Back in 2006, enough years ago that someone who joined in that year could be retiring in this one, I faced a choice. I was a third-year law student, a year late graduating because I spent what should have been my final year in law school in Iraq, chasing people someone else determined were “high-value targets.” Now I call it my ISIS recruiting tour, but leading Force Recon Marines in combat was a life goal for fifteen-year-old me, and I was happy to be there, strategic utility be damned. But it was temporary. And dislocating.

By the time I returned to law school, I was in no mental place to care about briefs or esoteric judicial opinions. I did finish and take the bar exam, becoming a fifth-generation lawyer in the process. But on graduation, I decided life as a grunt, later Raider, was better for me and resumed active duty life to help build Marine Corps Forces, Special Operations Command. I stayed there, or somewhere else in U.S. Special Operations Command, for sixteen years.

Much of my reason for returning and staying was honor and integrity. Not so much my own, but that presumed inherent to the profession amongst the American citizenry. I am a guy who deeply loves and respects the American notion of equality before the law (something we’ve always been better at saying than doing), but with the shyster lawyer a common stereotype, I felt my needs were better served in uniform.

I am not sure I could use the same calculus in 2026, because we’re giving it away.

I still believe deeply in the military’s transformational power. Given the generosity of the American taxpayer regarding benefits, if a kid from below the American poverty line can qualify to join (a big if in a nation in which only 25% of eighteen-year-olds are fit for duty), a simple four-year enlistment can change the trajectory of their life, and that of their subsequent generations. I’ve seen it happen. Staying for a full career and earning a pension, disability checks, education benefits, and lifetime medical care places any military retiree in the “exorbitant wealth” strata compared to the rest of the world. Ask me how I know.

But all the foregoing imputes a duty for every uniformed member to hold the line even when our civilian masters don’t. We are to be apolitical, removed from certain decisions, even when they affect our very survivability, and focused on duty over self, eschewing anything that could call into question our loyalties to anything but the Constitution of these United States. Now I increasingly see our military politicized from without and within. And it’s really dangerous. Moreover, it’s antithetical to the entire premise of civil-military relations and fundamental good order and discipline.

Back in March, some US Army pilots chose to swing by Kid Rock’s house for reasons unknown to me. Bawitdaba and all that, I guess. The Army did what the Army should do in such cases and convened an Article 15-6 investigation. That’s standard. I’ve assigned an untold number as an executive officer, though they are called preliminary investigations and command investigations in the Corps. Investigations don’t even mean there’s guilt. They just mean something abnormal happened, and someone needs to figure out if it’s a problem or not. Often, that’s the first junior officer the XO comes across, but as a member of a joint command, I did a 15-6 investigation in Afghanistan when an Army Colonel had me, a Marine Lieutenant Colonel, investigate a Sergeant First Class to insulate that soldier from potential blowback we were pretty certain he did not deserve before anyone higher in the chain could get stupid. The investigation proved the soldier did what he was supposed to do, and things went weird anyway, through no fault of his. All was well.

But this time, the Secretary of Defense reached down past the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Chief of Staff of the Army, the Commanding General, Eighteenth Airborne Corps, the Commanding General, 101^st Airborne Division, the Commanding Officer, 101^st Aviation Brigade, the Commanding Officer of the relevant battalion, and the Commanding Officer of the relevant company to cancel the investigation. Nothing to see here, it works for our political optics, so it must be good. A few days later, Secretary Hegseth and Mr. Rock took flights in an AH-64 to drive home the point that...what? Military discipline doesn’t matter? That the screwdriver of fuckery stretches all the way from Washington, DC, to Fort Campbell? If it was the last one, they were late. President Lyndon Johnson managed to stretch the thing from DC all the way to Saigon, Vietnam, now called Ho Chi Minh City.

We saw it again in Iraq in 2003 (see: Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Coalition Provisional Authority Leader L. Paul Bremer), and pretty much every phase of Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021 (see: every President during those years, to say nothing of the fecklessness of military leadership).

In a much more authoritative article on the issue of Kid Rock and political fuckery, former Army infantry officer Jason Dempsey and former Army Special Forces non-commissioned officer Mathew Rambo (note: best name ever for a Green Beret) assert, “Attendees at the No Kings rally may view these pilots and the military as willing agents of one party, while fans of Kid Rock are likely to view the Army as more on their side. Both viewpoints degrade the reputation of a military in service to all Americans.”

That last bit is what matters.

I returned to the military because I believed that the honor of being in a profession in which honor is the benchmark was worth giving up everything else I had before me. But that honor only remains if we earn it every day by holding to our side of the bargain, and as I see it, we are allowing military service to be increasingly subordinated to, or used in branding of, politics. That’s to be expected of politicians and partisans. They are, by definition, not honor-based, but rather creatures of expedience. What’s good for them is good, period. But when uniformed servicemembers charged with protecting it are rolling over and giving it up without a fight, when we live by the code of our civilian masters, all is lost.

You want to see an example of who to be in such a case? Google “Lieutenant General Greg Newbold + Iraq+ Resignation”. He’s said plenty of things I disagree with since, but in 2002, he gave a clinic on how to serve and what to do when you can’t. Not enough people know his name.

I am retired now. At best, I sit on the sidelines, my varsity jacket stained and smelling just a bit of mothballs. Maybe I should hang it in the closet and go on with my life, let political appointees who seem more like fraternity rush chairmen than serious thinkers and leaders do what they’re going to do. But I spent twenty-seven years in uniform, and there is this pesky thing called the Constitution and my continuing obligation thereunto, and so, I speak.

I hope you will, too. You can call me a “pinko commie” or a “literal fascist” per the dictates of your strongly held biases at lethalmindjournal.submissions@gmail.com.

Fire for Effect,

Russell Worth Parker

Editor in Chief - Lethal Minds Journal

Dedicated to those who serve, those who have served, and those who paid the final price for their country.

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In This Issue

Across the Force

The Lance Corporal's Pack: An Operational Approach to Robotic Warfare

The Network is the Weapon: Forging the Robotic-Tactician and Collapsing the Kill Chain

Reclaiming the Night

The Written Word

Yorktown: A New Beginning

Rope and Choke

June 9th

Poetry and Art

“Decision Point”

Across the Force

Written work on the profession of arms. Lessons learned, conversations on doctrine, and mission analysis from all ranks.

The Lance Corporal’s Pack: An Operational Approach to Robotic Warfare

Thomas Schueman

The defense tech industry has answered the call to equip our warfighters with American-made robotics. Yet, the proliferation of unmanned systems (UxS), counter-unmanned systems (C-UxS), communication architectures, hardware, and software has outpaced our ability to acquire, integrate, and employ these systems effectively. While our leaders are urgently getting these capabilities into the hands of deployed forces—a testament to their commitment to lethality and survivability—the Marine Corps is failing to develop a long-term approach to professionalizing robotics. These ad hoc solutions, while acceptable for today, are insufficient for the future. To prepare for that future, the Marine Corps must develop the doctrine, organizations, and training required to build a professional robotics community.

The Flaw of the Incidental Operator

The current strategy relies on an “incidental operator” model. Marines whose primary duties involve operating machine guns or clearing objectives now carry collateral responsibilities as ISR operators, FPV pilots, and counter-UAS gunners. We continue to treat the infantry Marine like a Swiss Army knife, adding more and more stuff into the lance corporal’s pack. This approach mirrors past mistakes. For instance, the Marine Corps applied a similar method during the Global War on Terror (GWOT) to counter the IED threat. Anyone from that era can attest that the trust and confidence felt when patrolling through a minefield are vastly different when the Marine on point is a professional minesweeper as opposed to an incidentally trained one. The same could be said for the IED detection dogs employed by incidental operators. There was a dramatic difference in IED detection efficacy when a professional K-9 operator employed a military working dog.

Beyond Stopgap Solutions: The Need for Force Design

Similarly, the current model of using regional hubs is an acceptable interim solution, but if we are still approaching robotics this way in five years, we will have failed. These hubs are doing incredible work, holding things together with limited resources, but a central hub with a small number of Marines providing oversight is a temporary fix, not a serious robotics capability for a warfighting organization. While small robotic systems with minimal cognitive load and power requirements are appropriate at the squad level for assault fires or close-in protection, the infantry squad needs to be enabled by more capable UxS/C-UxS operated by trained personnel.

Observations from the modern battlefield confirm that integrating new technology effectively demands structural change. Michael Kofman, a senior contributor at War on the Rocks, recently noted from his time in Ukraine: “You can make it [robotics] much more autonomous and reduce the manpower requirements for it. You will never get this technology into the force without force structure allocations. It’s not going to happen. There needs to be some kind of drone unit. There needs to be people whose job it is to use these systems... If you look at any Western military, you cannot fight in this way or adapt it to how you currently fight without force design changes.”

