REFLECT
Accepting Risk in a Postmodern Military: Reducing Dependency on Information Through Creative and Critical Thinking
by Marc Meybaum The radio squawks to life, a message flashes on the screen in front of you, and your cell phone vibrates on the dash. As you sit in your vehicle during a field training exercise you cannot escape the seemingly endless requests for...
Faithful and True: Lessons Learned at Combined Resolve XVI
by Samuel “Joe” Nirenberg During the past nine months, I was fortunate to command 1-5 FA while it served as a part of the rotational ABCT in support of Atlantic Resolve. Up front, I will say that the Atlantic Resolve mission allows...
The Top 10 Things I Learned as a Battalion Commander at the National Training Center
by Ethan Olberding Editor’s Note: Over the next week, we will be running a series of articles from 4-70 AR on their lessons learned at the National Training Center (NTC). Each article is unique in that it will present a different perspective from...
Do We Disdain Intellectual NCOs?
By Chris Melendez Former officer and scholar James Joyner critiqued anti-intellectualism within the U.S. military. Opinions will diverge on Joyner’s assessment on whether such bias exists or whether an ideal balance can be struck between the...
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...
Digital Dunkirk: Lessons Learned
On August 15, 2021, I doom-scrolled through social media feeds that tracked Kabul’s fall. By August 31, my phone had thousands of messages from hundreds of people I didn’t know two weeks before, and we’d helped some Afghan allies leave Afghanistan....
The Garrison Command Sergeant Major
By James Brasher You have been waiting for months and, finally, the Centralized Selection List (CSL) results are published. You have been wondering which brigade you are going to assume responsibility for. You open up the CSL, see your name, and...
Professional Fulfillment: How Finding Your Purpose Promotes Unit Cohesion
By Andrew J. Bibb The first time I took the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) I felt as if a massive burden had been lifted off my shoulders. My Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) scores were steadily declining as I aged. I was frustrated...
What are Chaplains For? Five Suggestions on How to Best Utilize the Chaplain
By Caleb Miller There are many guides for officers or NCOs to become better leaders. There are also guides for chaplains to improve. However, I see very little out there helping leaders develop, utilize or rate the chaplains in their midst. This...
Suicide is a Battle, I Could Not Fight It Alone
By Danita Darby On 25 May 2019, in Bagram, Afghanistan, I had reached the end of my rope. I was suspended from my command in February 2019, but that single situation is not why I am writing this. What I am writing about today is the fight I had...
Should I Go to SAMS?
By: Jim Greer Someone recently asked me, “Why should an officer attend SAMS (the US Army School of Advanced Military Studies)?” But, in fact I think that is exactly the wrong question. The question ought to be, “Why would any officer not want to...
10 Rules for the Iron Major
By. Chad Foster Lists of “rules” are always problematic because they are never really complete or perfect. There is ALWAYS a better way to phrase something or a key idea that gets left out. However, the list below is one that has stayed with me for...
The Field Grade Survival Kit
By Aaron Childers You are going into a survival situation and you can only bring ten things… Sometimes being a field grade is like being in a survival scenario. You have a lot to do, build shelter, find water, and search for food. All of these...
Generations of Veterans Now Face the Duty to Reshape America
I am pleased to share the following blog post, written by Team Rubicon Clay Hunt Fellow Crista Casas. Content courtesy of Team Rubicon. To learn more about their mission of continued service through disaster response,...
Choosing Action Over Apathy
I am pleased to share the following blog post, written by Team Rubicon Clay Hunt Fellow Brandon Callahan. Content courtesy of Team Rubicon. To learn more about their mission of continued service through disaster response, visit TeamRubiconUSA.org....
3 Simple Ways to Introduce Your Kids to History
Benjamin Franklins’s father, a tradesman, had a small library in their home that Ben used to develop his famous curiosity. General George Patton’s father read the Iliad and the Odyssey with young George before he was 10, not...
What was Patton’s 7th Quality of Great Leadership?
By Josh Bowen, author of 3×5 Leadership In the West Point’s special collections inventory resides Patton’s Elements of Strategy textbook from when he was a West Point Cadet back in 1909. This textbook was used for West Point’s “History...
The Machine Will Run Without You: A Checklist for Checking Out
By: Joan Sommers There are multiple reasons that take leaders out of the office and it’s not just TDY. Non-emergency surgery, NCO professional education schools, birth of a child, Ranger school, and the normal 30 days of leave a year will lead you...
Does Popularity Get You Promoted?
A few months ago I heard Mitch Prinstein on the Art of Manliness podcast and then read his book Popular: The Power of Likability in a Status-Obssessed World. I reached out to him and asked him about his thoughts on popularity’s linkage to...
Would Your Squad Leaders Attend Your Funeral?
By. Colonel Curt Taylor I recently heard General Dave Perkins, the Commanding General of TRADOC, describe a funeral for a senior general officer long retired. At the funeral he noted the attendance of several middle-aged men who had served...
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
When Bacteria Beats Bayonets
I originally published this post over at The Zen Pundit as part of The Thucydides Round Table, an eight week deep dive into an exceptional work of history. If you haven’t read Landmark Thucydides yet, I encourage you to pick up a copy,...
How Group Dynamics Brought Athens and Sparta to War
By Joe Byerly I originally published this post over at The Zen Pundit as part of The Thucydides Round Table, an eight week deep dive into an exceptional work of history. If you haven’t read Landmark Thucydides yet, I encourage you to...
Can Intellectuals Wear Muddy Boots?
Talent management is a hot topic today, and we increasingly read articles and blog posts that are very critical of the military’s management of its personnel. However, the tension between talent management and our promotion system is not a new one....
The Evolution of Leader Development
In 1920, as commander of 3rd Squadron, 3d Cavalry, then Colonel George S. Patton Jr. held a series of sixteen lectures in which we he imparted the lessons he had learned from a mixture of self study and his own experiences in World War I to the...
Surviving Headquarters Company Command
By CPT Scott Nusom There are few assignments in the Army that produce the same unique leadership challenge as commanding a headquarters and headquarters company (HHC) and what makes the HHC command so challenging is learning how to productively...
Leadership Starts with….Love?
By: Thomas E. Meyer “Regard your soldiers as your children and they will follow you into the deepest valleys. Look on them as your own beloved sons and they will stand by you even unto death.” –Sun Tzu; The Art of War A military leader’s first...
This Ain’t the First Time We Cut the Grass: Military Innovation in the Interwar Period
*This post originally appeared on February 18, 2016 via Tom Ricks’ Best Defense By Joe Byerly and Casey Dean In 1929, William Lassister, a veteran of the First World War, wrote the following: It is terribly difficult for military men to keep...
Don’t Be a Sisyphus: How to Lead Productive Teams
Whether you are a hard-charging company commander or battalion-level “Iron Major”, we all want to lead productive and effective organizations. We don’t want to work late hours, waste people’s time, or create unnecessary workloads and hardships....
Professional Development Opportunity: Future of War Conference
On March 10th the New America Foundation and Arizona State University will host their second annual Future of War Conference. The conference is streamed live, so it’s a great opportunity to take a brief pause in the work week and think about...
Shrinking Army: It’s Time to Focus on the “Why”
Further evidence that the Army is shrinking is found in a recent Army Times article, which announced that 20% of screened captains would be told it’s time to hang up the uniform. For those left behind, it could produce the devastating side effect...
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
Podcast
Listen to our latest episode.
Store
Support our work.
Get Involved
Learn how to partner with us.
Lead with the best version of yourself.
Sign up for our emails.