on a large scale, meaning that we test large groups of Soldiers continuously throughout a single duty day. We found that we can test a battalion size...
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