A Doctrinal Void: Finding the ‘Pete Ellis’ for Robotics

To realize these force design changes, the Marine Corps must first address its doctrinal gaps. In the years before World War II, Major Earl “Pete” Ellis tackled a problem most had accepted: the United States could fight on land or at sea but not move decisively between the two. Ellis developed the concepts that became amphibious warfare doctrine, institutionalizing a new way of fighting. A similar doctrinal void exists today. We lack a unifying doctrine that connects the multi-domain capabilities of robotic systems and the functions they perform. The “institutional vetting and compilation of fundamental principles...by which Marine Corps forces guide their actions” (MARADMINS Number: 070/18) is missing for robotics. The systems to fight in a multi-domain environment exist, but the concepts to employ them, the operators to use them, and the formations to integrate them do not. The Marine Corps needs a visionary in the spirit of Pete Ellis to develop a comprehensive multi-domain robotics doctrine that ties together aerial, maritime, and ground systems across all warfighting functions.

A Historical Blueprint: Lessons from the Machine Gun

For the organizational framework, we can draw a direct lesson from how the Marine Corps adapted the machine gun during World War I. Initially, armies underestimated the weapon’s significance, and early attempts to distribute machine guns to infantry units failed because the weapons required specialized crews and coordinated fire planning. The Marine Corps solved this problem by first centralizing expertise. It stood up the 6th Machine Gun Battalion, which allowed commanders to benefit from specialized training while maintaining close integration with maneuver forces. Only after this period of concentrated expertise did the Corps distribute machine guns more widely. Notably, the battalion’s commander, Major Edward Cole, published the Field Book for Machine Gunners, providing the Corps with its first comprehensive manual for machine gun operations.

Forging Robotic Formations for Modern Warfare

Following this historical blueprint, the Marine Corps should form multi-domain robotic units task-organized around electronic warfare, ISR, counter-UAS, and kinetic strike. When confronted with the need for dedicated robotic formations, a familiar response emerges: “We are not Ukraine.” Critics argue that the Marine Corps is a maneuverist force, not an attritional one, and that our combined arms capabilities make us different. But the reality is that future combat will include positional and attritional phases where “robotic engagement zones” will develop, and we will not want to commit Marines to them. To ignore this is to echo the pre-WWI French army’s flawed belief in élan vital—the notion that offensive spirit can overcome material reality.

Critics will also argue that we fight differently from Ukraine, that we have different capabilities, and that Ukraine was forced to adapt its units due to an existential threat. These arguments are true, and Ukraine’s 80,000-man unmanned systems force is not a model the Marine Corps should pursue; however, that does not mean the Marine Corps should not allocate structure toward robotic units. Dedicated robotics battalions within divisions, MIGs, MLGs, and MAWs would provide each formation with a specialized unit capable of enabling operations at the appropriate echelon. A 2,000-man investment in robotic units does not risk over-indexing on the Ukrainian model or compromising the foundation of the MAGTF. The real risk to the force and the mission is deploying these formations into harm’s way without a serious robotics capability.

Conclusion: An Obligation to Our Warfighters

Finally, we need a professional schoolhouse to train these operators, who would then report to robotic battalions, and composite with units ahead of deployments, just as other enablers do today. This would apply the same model the Marine Corps uses for every other combat-credible capability. The Marine Corps prides itself on being most ready when the nation is least ready. Being ready requires using interwar periods wisely to make difficult decisions. A common refrain is that the ingenuity of junior Marines will carry the day. That is true, but we owe them better. We owe them the doctrine, training, and formations that match the immense responsibility we are placing on them. We have the opportunity now to deliberately build a robotically enabled MAGTF—one that can do what Marines have always done: win battles.

The Network is the Weapon: Forging the Robotic-Tactician and Collapsing the Kill Chain

GySgt Ryan M. Welch

Small-unit formations across the Fleet Marine Force are collecting more information than ever before, but they are not decisively more lethal because of it.

At the platoon and company levels, Marines operate an expanding array of sensors, unmanned systems (UxS), and communications platforms capable of generating real-time data. Despite this, information remains fragmented across incompatible systems and trapped within proprietary networks. The result is a paradox: units are information-rich but integration-poor. Data exists, but it does not move fast enough to create a tactical advantage.

In time-sensitive engagements, this gap becomes operationally significant. A reconnaissance asset identifies a target, but the information must be passed over voice, interpreted, and relayed again before a shooter can act. Each step introduces a delay, increases the risk of misidentification, and degrades tempo. In a contested environment, that delay is the difference between exploiting an advantage and a missed opportunity.

As outlined in MCDP 1: Warfighting, success in combat is derived from generating a faster tempo than the enemy and acting inside their decision cycle. Robotic integration allows small-unit commanders to probe enemy surfaces relentlessly and rapidly identify gaps without committing human capital to the initial reconnaissance effort. By passing this data instantaneously across the network, commanders can violently exploit those gaps before they close. When Marine rifle platoons cannot rapidly translate information into action, they surrender that advantage.

The issue is not a lack of capability. It is a lack of integration, and increasingly, a lack of specialization and adaptability at the tactical edge.

The Marine Corps currently relies exclusively on an “incidental operator” model in which infantry Marines inherit robotics, ISR, network management, and counter-UAS responsibilities as collateral duties in addition to their primary warfighting tasks. While effective as an interim solution, this approach places unsustainable cognitive and technical burdens on small-unit leaders already responsible for maneuver, fires, and command and control. The result is not merely inefficiency—it is degraded tactical performance at the point of contact. The long-standing “jack of all trades, master of none” approach to capability employment requires fundamental reconsideration. Modern warfare no longer rewards generalized familiarity across countless disciplines; it demands technical expertise paired with tactical mastery. The future force must produce Marines who are experts in their trade and masters of employment in combat.

Modern warfare is rapidly demonstrating that robotic combat systems are not supplementary capabilities. They are becoming fundamental components of maneuver warfare, reconnaissance, fires integration, survivability, and battlefield adaptation. If the Marine Corps expects small-unit leaders to maintain disciplined initiative in contested environments, it must professionalize the capabilities required to enable that initiative.

The Platoon-Level Kill Chain

Modern conflict demands a compressed and distributed kill chain: Sensor ➔ Decision ➔ Shooter ➔ Confirmation

At the MAGTF or MEF level, this process is enabled through integrated networks, operations centers, and dedicated personnel. At the platoon level, it is often executed manually through voice communications and individual interpretation. This creates persistent friction points:

These shortcomings directly conflict with the principles outlined in MCDP 1-3: Tactics, which emphasizes decentralized execution and rapid decision-making. Furthermore, manual processing of target data at the tactical edge fails to meet the efficiency requirements of MCWP 3-31: Fire Support Coordination in the Ground Combat Element. To clear fires effectively and exploit fleeting opportunities, target mensuration and communication must be near-instantaneous.

If Marines are expected to fight with disciplined initiative, they must be equipped to see, decide, and act simultaneously, NOT sequentially.

The Network as the Weapon System

Closing the gap between sensing and shooting does not require a new multi-million-dollar platform. It requires integration.

Future robotics doctrine must recognize the network not merely as an enabler, but as the connective tissue that synchronizes reconnaissance, decision-making, and fires into a unified combat function. A resilient mesh-enabled communications architecture, paired with a shared digital operating picture such as ATAK, allows sensor feeds, target locations, positional data, and command-and-control information to be distributed across the formation in real time.

In this model, a small UAS identifying a target does not pass information through a chain of voice transmissions over fragmented radio networks. Instead, the information is immediately visible across the formation. The assault force sees the same feed. The platoon commander sees the same picture. The shooter sees the same target confirmation. Decision and action occur nearly simultaneously.

This collapses the traditional kill chain and allows small units to operate inside an adversary’s OODA loop, generating dislocation while maintaining tempo. By distributing sensor feeds and targeting data instantaneously across the formation, the mesh network realizes the highest form of implicit communication outlined in MCDP 6: Command and Control. Small-unit leaders no longer need to explicitly describe the battlespace over VHF radios; they share a common, immediate understanding of the threat, allowing them to execute Mission Command at machine speed. Without integration, even the most advanced unmanned platform becomes isolated and tactically irrelevant. The network itself becomes the weapon system that transforms disconnected sensors and shooters into a cohesive combat capability.

The survivability and effectiveness of this capability depend on the establishment of a resilient mesh network in which every node functions not only as a user but also as a relay within the larger combat system. MCWP 3-32: Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (EMSO) dictates that forces must maneuver and survive within a contested spectrum. Traditional communications architectures rely on centralized retransmission sites and command posts that create predictable points of failure, that make them highly vulnerable to detection and jamming. Robotic warfare cannot rely on fragile communications structures that collapse when a single node is degraded.

Instead, future small-unit formations require distributed, self-healing mesh networks capable of dynamically rerouting information across multiple pathways throughout the formation.

Within this architecture, every Marine, unmanned system, vehicle, and shooter contributes directly to the survivability and extension of the network itself. A rifleman equipped with a mesh-capable radio becomes a maneuvering retransmission node. A small UAS extending beyond terrain masking becomes an airborne relay. An FPV strike team operating forward of the main body simultaneously functions as a reconnaissance asset, strike capability, and network extension node.

Every shooter becomes a relay.

Each UxS platform within the formation simultaneously serves as a node within the larger network architecture. A reconnaissance drone identifying targets extends the mesh while feeding ISR directly into the shared digital operating picture. An FPV strike platform functions not only as a shooter, but as a forward reconnaissance and network extension asset. Ground, aerial, and maritime robotic systems similarly contribute to the network’s resiliency, depth, and survivability.

