The Executive Officer is the right-hand man of the Commanding Officer. A position of big power, he is ultimately responsible for assisting the CO in his command of the ship. But, often the XO is made to make some of the more difficult decisions. While the Captain of the ship, is overall responsible for every […]
Apr 19 2018
The Importance of Our European Allies in a Modern Battlefield
To the surprise of very few in the defense community, President Trump responded to the latest Syrian gas attacks with a new barrage of missiles targeting chemical weapon facilities across Syria. The biggest difference between the response from a year ago is the fact that, this time, France and the U.K. joined in with some […]
Apr 18 2018
Knowing When to Call It Quits
Two of the most difficult moments in an investigator’s career revolves around knowing when to calling it quits. The first concerns retirement, knowing when to walk away from a career that has probably consumed most of your adult life. That is a personal decision I will not attempt to answer. The second involves knowing when […]
Apr 17 2018
In Memorium: R. Lee Ermey
America and its armed forces lost a national treasure over the weekend. R. Lee Ermey, famous for his portrayal of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket, passed away from complications related to pneumonia on April 15th. For a long time, Full Metal Jacket was one of the only war movies I had ever watched, […]
Apr 16 2018
Form Vs. Function: What It Means to Be Inducted as an NCO
The military is full of symbolic arches; in a short career of seven years, I’d walked through no less than five barriers that intangibly mark a new phase in a soldier’s career. The art of the rite of passage has been largely forgotten about in parts of the civilian world, relegated mostly to religious or […]
Apr 13 2018
Crossing the Line: A Shellback History
History has long forgotten the true beginning of the Shellback Ceremony. But, history has a way of making its way to the present. While the exact details of how the Crossing the Line Ceremony originated, historians estimate that it began over 400 years ago with the Vikings, as well as the Spanish, Italian and Portuguese […]
Apr 12 2018
Better Leaders Create Better Followers
One of the biggest questions new leaders ask themselves is “how can I make my troops better?” If you are not asking this question, you probably shouldn’t be a leader. Unfortunately, too many leaders focus on finding new training, more equipment, and other cost-prohibitive measures to achieve this goal when all they need to do […]
Apr 11 2018
Before You Go Part II – Right Gear, All Clear
In my last article, I focused on the knowledge you need to keep yourself safe and make the most of your travels on the government’s behalf. Responsibly researching your destination is a reliable way to take care of yourself, but there’s only so much you can learn before getting there. The other half of preparation […]
Apr 10 2018
Altay Tank
A lot of senior officers in the US military are worried that the nation’s weaponry is becoming dangerously out of date. For nearly two decades much of the military budget has been focused on the war against Islamic terrorism; before that came over another decade of spending cuts and force reductions. The result is that, […]
Apr 9 2018
Interservice Rivalries
We’ve all heard the jokes. Soldiers say that Marines eat crayons, Marines, and Soldiers joke that Airmen think deployments are rough if they don’t have wi-fi, everyone says navy folks are… well, the navy. It’s a standard that is as old as time. But the jokes are only the surface of the deeper inter-service rivalries […]
