[November 17, 2023] “What’s the Boy Scouts?” I asked after my Dad said he’d signed me up as a brand-new Boy Scout. And the first meeting was that very night. Oh, great!! I started with the lowly rank of Tenderfoot. My brother was too young, so he had to stay home and help our Mom. He cried because… Read More »
[November 16, 2023] Sometime in early 2002, two Soldiers from my Engineer unit said something that shocked me. They said that they wished they had been on one of those planes that Muslim terrorists used to kill nearly 3,000 innocents on 9/11. Several officers and I were sitting around talking about preparing to go to war in Iraq.… Read More »
[November 10, 2023] I didn’t know it then, but I grew up privileged. Not with money, or status, or owning a big house or car or lots of clothes, but by being in the company of ordinary men, combat veterans from World War II and the Korean War, as well as those who served to protect us at… Read More »
[November 8, 2023] We’ve all seen supervisors who give excuses for employees who are failures in their jobs. Like the alcoholic whose family enables the alcoholic’s drinking behavior, leaders are also enabling failure in other leaders. Whatever the reason or excuse, there is an emerging trend in U.S. institutions where leaders fail to take quick, effective action to… Read More »
[November 6, 2023] An old observation in the U.S. Army says it’s easy to be a leader when things are going well, but bad leaders fail spectacularly when the going gets tough. I think that is the case at Harvard University. In a letter to Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, Bill Ackman delivers a devastating takedown of her monumental… Read More »
[November 4, 2023] Why is Veterans Day so unsatisfying? I have often thought about this question since I retired from the Army. No, I will not dismiss Veterans Day as a self-congratulatory holiday. However, to answer that question is not for the faint of heart because the answer forces us to expose the underbelly of American traditions, the… Read More »
[October 29, 2023] For people who need to find themselves, there is always Waldo Group Therapy – hmmm, just joking. This is a meme, or maybe not if you are one of today’s Gen Z snowflakes. Many of my peers, recently retired from the U.S. military, often fear for the future of America. The reason, they claim, is… Read More »
[October 24, 2023] This is a true hero from South Africa. Sgt Quentin Smythe won the Victoria Cross in the Western Desert. This is the highest military decoration awarded for valor “in the face of the enemy” to members of the British Armed Forces and various Commonwealth countries (of which South Africa is one). Upon the outbreak of… Read More »
[September 29, 2023] Few things scared me in my years as a kid. Maybe I was too busy doing kid “stuff,” running around with my friends, working at odd jobs around town, playing ball, fishing, swimming, playing in the woods, and just goofing off, to be scared. I did have a fear of getting beat up by the… Read More »
[September 9, 2023] A cursory read of my daily blog will lead you to quickly discover that much of my work is heavily influenced by Dr. Jordan Peterson. His work is most helpful to ordinary people because he has a coherent, positive message on living a meaningful life. You can read his “42 Rules for Life” here and… Read More »