Likewise, every Marine equipped with a mesh-capable radio becomes more than a communicator. He becomes a sensor, relay, and potentially a shooter within the larger kill web. Information no longer flows vertically through rigid command hierarchies before action can occur. Instead, data moves horizontally and instantaneously across the formation, allowing commanders and small-unit leaders to visualize, decide, and employ assets in real time.

This transforms dispersion from a vulnerability into an advantage.

Expeditionary and distributed operations force small units to operate across extended distances, complex terrain, and degraded communications environments. A resilient mesh architecture allows dispersed formations to maintain a shared digital operating picture while preserving low-signature maneuver and decentralized execution. As formations disperse, the network itself deepens, increases redundancy, and improves survivability.

This concept directly supports Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations and stand-in force operations, where low-signature formations must persist inside contested battlespace geometry while remaining digitally connected across distributed maneuver elements. The future platoon will maneuver as a mobile network itself. In this environment, every sensor becomes a node, every shooter becomes a relay, and every maneuver element contributes directly to the survivability and lethality of the larger kill web.

From Operator to Builder

Integration alone is insufficient. The modern battlespace rewards forces that adapt faster than the traditional acquisition cycle can respond. Future force design must produce Marines who are not merely operators of unmanned systems, but builders and integrators of capability at the tactical edge.

As highlighted in Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations concepts, low-signature forces operating persistently within contested environments cannot rely on centralized logistics or prolonged depot-level repair timelines for attritable systems. They must generate and sustain capability organically.

This shift represents a revolution in tactical logistics as defined by MCDP 4: Logistics. In a contested littoral environment, units cannot wait for depot-level maintenance or external supply chains to replace attrited platforms. The builder-tactician essentially becomes their own localized supply chain, generating and sustaining robotic combat power organically at the point of friction.

This requires a shift in training philosophy. Marines must understand not only how to operate a drone, but how it is constructed—power systems, control links, payload integration, electromagnetic signatures, and network architecture—and how to modify those systems under austere operational conditions. Using compliant, commercially available components aligned with Blue UAS standards, Marines can assemble, repair, and adapt systems at the point of need.

This is not about turning infantrymen into engineers. It is about developing tacticians who understand their systems deeply enough to adapt them in combat. A force that can rebuild and modify its systems organically will always outpace one that must wait for a resupply flight or software update.

Professionalizing Robotic Combat Power

The unification of multiple lines of effort will establish this “theory” into a reality.

The Marine Corps has historically adapted to transformational battlefield technologies by institutionalizing specialized expertise rather than relying on incidental proficiency. Just as machine guns evolved from supplemental infantry weapons into dedicated formations requiring specialized doctrine, training, and organizational structure, unmanned systems now demand the same professionalization across the MAGTF.

While MCWP 3-20.5: Unmanned Aircraft Systems Operations provides a baseline for traditional MAGTF aviation integration, the realities of attritable, platoon-level mesh robotics require an entirely new approach that diverges from traditional aviation constructs.

The Marine Corps’ foundational ethos is “Every Marine is a Rifleman.” This principle establishes a baseline of lethality and shared identity across the force. However, the Corps has historically recognized when capability demands dedicated specialization. We do not expect a 0311 rifleman to master the complexities of the 81mm mortar, the Javelin weapons system, signals intelligence, or joint fires integration as collateral duties. These functions belong to dedicated occupational specialties because they require focused, sustained expertise to employ effectively under combat conditions.

Treating robotic combat power as a collateral duty for junior Marines is no longer simply inefficient; it is operationally dangerous. Expecting a squad leader or rifleman to simultaneously maneuver under fire, manage a mesh network, troubleshoot a flight controller, conduct target correlation, monitor ISR feeds, and execute counter-UAS tasks creates unsustainable cognitive overload at the point of contact.

The Fleet Marine Force requires dedicated unmanned systems formations and occupational specialties structured around complementary functions; it is implied that each discipline incorporates air, ground, and naval UxS:

This structure reflects how robotic systems are employed in combat. It builds technical proficiency, distributes cognitive load appropriately, and enables integrated effects without degrading the rifle squad’s primary responsibility: close in and destroy the enemy.

MCDP 1 defines combined arms as the full integration of different arms in such a way that to counteract one, the enemy must become more vulnerable to another. Today, unmanned systems, electronic warfare, and network manipulation must be treated as formal arms within that equation. By synchronizing kinetic maneuver with offensive UxS and EW, the robotic-enabled platoon forces the enemy to choose between unmasking to kinetic fires or remaining hidden and being dismantled by attritable robotics.

The Defensive Imperative: Counter-ISR and Interceptors

Modern platoons cannot remain focused solely on offensive sensing and strike capabilities. Adversaries increasingly employ their own RSTA drones, FPV systems, loitering munitions, and ISR architectures to identify and target dispersed formations. Preserving the platoon’s survivability now requires the ability to actively disrupt the enemy’s sensor-to-shooter cycle.

This necessitates an organic counter-UxS capability nested within the reconnaissance and targeting architecture.

Stand-In Forces cannot survive inside contested weapons engagement zones if they lose the Reconnaissance/Counter-Reconnaissance (RXR) fight. Equipping RSTA elements with fast, maneuverable interceptor drones provides the organic capability required to blind the enemy, win the RXR fight at the tactical edge, and preserve the platoon’s low-signature maneuver.

Additionally, ISR operators are already monitoring the battlespace and airspace; they are often the first to detect enemy drone activity. Equipping these elements with interceptor drones provides an immediate defensive capability that can disrupt enemy ISR networks before they complete their kill chain. Following the principles of MCRP 3-32D.1: Electronic Warfare, whether employing kinetic interceptors, net systems, or localized EW payloads, these systems allow platoons to execute electronic attacks to blind enemy reconnaissance, preserve freedom of maneuver, and maintain operational security.

This capability also reinforces the importance of the builder-tactician. Marines capable of constructing and modifying systems at the tactical edge can rapidly adapt interceptor designs based on the threat environment—altering propulsion systems, payload configurations, or flight profiles to counter evolving enemy systems.

Fixing the Procurement Gap

Even highly trained operators remain constrained by current acquisition processes. Small units are expected to operate attritable systems but lack the authority to rapidly procure replacement components, modify systems, or adapt configurations based on battlefield feedback. Centralized acquisition timelines cannot keep pace with the speed at which systems are expended and modified during modern conflict.

To sustain robotic capability at the tactical edge, the Marine Corps must adopt decentralized, vetted procurement authorities that allow commanders to rapidly acquire compliant components using unit-level funds.

Without this agility, forward-deployed units remain anchored to processes fundamentally incompatible with the speed of modern warfare.

Training for Integration, Not Familiarity

The decisive point for this capability is training. Entry-level instruction should focus on baseline proficiency, but advanced training must shift toward integration, adaptation, and collective employment. Robotic warfare cannot remain an additional skillset taught incidentally across unrelated MOSs. It requires professional schoolhouses, dedicated instructors, advanced integration exercises, and the establishment of formal Training and Readiness (T&R) standards within the NAVMC 3500-series manuals.

Most importantly, training must remain system-agnostic. Consistent with MCDP 7: Learning, our training pipelines must produce Marines capable of continuous adaptation. Because commercial and adversary technologies evolve in weeks, not years, training must remain strictly system-agnostic. We are not teaching Marines to memorize a vendor’s interface; we are teaching them the underlying architecture of robotic warfare so they can outlearn and outadapt the adversary in real time. This reinforces the doctrinal emphasis on adaptability and disciplined initiative. Marines are not trained for a single system. They are trained to solve tactical problems in a changing battlespace.

Closing the Gap

The character of warfare is evolving toward speed, dispersion, robotics, and adaptation. The Marine Corps cannot afford to approach robotic warfare as a temporary adaptation or boutique capability. The demands of modern conflict require deliberate force design decisions that institutionalize robotics as a professional warfighting function across the MAGTF.

Small units must be capable not only of sensing, deciding, and acting faster than the enemy, but of sustaining and adapting those capabilities independently in contested environments. Closing the kill chain at the platoon level is no longer sufficient. The force must close the gap between operator and builder, between platform and network, and between sensing and action itself.

Victory will not belong to the force with the most advanced technology. It will belong to the force that professionalizes, integrates, adapts, and executes faster at the point of contact.

Gunnery Sergeant Ryan M. Welch is a career Infantry Marine and instructor at the Advanced Infantry Training Battalion’s Infantry Unit Leaders Course at the School of Infantry-East. As a founder and lead developer of the Marine Corps Attack Drone Operators Course and Attack Drone Instructor Course, he helped establish the Marine Corps’ first institutional attack drone capability. He trained the Corps’ first generation of dedicated attack drone operators and instructors.

A recognized leader in tactical robotics, attack drones, network-enabled warfare, and reconnaissance-strike integration, Welch has been at the forefront of transforming how modern militaries identify, target, and destroy threats on the battlefield. His accomplishments include designing and teaching the Marine Corps’ first FPV Attack Drone Course, certifying the first Attack Drone Instructors, executing pioneering kinetic FPV strike events, and integrating advanced communications, tactical mesh networking, ATAK-enabled command and control, and robotic systems into infantry training and operations.

