ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

Remember the days when you stepped outside of your barracks room or your military housing quarters, standing tall, looking good, feeling good and ready to take on the day? You looked down at your boots and your chest swelled with pride as you admired the product on your feet. The product was a set of immaculate-looking boots you had spent hours working on the night before.

How many of you think back to the days of polishing and spit shining your boots? Many service members went so far as to use Leather Luster to make their boots pop and bling from a distance without having to do the work...

The world is rapidly becoming more dangerous and complex, which inherently forces leaders to plan, prepare, execute and assess against shortened timelines and decision cycles. Because of this, it is extremely important that leaders at all levels embrace the concept of warfighting-driven data to understand, communicate, decide and act.

Military theorist Carl von Clausewitz stated, “War is the realm of uncertainty.” It is in this uncertainty that we seek to find understanding when trying to keep formations informed and to lead with competence and confidence. Today’s scholars often refer to...

The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on Army readiness. Units had to change how they operated. Once-straightforward tasks, such as housing, feeding and training soldiers, grew significantly more complex as units operated under strict COVID protocols. Units took on myriad additional COVID-related responsibilities, such as screening, testing, quarantining, treating and vaccinating personnel.

Units learned to accomplish these unfamiliar tasks largely through trial and error as garrison emergency managers and public health officers were quickly overwhelmed and unable to support unit...

Occupation Duty Requires Discipline

The American Army in Germany, 1918–1923: Success Against the Odds. Dean Nowowiejski. University Press of Kansas. 376 pages. $49.95

By Col. Gregory Fontenot, U.S. Army retired

The American Army in Germany, 1918–1923: Success Against the Odds, by Dean Nowowiejski, makes an important contribution to the historiography of the U.S. Army and is a useful addition to every professional soldier’s library for several reasons. Nowowiejski’s analysis of the Army’s occupation of the Rhine bridgehead in the years after World War I illustrates the importance...

I took a course on constitutional law as a cadet and have led multiple officers through the recitation of the oath of office at promotion ceremonies. However, I did not think deeply about the Constitution, the commission or the oath of office for most of my 30 years in uniform.

That changed when my brigade commander gave me a copy of The Armed Forces Officer after our 2012 deployment to Afghanistan. The book is available in a new edition published in 2017 by the National Defense University Press. The authors, Richard Swain and Albert Pierce, succinctly state, “The commission and the oath...

Russian aggression against Ukraine is a stark reminder that war remains violent, human and unpredictable. And no matter where wars are fought, they can only be won on land.

Yet as eyes focus on Eastern Europe, geostrategic weight continues to concentrate in the Indo-Pacific, which is home to more than half of the world’s people, nearly two-thirds of the world’s economy and seven of the world’s largest militaries. The region’s international commons—the high seas and airspace—are vital to global commerce, and the United States’ own westernmost border spans from Hawaii to the territories of...

The U.S. Army exists to deploy, fight and win the nation’s wars. Every person in the Army, regardless of their duty, educational background, warfighting function or rank, is part of a greater team. The team is unified around a single purpose of defending America’s freedom and protecting human dignity worldwide. The inherent strength of the Army is drawn from the diversity of its people, who represent the wide-ranging backgrounds of Americans. While diversity is often interpreted narrowly as a proxy for demographic differences, we advocate for an expanded view of diversity—one that is focused...

The U.S. Army exists to deploy, fight and win the nation’s wars. Every person in the Army, regardless of their duty, educational background, warfighting function or rank, is part of a greater team. The team is unified around a single purpose of defending America’s freedom and protecting human dignity worldwide. The inherent strength of the Army is drawn from the diversity of its people, who represent the wide-ranging backgrounds of Americans. While diversity is often interpreted narrowly as a proxy for demographic differences, we advocate for an expanded view of diversity—one that is focused...

The U.S. Army exists to deploy, fight and win the nation’s wars. Every person in the Army, regardless of their duty, educational background, warfighting function or rank, is part of a greater team. The team is unified around a single purpose of defending America’s freedom and protecting human dignity worldwide. The inherent strength of the Army is drawn from the diversity of its people, who represent the wide-ranging backgrounds of Americans. While diversity is often interpreted narrowly as a proxy for demographic differences, we advocate for an expanded view of diversity—one that is focused...

The existence of Army Watercraft Systems and the capabilities they offer remain a revelation to many. However, the enabling effect these seagoing vessels provide to the joint force and the Indo-Pacific region is undeniable.

The Army has played an integral role in joint overseas expeditions and joint war plans since the establishment of the Joint Army and Navy Board in 1903. Army amphibious operations began as a joint venture under the command of the Navy, but over time, the Army assumed command responsibility of its amphibious formations and operations.

In the early 1940s, Gen. Douglas...

As the Army begins modernization, the 27 National Guard brigade combat teams will need to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of training events. The most critical challenges facing these teams will be maintaining readiness to meet joint force demands while simultaneously harvesting adequate time for modernizing equipment and systems.

Simply adding more training days should not be the first option to solve this time constraint and would mask any inefficiencies already present in the training glide path.

Once modernization begins, the time needed to field and train on new...

Former Ranger Pens His Combat Story

We March at Midnight: A War Memoir. Ray McPadden. Blackstone Publishing. 240 pages. $26.99

By Command Sgt. Maj. Jimmie Spencer, U.S. Army retired

True warriors are defined by their deeds, not their words, and by their unwavering commitment to mission accomplishment. They are highly motivated and prepared to endure the hardship and suffering they encounter along the way. We March at Midnight: A War Memoir, by award-winning author Ray McPadden, is a candid chronology by a true 21st century warrior.

McPadden delivers a powerful and intimate...

Feedback is an essential component of the developmental journey of all leaders. Despite feedback being a core component of the Army’s leadership doctrine, and a topic widely researched within organizational behavior, leaders still struggle to effectively leverage this tool to develop subordinates and improve their performance. Too often, leaders’ use of feedback is either sparse, solely focused on assessment or diluted. It becomes diluted when leaders attempt too much by pairing assessment with developmental feedback, which usually lands poorly and confuses the receiving subordinate.

Army...

The Medal of Honor is the most revered and highest award for military valor in action. Since the decoration’s inception in 1861, for the Navy, the medal has been bestowed in the name of Congress 3,530 times, including on one woman and on 19 individuals who have received multiple awards.

The standards to award the medal have evolved over time. On July 25, 1963, Congress approved guidelines and established the current criteria to recognize “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of one’s life above and beyond the call of duty.”

Secretary of War Edwin Stanton first bestowed the...

After decades of preparing to repel Soviet and Warsaw Pact armies pouring through the Fulda Gap, the warfighting focus of the U.S. and our allies pivoted sharply in the fall of 2001. The Cold War era of strategic competition gave way to the global war on terrorism. Now, the focus of our armed forces is shifting again; great-power competition has returned. While the mission to defeat global terrorism remains, growing threats to the U.S. and our allies from near-peer competitors demand our attention. These threats manifest globally and in every warfighting domain with increasing intensity. The U...