[April 27, 2020] Many years ago, a friend of mine, Bill Johnson, was finishing the U.S. Infantry Basic Officer Course at Fort Benning, Georgia. An armor Captain that had been a mentor to Bill for many months suggested that my friend ask for an assignment at Fort Polk, Louisiana, after graduation. The mentor was giving bad advice. Back… Read More »
[April 27, 2020] I’ve been around performance reviews long enough to understand they have value. Written by someone who outranks the person rated, the evaluation has both good and bad points. But, some evaluations are truly valuable. Those criticisms from subordinates will frequently contain the starkest surprises and bluntness. As such, feedback from subordinates can knock a leader… Read More »
[April 26, 2020] In late 1775, on a sunny afternoon in Kinderhook, New York, several young women had gathered for a quilting bee. Suddenly, their peace was interrupted by a man who dropped in and commenced to harangue “against the Continental Congress.”1 The quiltmakers had had enough, they stripped the young man naked to the waist and commenced… Read More »
[April 25, 2020] The U.S. Army is a large organization. A common expectation is that once you meet a soldier, you may never see them again. While that is true, those in your peer group can become close friends. One such Army Engineer Officer and I were on similar career paths as officers. He had a problem that… Read More »
[April 24, 2020] Leadership means going into dark places no one wants to see. Those are the places where one must go if we are to succeed and where fear is greatest, but also where the brave dwell. That is the mark of a real leader, one who summons the courage to go places others surely fear. An… Read More »
[April 23, 2020] In December 2004, I had the opportunity to interview captured Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. During that brief encounter at his prison cell at Camp Victory in Baghdad, I asked him one question, “Why did the Americans defeat your army?” Honestly, I wasn’t expecting an answer. But he smiled and told me that “defeat” is a… Read More »
[April 22, 2020] It wasn’t that long ago that I was reading one of several books on U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and his prosecution of the Union side of the Civil War. The war was, in some sense, predictable, but no one was willing actually to do something to prepare for it. The possibility of war was just… Read More »
[April 21, 2020] In early spring of 1942, there was little that citizens of Paris cold look forward to during their German occupation. The Nazi war machine had taken nearly all of Europe, and the “city of lights” was now under the oppressive thumb of the German military. Shortly after noon on one sunny day, a lone RAF… Read More »
[April 20, 2020] We have all received bad advice from time to time. But it is our responsibility to either accept it, or not. When my friend Wilson was growing up with me, he asked our second-grade teacher what he should create for the upcoming annual science fair. The teacher told him to just ‘figure it out.’ That… Read More »
[April 19, 2020] Today, I would like to take a moment to discuss the novel, The Red Badge of Courage (1895)1 and link ideas in this fictional account of war to modern thinking on soldiering. As a young teenager, I discovered an old paperback copy stuffed in the back of my grandfather’s tool shed. My grandfather was born… Read More »