Through instruction, experimentation, operational demonstrations, and international engagement, Welch has helped expose emerging reconnaissance-strike concepts, robotic warfare, and resilient network-enabled kill chains to personnel from every branch of the U.S. Armed Forces as well as NATO and partner-nation forces. His work has influenced leaders, planners, instructors, and operators across the Department of War, helping bridge the gap between rapidly evolving battlefield technology and combat employment. By transforming lessons learned from contemporary conflicts into practical warfighting capabilities, he has played a role in accelerating the adoption of robotics, attack drones, and human-machine teaming across the Joint Force and allied militaries.

Focused on the future character of war, Gunnery Sergeant Welch continues to drive innovation in autonomous systems, weaponized networks, and distributed reconnaissance-strike operations, helping shape the next generation of warfighters and ensuring U.S. and allied forces maintain a decisive battlefield advantage in an increasingly contested and technologically driven battlespace.

RECLAIMING THE NIGHT: Coordinated Illumination as a Modern Infantry Offensive Tool

Lt. Zach Henderson

“Own the night.” The phrase is a cornerstone of Marine Corps identity — a declaration that darkness belongs to the trained, the disciplined, the technologically superior. For decades, that identity was earned. Western conventional forces held a disproportionate technological edge in reduced visibility. That psychological dividend compelled generations of enemies to choose not to move, not to attack, not to resist. The night belonged to us.

That advantage is now a critical vulnerability. The proliferation of cheap thermal optics, night-capable sUAS, and AI-enabled targeting systems has collapsed the barrier to entry that once protected U.S. forces in reduced visibility. In eastern Ukraine, a $5,000 DJI Mavic 3T with a FLIR thermal sensor delivers accurate fires within sixty seconds of observation — without a trained forward observer, without radio coordination, and regardless of darkness. The veil that generations of infantrymen relied upon has not been lifted. It has been rendered irrelevant.

The central question is not rhetorical: if reduced visibility degrades your offensive tempo, your synchronization, and your C2 — while doing comparatively little to suppress a defender operating behind persistent thermal ISR — why attack at night? This paper argues the answer is not abandonment but reimagination. Coordinated illumination, properly planned and precisely executed, offers the infantry company commander a path to reclaim offensive advantage. The force that controls the light controls the conditions of the fight.

THE DEFENDER’S NEW ADVANTAGE

The democratization of thermal technology is not an emerging threat — it is the current operational reality. The Houthis, ISWAP, Hamas, and Hezbollah all employ commercial thermal UAS systems as standard practice. The DJI Mavic 3T carries a 640×512 thermal sensor with 20x zoom for under $6,000. The FLIR Vue Pro R bolts onto any commercial airframe for under $1,500. These are not near-peer threats. They are the floor — the minimum adversary capability a Marine company can expect to face.

The threat is not the device. It is what the device enables: compressed kill chains that require no trained observer, no clearance process, and no radio call. AI integration accelerates this further. Autonomous scanning systems can now cue fires across grid squares of terrain without a human in the targeting loop. Large-scale nighttime maneuver against a force employing these systems is not a degraded operation — it is a targetable event.

The institutional failure compounds the threat. The Marine Corps internalized GWOT-era night dominance as a permanent condition rather than a temporary asymmetry. Current training events, range packages, and marking plans rehearse night operations against an adversary who cannot see. The after-action review grades movement discipline and noise — but rarely asks whether the scheme of maneuver survives a $5,000 drone orbiting at 400 feet. Army doctrine devotes two pages out of 826 in ATP 3-21.8 to limited visibility operations. The Marine Corps has no better answer. The institution has trained as though it still owns the spectrum. It does not.

THE CRITICAL VULNERABILITY: DIGITAL VERSUS ANALOG

The exploitable asymmetry that drives this paper’s argument is technical and documented. As Marines, we operate on the AN/PVS-31 Binocular Night Vision Device — an analog Generation III image intensification system. The PVS-31 does not construct an image from sensor data. It amplifies the light that is actually present — moonlight, starlight, atmospheric glow — by a factor of 30,000 to 50,000 times with zero processing latency. Most critically, the Generation III tube is equipped with auto-gating technology: an electronic function that regulates tube voltage in real time when a sudden bright light source enters the field of view. When an illumination round fires overhead, the PVS-31 gates down, adjusts, and recovers within fractions of a second. Marine keeps fighting.

Adversary systems work on an entirely different principle. Digital night vision devices — the standard for PLA infantry and the commercially available systems fielded by non-state actors — use CMOS sensors that capture, process, and display images on an LCD screen. These sensors have no analog gate. When an illumination round fires, the CMOS sensor floods. The image whites out. The processor struggles to recalibrate. For critical seconds, the operator is blind.

The PLA’s most commonly issued goggle, the BBG-011A, uses Generation 2+ image intensifier tubes — below the Generation 3 standard. Its newer digital systems are performing so poorly in extreme low-light that PLA soldiers have reported preferring their Generation 2 devices. The PLA itself acknowledges its digital NVGs are not replacements for image intensifier tubes but cheaper navigation solutions. In short: a Marine rifle company operating PVS-31s under coordinated illumination retains full combat function. A PLA infantry unit operating digital CMOS systems does not. The light that clears the battlefield for one side blinds the other.

THE MAIN EFFORT: COORDINATED ILLUMINATION

Illumination as Combined Arms, Not Observation. Conventional doctrine frames illumination as a tool of observation — you fire a round to see the battlespace. This paper argues for a fundamentally different framing: illumination is a combined arms tool. The commander who controls illumination controls the conditions of the fight. Unlike indirect fire, CAS, or electronic warfare, illumination is entirely unpredictable to the defender — the enemy cannot anticipate the moment at which the attacker chooses to change the optical character of the battlespace. Thermal sensors provide persistent coverage of darkness. They do not protect against a sudden, attacker-controlled illumination event that resets conditions on the attacker’s terms.

Backlighting and Position Obscuration. Accurate illumination placement is not a new concept — it is a neglected one. An illumination round placed behind the objective silhouettes the defender against the light while the assaulting element closes from shadow. The geometry is straightforward: the defender is outlined, the attacker is invisible. The requirement for FDC proficiency is paramount. A round 200 meters long silhouettes the assault element. A round 200 meters short accomplishes nothing. Illumination fires are a perishable skill that has atrophied in a precision-strike culture. Rebuilding it is not optional.

Illumination as Deception. Every illumination round fires a reflex. Every sensor, every eye, every thermal device in the defender’s network orients toward the illuminated area. The commander who understands this can fix enemy attention on a secondary axis while the main effort penetrates on the opposite flank. Irregular illumination schedules throughout the shaping phase deny the defender the ability to distinguish the round that precedes the assault from the ten that preceded nothing. This is deception in its purest form — not a separate line of effort, but a byproduct of fires already planned.

Support by Fire Without IR Compromise. In a peer environment, IR strobes and IR lasers are a liability. Any adversary with basic night vision capability can observe them. The same IR marking that orients your SBF position also orients the enemy’s sensors. Coordinated illumination eliminates this dilemma. Under illumination, the SBF observes the maneuver element with unaided optics, tracks its progress against phase lines, and triggers fire shifts visually — without emitting a single compromising IR signature. Tying critical battle handovers to identifiable terrain features — tree lines, road intersections, ridgelines — creates a C2 architecture that does not depend on radio calls that degrade precisely when the fight is loudest.

THE KILLING BLOW: THE LAST 100 METERS

Everything in this paper builds to this point. Throughout the preparatory and approach phases, the attacking company employs coordinated illumination to backlight the objective, flood adversary digital optics, fix enemy attention, and establish psychological conditions of disorientation. The defender orients his defense to a lit environment. His digital systems cycle through their flood-and-recover sequence. His thermal sensors remain functional — but his fighters have been psychologically conditioned to a battle that happens in light.

Then, at a precisely calculated point in the timeline — engineered around the burn time of the final illumination round — the lights go out.

The maneuver element covers the last hundred meters in total darkness. The defender’s digital systems, having just recovered from the previous illumination cycle, recalibrate into a dark environment their operators have been mentally trained out of. The thermal sensors still function — but the fighter behind them has lost his psychological anchor. The well-trained platoon, trained explicitly for this transition, closes the objective with practiced confidence.

The technical requirement is not complicated — it is neglected. A 60mm illumination round burns approximately 25 seconds. An 81mm burns 60 seconds. A 120mm burns 90 seconds. A 155mm provides approximately 120 seconds of usable light. A trained FDC and fire support coordinator can engineer the final illumination cycle to expire precisely as the maneuver element crosses its last covered and concealed position. The assault steps off in darkness, carrying every advantage the illuminated phase produced: a suppressed and disoriented defense, a silhouetted objective, degraded adversary optics, and an SBF that tracked every movement without a single IR compromise.

This is where C2 discipline separates concept from execution. The scheme of fires must be rehearsed. The assault element must know the timeline. The SBF must know which terrain features trigger which transitions. The FDC must execute on schedule. The burn time is calculated, the terrain feature is identified, the round is fired, and the assault steps off. The night closes behind them.

REQUIREMENTS FOR SUCCESS

Fire Support Proficiency. The entire architecture of coordinated illumination collapses without FDC accuracy, forward observer competency under pressure, and a FiST Leader who owns the illumination plan from the first iteration of planning. Rebuilding it requires range time, repetition, and institutional recommitment to treating the 60mm mortar as the combat multiplier it is.

Rehearsal. Illumination-integrated attack plans must become a core rehearsal requirement — not a supplementary event. Every element must know the illumination timeline. The SBF must know which terrain features trigger which transitions. The maneuver element must know when the lights go out and what is expected in the darkness that follows. A unit that encounters this transition for the first time on the objective will not execute it. A unit that has rehearsed it will.

Intelligence. The exploitable asymmetry described in this paper — digital CMOS vulnerability versus PVS-31 auto-gating resilience — is genuine but not universal. An adversary equipped with Generation III image intensification tubes does not present the same critical vulnerability. Intelligence on enemy NVD systems is a planning input, not a nice-to-have. In most likely threat scenarios, from PLA infantry to Iranian-equipped proxies to commercially equipped non-state actors, the asymmetry holds. Confirm it before assuming it.

Trust in the Plan. The decision to go dark at the last hundred meters is a calculated acceptance of risk — accepted because the conditions preceding it have degraded the defender’s ability to exploit it. This trust does not come naturally to leaders trained to maximize sensor coverage at every phase. It comes from understanding why the exposure is worth taking and from having rehearsed the conditions that make it worth taking.

CONCLUSION

The night is not lost. It is contested — and contestation has always rewarded the force willing to think more carefully about it than the enemy. The assumption that American forces will always hold overmatch in reduced visibility served the institution well for two decades. Carrying that assumption into a peer fight against an adversary equipped with persistent thermal ISR, cheap sUAS, and AI-enabled kill chains is not confidence. It is complacency. And complacency in a contested night environment is measured in casualties.

Coordinated illumination is not a workaround. It is a doctrinal evolution hiding in plain sight — validated every time a well-placed illumination round changed the complexion of a fight. The Marine Corps does not need to invent a new way of war. It needs to take what it already knows, apply it with precision and creativity, and train for the conditions that exist rather than the conditions that used to.

The well-trained infantry company that masters light discipline, fire synchronization, and the psychology of darkness will find that the night still belongs to those bold enough to own it — not because the technology says so, but because they planned for it, rehearsed it, and understood one thing the enemy did not: that in a world where sensors never sleep, the most dangerous force on the battlefield is one that knows exactly when to turn the lights off.

Lieutenant Henderson serves as a Platoon Commander with 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, where he leads and develops Marines in one of the Corps’ most storied infantry units. A graduate of the University of Missouri, he commissioned through the Naval Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program.

Lieutenant Henderson has developed a keen professional interest in small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) and their growing impact on the modern battlefield. He is a passionate student of warfighting doctrine and the broader evolution of warfare, consistently seeking to understand how emerging technologies and shifting operational environments will define the future of conflict.

The Written Word

Fiction and Nonfiction written by servicemen and veterans.

Yorktown: A New Beginning

Erick Huertas

As I sat in the uncomfortably large chair of the wizard’s office, I awaited their verdict on my case. “You already have so many injuries, and with everything that we’ve talked about, maybe it’s best that you don’t do this anymore.”

The room contracted around me as the words reverberated in my head. I knew this was coming; after all, it was the reason I was in Virginia. Yet, the unpleasant affirmation made it a reality that I had not prepared for. Twelve years, ending in a singular sentence from a Nurse Practitioner. I could not help but think, “What have I done?” I deployed a few times, sure, but I had never seen combat. I earned my campaign medal on a technicality, and I failed to earn the coveted FMF pin through another series of the technicalities that plagued the past decade of my life. I was just a reservist; no matter how much active-duty time I accumulated, the label never changed: Reservist. Now, I sat in this chair, recently returned from my fifth deployment, sidelined by injuries and a mind that I could no longer keep steady.

I walked out of the appointment and sat in my vehicle, still in my driver’s seat as I gazed into an ethereal abyss over the rooftops of Naval Medical Center Portsmouth. The reality was that I was nearing my limit, and I recognized the signs shortly after Allies Refuge, signs that all my seniors exhibited when I was just a boot. This had been my profession for the past twelve years. It was never something I loved, but something I committed to on every level. I built myself around the expectations set forth by my first Senior Line Corpsman and, ultimately, strived to live up to the twenty-three names that I saw on the wall every time I walked into a Navy medical facility. Yet now, sitting on this rooftop, I felt like none of it had amounted to anything.

I drove back to my hotel in complete silence, with an overwhelming anxiety about what would unfold over the next several months. What comes next? What kind of marketable skills do I actually have? I had some low-level medical certifications, but no marketable degree. The year before, I had been rejected by fifteen Physician Assistant schools despite exceeding their standards, and the sting of failure was far from a distant memory. I began to take stock of all my failures. Sure, I had some notable side-quests over the years, but I never really succeeded at anything. In weightlifting, I hovered just above average. My photobooks never turned a profit. My manuscript from the TransAmerica Trail sat untouched in my cloud. No failure was ever catastrophic, but success was far from my vocabulary. Instead, I was the king of almost.

On the drive home, my lack of accomplishments repeated in my head. I am just a poor kid from Pennsylvania who, despite my best efforts, will never amount to anything. No amount of hard work, dedication, or resilience would change that. To quote the fictional character Blu Venturi, “Dreams for poor people are just illusions.” I had become disillusioned with the person I wanted to be, and I became so obsessed with beating the odds that I forgot the odds would never be in my favor.

I walked back into my heatless hotel room at the NGIS, sat on my bed, and stared at the wall. The vicious cycle of failures sprinted through my mind, and I concurrently began thinking about the numerous people I have failed. So many people had told me that they looked up to me. I had always strived to be the SNCO who cared about my juniors. Someone steadfast and reliable, always ready for the mission ahead. As I sat there, I could not reconcile with that version of myself; instead, I was a man who couldn’t finish a career and couldn’t let go of the events of my 2020 mobilization and 2021 deployment.

These events were constantly on my mind, and no matter what I did, I always found a way to relate to them. My normally calm demeanor slowly shifted into a constant rage, where even the smallest inconvenience would become an oversized reaction. I stopped training, and my body, already worn down, began to crumble in ways that I could no longer ignore.

In times of great distress, I typically find myself needing to “touch grass.” Although it has never served as a “cure-all” remedy for my despair, it has aided in my ability to stop my racing thoughts. This time, I required something greater. Something akin to my travels on the TransAmerica Trail. Something that required direction, focus, and something that would force me out of my own head. If I couldn’t control what was next, I could at least control where I went.

The next day, I drove to Yorktown. The small coastal town in southern Virginia where America solidified its new beginning. The place where historical greats like George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Marquis de Lafayette defeated the virtually undefeatable Lord Cornwallis in a brilliant, deceptive strategy. The military victory that prompted peace talks with Great Britain and forced all of Europe to recognize the resilience of the American people. On paper, the story has a poetic ending, but it was far from over.

As I walked through the grounds of the battlefield, I observed the redoubts and other earthworks that, even when reclaimed by the earth, remained a staple of the landscape. The distant sounds of traffic from the Coleman Bridge were drowned out by the lazy, yet ever-rushing waters of the York River crashing against the shore. The breeze danced through the grass, creating a serene backdrop for this somber place of battle.

I navigated the earthworks and found myself amid Redoubt #9, where Vicomte de Viomenil led 400 war-weary soldiers to victory under the cover of night. I then climbed to the top of the redoubt, looking down upon the minuscule rooftops of the town below the hill, and the colonial buildings just a few hundred yards away. I glanced over at Redoubt #10, where Alexander Hamilton led his famous charge, but what remained was only remnants, as the mighty river reclaimed her territory.

I continued to wander through the former siege lines and, inevitably, the town of Yorktown itself. I imagined the overwhelming emotions of success after conquering insurmountable odds. I imagined our great foundational leaders achieving their victory, solidifying the glorious cause, and prompting the new beginning that would become the United States.

What does this mean to me? I asked myself. Naturally, I understood the historical and cultural significance. However, the victory at Yorktown was far from the last obstacle for the young United States. The Articles of Confederation would fail, and the country would be fractured over what “All men created equal” really meant. We would wage war over land with our Native populations, eviscerating them in the process as we danced with the hypocrisy in our adherence to our founding principles. The most difficult parts were still ahead.

That is when it hit me. The new beginning did not mean the story started or even ended here. It was simply a new act in the feature. Just because this act was coming to a close did not mean I lacked the opportunity to continue pursuing my happiness. The next phase did not mean that I would be free from adversity, but rather that I would have more opportunities to prove to myself that I could achieve my illusions. Whether I was ready or not, it was here, and I had to carry it forward. This was my new beginning.

Rope and Choke

Benjamin Van Horrick

When the door locks, I have three minutes.

Since the First Sergeant said he was weighing us in on Monday, I planned this out.

I like this bathroom: 10 x 10, single-use, sturdy lock, a changing table, and the toilet as far as possible from the door.

I don’t want a mom or MP asking questions after I leave.

The sink actually has good water pressure.

I put my supplies on the changing table — gum, mouthwash, baby wipes, a change of shirts, hand soap, and a washcloth in a sandwich bag.

Yeah, a packing list. First Sergeant should be proud.

I turn on the water.

Thirty seconds down.

My mouth is already watering.

I lift the seat. The larger the target, the better.

My $40 of Taco Bell is digested just enough.

Forty-five seconds.

I fuse my pointer and middle fingers.

I lean forward at the hips, drawing my mouth eight inches from the bowl.

The splatter is minimal.

The running water muffles the gagging.

Once the two fingers get past my teeth, it is a matter of will. I keep going, shoving aside my tonsils, forcing my fingers down my throat.

Then the burn starts at the base of my stomach.

Once my fingers feel the bile, I pull as fast as I can.

Then the contents of my last meal—in their half-digested form—surge into the toilet.

Maybe I get a second wave, or, if I’m lucky, a third.

Those successive waves mean more cleanup.

I catch a glimpse of the blown blood vessels around my eyes.

Snot drops from my nose.

This blast is not bad. I press the handle with my foot.

This water pressure is good. Evidence gone.

I run the water. I scrub my hands and forearms like I’m getting ready for surgery.

I catch a whiff. Bile. Now familiar.

I scrub harder.

One minute left.

I grab ten feet of paper towel. I dry my hands, but they still smell like Fritos and beans.

Fuck it.

I wipe my mouth. I unscrew the mouthwash and chug it.

My cheeks work the mouthwash.

I spit it in the sink, now three inches from the drain.

First Sergeant will put that rope around my neck and waist. He will make his snide remark. He will do his math. I’ll pass.

In two weeks, we will be on patrol, and a 240 will rest on my traps in Now Zad.

I’ll see if I measure up.

June 9th

Heather O’Brien

I wake up to a series of booms and then sirens; neither fazes me until the call, “All Medical Personnel Report to the TIF.”

It’s going to be a bad day.

Nineteen years later, I still feel that heat. My insides are baking. My stomach gurgles, threatening instant expulsion if I even think about food. The heat so bad that I daydream about getting blown up in the next rocket attack. Or at least I think it is a daydream, trudging the mile to the TIF made me delirious in seconds.

Iraq is always hot, but today is the hottest. Not a single sand particle moves; the constant breeze is nowhere to be found. Not even when the rockets land on base and in the compounds does a whiff of air stir. I don’t worry that I might die from the explosions because I am certain I am slowly baking from the inside out.

June 9, 2007, redefined what my body and brain understood about heat and death.

I still taste my sweat running down my lip.

The strap of my helmet still chafes my chin.

My M-4 bangs against my chest, and my M-9 grip is wet with sweat.

No air moves, not even in an outdoor prison filled with 20,000+ people. As the gates clang shut behind us, it feels like walking into an open grave. How can so many people be utterly silent?

In this moment, I am more afraid than during all the riots I had been in, even the ones where I was almost set on fire. The sulfurous, cordite smell hangs thick in the middle compounds, sitting like a haze over a row of dead bodies.

The iron tangy smell of blood travels from my nose to my mouth, leaving an odd coppery taste. The gore is all over the Mile from one side clear to the next compound.

The few detainees I do see look terrified. For a split second, I almost feel for them, but I shake the feeling away.

I look for my friend in charge of the rocketed compound with growing worry; she is nowhere to be found. Later, when I see her, the concussion and brain injury have already begun.

June 9 fused the smells of explosions and fear in my brain forever.

But we were alive, and no Americans were injured. Well, that’s what official reports say; my good friend’s brain injury and concussion say otherwise. The sight of Airmen sitting around in shocked silence, their faces frozen in a daze, speaks volumes. These hidden injuries were just beginning.

A shrapnel wound or a lost limb are terrible, but how does one heal a scrambled brain or a shattered soul?

These people were casualties, even though it would take them a long time before they realized it. It took me over a decade to realize I was one too.

June 9 forever changed the way I understood trauma, but it doesn’t define my friends or me.

It’s been 19 years.

Except on June 9th.

Poetry and Art

Poetry and art from the warfighting community.

“Decision Point” 
Dan Grimm

Trapped. Textbook. 
Led unknowingly to the place of our deliverance 
by a woolen wolf,  
running now,  
his mission complete. 
Running from the roadblock. 
And the fuel truck.  
 
Option 1. 
 
The vacuum created by burning air. 
Sucking the breath from our lungs 
before the flames could even touch our skin. 
Ten thousand gallons of gasoline 
becoming demon, 
violating every opening, 
feeding on the flesh of the righteous. 
But only if a crack should appear –  
an open hatch beckoning relief from  
prolonged agony. 
 

Like Option 2. 
 
The death of a thousand degrees. 
Safe from the orange tongue of the Devil, 
but not his wrath. 
Heat that melts metal and man slowly enough 
to feel every panicked moment. 
But only if the hatch is closed, 
to keep Hell from swallowing us whole. 
 
Like Option 1. 
 
Hand on the latch, 
better decide quickly. 
 
Our misery depends on it. 

Share Lethal Minds

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This ends Volume 47, Edition 1, of the Lethal Minds Journal (01JUNE2026)

The window is now open for Lethal Minds’ forty eighth volume, releasing July 1, 2026.

All art and picture submissions are due as PDFs or JPEG files to our email by midnight on 20 June 2026.

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All articles published in this newsletter are the personal opinions and positions of the authors themselves. All content, and the Lethal Minds and Lethal Minds Journal brand is the copyright of Lethal Minds©

I often think of the military and its surrounding community as a culture apart. But we’re not. We are just a reflection of the culture we serve. That makes it easy to get cynical about military service because we live in a cynical time, one in which an entire economy is built on negative attention. Daily, I swipe my phone, as addicted as anyone, to see people at their worst, shouting their dyspeptic takes, mining our collective unhappiness for views and likes.

Accordingly, we have a universe of net denizens who add and detract from the culture in various measures. I’ve even noticed that the angrier and edgier my thoughts become here, the more eyes Lethal Minds Journal finds. It’s sad that to feel bad feels good to so many of us. It’s even more sad that in the attention economy, making people feel bad works to my advantage

But in the moments that tell the truth, hidden amongst hot takes about things generally above any pay grade the offeror ever occupied, or ever will (and here I must confess that you can occasionally find me on cable news opining about issues I never dealt with), is a separate thread, that of a longing for “the boys.” If it’s possible, I use “the boys” as broadly as possible, as a sobriquet for all servicemembers, men and women, but it seems to be more overt amongst what some call the male loneliness epidemic.

I see people who could not run out of sight declaring themselves ready for “one more run with the boys in Iran.” I see perhaps more self-aware folks telling each other to check on the boys, something important in a community in which the words “died suddenly” impart a specific meaning more gently than “killed himself yesterday.” I am not immune. I ended my Marine Corps retirement speech quoting Colby Buzzell from his book My War: Killing Time in Iraq.

“But then again, if I ever got a call from the battalion commander saying that he was getting everyone from Second Platoon Bravo Company 1/23 INF back together, to go “Punish the Deserving” for one last tomahawk chop out there in Iraq, and that he was going to lead the way, and everyone was going, and they needed me as an M240 Bravo machine gunner again, I’d probably tell him, ‘That’s a good copy, sir. Let’s roll.’ Hell yeah.”

I had the chance to watch one more run with the boys this month. My lifetime ago, my father was a Marine officer, a first lieutenant assigned to a battalion staff. Executive Officers run unit staffs. I know, I spent a lot of time as one. My Dad’s Executive Officer was a Major named Harvey C. Barnum. Now 86 years old, in 1965 Barnum was a first lieutenant himself, in Vietnam on a ninety-day Temporary Assigned Duty from Okinawa. It was a “Hey, nothing is going on here, go get some experience, kid” kind of thing.

With just a few days in country, Barnum got into his first firefight and got a little experience. And the Medal of Honor.

My dad has talked about Harvey Barnum my whole life. A few years ago, courtesy of the same Internet I decry, Pops reached out to now-retired Colonel Harvey Barnum, who was recently kind enough to invite him, my stepmom, my brother, and me to see the Burke-class destroyer DDG USS Harvey C. Barnum be commissioned. There were 1500 people there. Folks from that day in Vietnam, other folks with whom he served over three decades, and more than a handful of his fellow Medal of Honor recipients, people I have admired for decades. Many of the men who were once raw muscle and sunburned skin needed help to get around, but come they did, many from far-off locations, to be pierside in Norfolk. They came to honor Barnum. They came for one last run with the boys.

As I watched the sailors take the ship, running up the gangplanks in their whites, at the command to “Make her come alive,” I thought about something that Maslow knew well. We need human connection, the basis for effective military units. It is the people for whom we serve. It is the people for whom we fight. And at times, it is the people for whom we die.

Yet once we’re out, we allow that connection to be torn asunder by the culture war bullshit we seem to hold on to as the answer to the question of whether someone is worth having in our lives. It’s a frailty capitalized upon by cynics in the pursuit of personal power, and it dishonors the connections we made when it mattered. I am as guilty as anyone.

We live in a time rife with bullshit. We are fed bullshit by our so-called leaders. We buy bullshit to make ourselves feel better. We spew bullshit to establish ourselves as better than someone else. It’s a perversion of the thing so many of us still claim to hold so dear, that need for human connection.

We’d all do well to think of the purest connections, those made when it mattered, the kind that bring you together on a dock in Norfolk, Virginia sixty-one years later, and honor them in how we treat one another. We could be a powerful force for good in a nation that desperately needs it, an example for the rest of the citizenry to follow, if we could only rise above the bullshit.

We try to do that here. Sometimes it angers a few readers. I am fine with that. I like it, in fact, it means we’re pushing at the edges. Feel free to tell me how I, or any of our writers, are wrong at lethalmindsjournal.submissions@gmail.com.

Fire for Effect,

Russell Worth Parker

Editor in Chief - Lethal Minds Journal

Dedicated to those who serve, those who have served, and those who paid the final price for their country.

Lethal Minds is a military veteran and service member magazine, 
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similar background to the people behind the Lethal Minds Journal, and
to the many, many contributors.

Just as possessing the requisite knowledge is crucial for success,
equipping oneself with the appropriate tools is equally imperative. At
Two Grunts Inc., we are committed to providing the necessary tools to
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Our motto, “Purpose-Built Work Guns. Rifles made to last,” reflects
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In This Issue

Across the Force

Kriegsspiel, Battlefield Decision-Making, and the Limits of Artificial Intelligence in the Law of Armed Conflict

The Trolley Problem, Now With Drones

The Real Test of ‘Epic Fury’ Isn’t Just on the Battlefield

The Written Word

Did you ever kill anyone?

Poetry and Art

Kilroy

Will You Say My Name?

Transition and Veteran Resources

Mastery Before Meaning: Stop Telling Veterans to Find Their Passion

How Offshore Sailing Helped Me Find Peace and Purpose

Book Review

The Sarvan

Across the Force

Written work on the profession of arms. Lessons learned, conversations on doctrine, and mission analysis from all ranks.

Kriegsspiel, Battlefield Decision-Making, and the Limits of Artificial Intelligence in the Law of Armed Conflict

CPT Trevor J. Potter

I. Introduction

War remains a field where the art of judgment and the burden of moral responsibility defy reduction to mere calculations and algorithms. As Carl von Clausewitz emphasized, warfare is “the realm of uncertainty,” a spectacle in which chance, human passion, and moral gravity conspire in ways that no algorithm can predict or control.¹ In the early 19th century, the Prussian military devised Kriegsspiel not simply as a game but as a demanding exercise in decision-making under uncertainty—a training tool that forced commanders to grapple with incomplete information and the ethical complexities of war.²

Today, with artificial intelligence (AI) permeating nearly every facet of military operations, there is a growing tendency to view technology as a cure-all for the vicissitudes of combat. Proponents argue that AI-driven systems can optimize battlefield decisions, reduce human error, and even enhance adherence to the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC).³ Yet such optimism may overlook the fundamental reality that war is as much about moral discernment as it is about tactical calculation. In this essay, I explore how the lessons of Kriegsspiel remain paramount, even in the age of AI. I offer specific guidance for Judge Advocates who are duty-bound to ensure that legal and ethical constraints remain firmly under human control.

As David Foster Wallace once remarked, “The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort,” a sentiment that resonates deeply when we consider the human costs of delegating the weighty decisions of war to algorithms.⁴ This essay argues that while technology may illuminate our choices, it cannot replace the essential human judgment required to navigate the uncertainties of armed conflict and the imperatives of LOAC.⁵

II. The Pedagogics of Kriegsspiel: An Enduring Legacy

A. Historical Context and Conceptual Basics

Kriegsspiel was shaped from the accepted facts that the chaotic and unpredictable nature of warfare was intractable by purely deterministic means. Created by the Prussian military in the early 1800s, it was intended not as a competitive board game but as a simulation that replicated the “fog of war” and the ambiguity of enemy intentions.⁶ Unlike chess—where all variables are laid bare, and every move is deterministic—Kriegsspiel introduced a human umpire to control information, compelling officers to grapple with the ambiguity and uncertainty in real time.⁷

Clausewitz’s observation that “war is the continuation of politics by other means” underscores the necessity of judgment over calculation.⁸ The Prussian approach recognized that effective command in war was more than the sum of different odds—it showed the essential attributes of an acute sense of timing, prudence, and most importantly, the capacity to weigh moral imperatives against tactical requirements. This approach ensured that the “art” of warfare was preserved in the training of military leaders, a tradition that modern military theorists argue should remain paramount today.⁹

B. The Role of Human Judgment in Kriegsspiel

Kriegsspiel showed the boundaries of observed data. Over time, and alongside technical advancements in computing and information systems, Commanders learned that the “facts” of battle were variable, often complicated by the “fog” of conflicting intelligence.¹⁰ The game instilled an enduring lesson: the value of human judgment lies precisely in its ability to operate under uncertainty—a combination of theory, intuition, and moral consideration in ways that no machine ever could.¹¹ This emphasis on human judgment over calculation is especially critical in legal contexts. Under LOAC, every decision brings moral weight, and every tactical choice must be measured against ethical requirements.¹²

For Judge Advocates, the history and purpose of Kriegsspiel serves as a reminder that legal oversight in war must incorporate—and champion—a uniquely human capacity for judgment. There is no doubt that technology can provide recommendations and aggregate data, but the human mind must interpret these signs within the framework of justice and ethical responsibility.¹³

III. The Rise of AI in Military Decision-Making

A. The Attraction of Algorithmic Precision

The military has increasingly turned to AI for its capacity to analyze vast datasets quickly and consistently. AI systems are touted for their ability to synthesize sensor data, perform real-time analysis, and propose ideal courses of action—often at speeds that outperform human deliberation.¹⁴ Proponents claim that by shifting this cognitive load away from commanders, AI can reduce human error and enhance compliance with LOAC by adhering to programmed legal constraints.¹⁵

Such a view is seductive. In an era where data is king, the notion that algorithms can “see” more, process faster, and operate without the distractions of emotion or fatigue is undoubtedly appealing.¹⁶ But this ignores the shifting dynamics of warfare—any such machine outputs are made by entities with no moral responsibility or capacity to be held accountable. You can’t court-martial a machine or a program. The automation of decision-making can deprive the essential human element that is paramount in battlefield decision making.¹⁸

B. The Limits of AI

While AI may excel at pattern recognition and rapid data processing, it cannot comprehend context in the human sense. For instance, the principle of proportionality under LOAC requires more than sheer calculation of collateral damage against military gain—it demands a careful assessment of human suffering, cultural context, and the ethical heft of decisions made in the midst of a chaotic battle.¹⁹ AI systems, however sophisticated, lack the capacity for empathy and cannot weigh the subtleties of moral judgment.²⁰

Moreover, AI’s reliance on historical data and defined parameters can make AI totally incapable of handling novel situations or adapt to unexpected shifts in the battlefield environment.²¹ The inherent unpredictability of warfare—a phenomenon that Kriegsspiel was designed to simulate—remains an area where human judgment is indispensable.²² In sum; while AI may offer a facade of precision, it does so at the cost of the nuanced deliberation that is the hallmark of responsible command.²³

C. The Ethical and Legal Implications

The most disturbing consequence of overreliance on AI in military operations is the steady erosion of command responsibility. LOAC rests on the premise that human beings—not machines—must be accountable for the use of force.²⁴ When decision-making authority is spread across algorithmic systems, the chain of responsibility becomes ambiguous, raising serious legal and ethical dilemmas.²⁵ As one legal scholar has noted, delegating moral judgments to machines risks undermining the very foundation of just warfare.²⁶

Judge Advocates must then be especially prudent when integrating AI into operational contexts. They must ensure that while AI may assist in decision-making, it never supplants the human judgment that is foundational under LOAC.²⁷

IV. AI and the Law of Armed Conflict: A Detailed Analysis

A. Proportionality and Distinction in an Algorithmic Systems

Proportionality and distinction are the heart of LOAC. Proportionality requires that the anticipated military advantage of an attack must not be outweighed by the potential for excessive civilian harm.²⁸ Distinction ensures that combatants differentiate between lawful military targets and noncombatants.²⁹ These requirements are not easily reducible to simple algorithmic recipes. They demand contextual interpretation—a process that involves not only quantitative assessments but also qualitative judgments about human life and suffering.³⁰

An AI system may be programmed to flag targets based on sensor input and historical data; however, it cannot ascertain with moral clarity whether a particular target’s elimination would produce “collateral damage” that is ethically or legally acceptable.³¹ For example, an algorithm might conclude that a target is “high-value” based on its technical characteristics and predicted military impact, yet such a calculation might disregard cultural or situational nuances that would prompt a human commander to exercise restraint.³²

In this regard, the role of the judge advocate is twofold. First, Judge Advocates must educate commanders on the limits of AI in making morally fraught decisions under LOAC. Second, they must advocate for operational procedures that ensure final decision-making authority remains human, maintaining the moral agency and accountability that the law demands.³³

B. Command Responsibility and the Diffusion of Accountability

A central tenet of LOAC is that commanders bear ultimate responsibility for the actions of their forces.³⁴ This doctrine of command responsibility mandates that moral and legal culpability cannot be outsourced to technological systems. When AI systems are deployed, there is a danger that the clarity of accountability will be compromised, as decisions become the product of algorithmic “black boxes” rather than careful human judgment.³⁵

For judge advocates, the challenge is to insist upon robust accountability procedures. They must see that every decision influenced by AI is subject to rigorous legal review and that the human commander remains the ultimate arbiter of force.³⁶ This will likely mean a detailed documentation of the decision-making process, clear delineation of the role of AI as an advisory tool, and stringent oversight.³⁷ As one commentator on military ethics has written, the loss of accountability through technological decision making “can lead to a dangerous diffusion of responsibility that undermines the rule of law in warfare.”³⁸

C. A Plausible Hypothetical and Theoretical Reflections

Recent military actions have shown stark illustrations of the latent hazards of AI-assisted decision-making. In one hypothetical scenario, an autonomous targeting system—designed to decrease human error—misidentified a civilian structure as a legitimate military target due to ambiguous sensor data.³⁹ While the algorithm’s analysis stated that collateral damage was within tolerable limits, an actual human commander, with an actual brain, informed by local cultural intelligence and situational nuance, might have declined the strike.⁴⁰ This example further shows that even the most sophisticated AI cannot be programmed with the moral calculus performed by a seasoned officer trained in the “art” of warfare.⁴¹

An example like this requires us to reexamine the role of technology in military operations. As mentioned above, Wallace contended that what’s really important “[is] attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort”—qualities that are essential to understanding the full impact of a decision beyond the narrow confines of data analysis.⁴² The qualities Wallace lists are vital; they ensure that every act of violence is scrutinized not only for its tactical efficacy but for its broader ethical implications.⁴³

V. Practical Guidance for Judge Advocates

Recognizing the complicated interplay between technology and human judgment, Judge Advocates must be proactive in guiding the ethical integration of AI in military operations. The following suggestions are meant to help Judge Advocates pilot this terrain to ensure that the LOAC remains a lived moral commitment rather than a set of abstract, algorithmically applied rules within a system.

Uphold the Primacy of Human Judgment and Maintain Final Decision Authority with Human Commanders

Judge Advocates must counsel commanders that while AI may assist by providing analytical support and predictive models, the ultimate decision—especially when it involves the use of lethal force—must rest with a human being. The moral and legal accountability for the decision must be clearly assigned to a person who can exercise judgment and accept ultimate responsibility.⁴⁴

Incorporate Human-Centered Training and Simulation Exercises

Drawing on the legacy of Kriegsspiel, training programs should stress scenarios that require the exercise of judgment under uncertainty. By simulating complex, real-world situations that are incongruent with simple algorithmic solutions, military training can reinforce the need for careful human judgement.⁴⁵ Judge Advocates should support and develop programs that merge traditional wargaming with contemporary legal and ethical challenges posed by AI.⁴⁶

Develop Transparent Decision-Making Protocols

Every decision influenced by AI should be accompanied by a detailed record of the human deliberation that led to its final authorization. This includes documenting the data inputs, the advisory role of AI, and the contextual factors considered by the commander.⁴⁷ This may seem cumbersome, but transparency like this will be crucial to ensure that responsibility is not spread across anonymous AI-driven systems but remains firmly with the responsible officer.⁴⁸

Develop Oversight for AI Integration

Oversight committees should be established that include Judge Advocates, ethicists, and technology experts. These bodies can review the operational use of AI, assess its compliance with LOAC, and recommend corrective measures when necessary.⁴⁹ By institutionalizing oversight, the military can prevent the unintentional abdication of moral responsibility in the midst of war.⁵⁰

Ongoing Training on LOAC and AI Limitations

Judge Advocates should have regular training sessions with commanders to highlight the limitations of AI in interpreting legal standards. These sessions should underscore that the nuanced application of LOAC requires an understanding of context, culture, and human behavior—elements that no machine can fully grasp.⁵¹

Interdisciplinary Dialogue with Technologists and Policy-Makers

To ensure that AI systems are developed and used in ways that respect the principles of just warfare, Judge Advocates need to engage with the tech sector. This will help create AI systems that include “ethical failsafes” and built-in constraints that align with LOAC.⁵²

Publication of Best Practices

Finally, Judge Advocates should take an active role in publishing best practices for integrating AI into military operations. By contributing to academic journals and professional forums, Judge Advocates can shape a future where technology serves as an aid to, rather than a replacement for, human judgment.⁵³

VI. The Philosophical Dimensions: Lessons from Scruton and Wallace

A. Roger Scruton’s Aesthetic of Prudence

The British philosopher Roger Scruton was known for his insistence on the importance of prudence, beauty, and moral clarity in all human endeavors.⁵⁴ His reflective style, marked by a deep appreciation for the subtle interplay of tradition and innovation, provides a valuable basis for a thoughtful integration of AI in military affairs. Scruton argued that technological progress should never come at the expense of our moral heritage; rather, it must be guided by a respect for the “uncertain, fragile, and incommensurable” dimensions of human life.⁵⁵

This perspective illustrates that while AI may offer tactical advantages, it cannot—and should not—supplant the careful, morally informed decisions that have long been the domain of human commanders.⁵⁶ For Scruton, the art of decision-making is as much about the cultivation of character as it is about the application of technical skill.⁵⁷ Judge Advocates then must emphasize that technology is a tool—a means to sharpen, but never replace, human judgment.⁵⁸

B. David Foster Wallace on the Perils of Becoming Numb

Wallace’s insights are particularly resonant when we consider the ethical dilemmas posed by AI in warfare. The seduction of seeming algorithmic exactness can lull us into a false sense of security, veiling the moral complexities that underlie every decision of war. As Wallace noted, the convenience of technology can lead to “a kind of numbness,” where the hard work of moral judgement is replaced by the effortlessness of unfeeling automated analysis.⁶⁰ This “numbness” is a warning that cannot be ignored. The discipline required in giving real attention to an issue, and the effort of moral reflection are essential to prevent the dehumanizing, morally absent effects of modern technology.⁶¹

C. Integrating Philosophical Reflection into Military Practice

Both Scruton’s and Wallace’s perspectives point to a central truth: technology, for all its utility, is no substitute for the deeply human capacities of judgment, reflection, and moral courage. In military practice, this means that while AI can offer valuable insights, it must always be subject to the scrutinizing lens of human reason and ethical commitment.⁶² Judge advocates are uniquely positioned to champion this integration. We can share in the development of AI, and act as stewards to ensure that both legal norms and the intrinsic worth and dignity of human life remain at the center of battlefield decisions.⁶³

VII. Toward a Human-Centered Future in Warfare

A. Reconciling Technology with Tradition

The challenge before modern militaries is to reconcile the promise of AI with the enduring lessons of Kriegsspiel. On the one hand, technology offers unprecedented capabilities in data processing and operational efficiency; on the other, the art of war demands a human touch that cannot be summarized in lines of code.⁶⁴ This tension is not new—it echoes the age-old struggle between the mechanistic and the organic, between calculation and judgment.⁶⁵

A human-centered approach to warfare must recognize that every decision, however informed by technology, affects actual human lives, communities, and the moral fabric of society.⁶⁶ As Judge Advocates know well, the legal framework governing armed conflict is not a set of abstract rules but a living commitment to human dignity and justice.⁶⁷ Staying true to this commitment in an era of digital warfare requires vigilance, humility, and an unwavering resolve of the importance of human judgment.⁶⁸

B. Policy Recommendations

The following policy recommendations are offered for military leaders and judge advocates alike, to enable AI to assist effectively, without replacing actual human discernment:

Use AI as a Tool, not a Decision-Maker

AI systems should be deployed strictly as decision-support tools. The ultimate authority must always reside with human commanders, whose decisions are informed by data and a profound understanding of moral and legal imperatives.⁶⁹

Create Trainings that Emphasize Moral Judgment

Military academies and training centers should incorporate simulations that mirror the uncertainties of actual combat. These exercises should stress the importance of ethical decision-making, drawing on historical examples such as Kriegsspiel to illustrate the dangers of overreliance on AI technology.⁷⁰

Establish a Rigorous Review Process for AI-Assisted Decisions

Every operational decision that involves AI input should undergo a formal review process. Judge advocates must lead these reviews, ensuring that the decision-making process is transparent, that the human element is preserved, and that accountability is maintained.⁷¹

Foster Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Military institutions should create interdisciplinary working groups that include technologists, ethicists, legal experts, and experienced commanders. These groups can deliver constant oversight of AI development and how it is applied, to make sure new technology is attuned to serve—not replace—the principles of just warfare.⁷²

Continuous Learning and Ethical Reflection

The integration of AI should be accompanied by a commitment to ongoing education about the ethical challenges of technology. Judge Advocates and commanders alike must engage in regular discussions on the moral scope of their decisions, using both historical lessons and philosophical insights.⁷³

VIII. Conclusion

The evolution of military decision-making is not a story of technology steamrolling over tradition, but rather a story of how the human spirit—its capacity for discernment, its commitment to justice, and its willingness to shoulder moral responsibility—remains the vital core of command decision making. The legacy of Kriegsspiel is a testament to this truth. It teaches us that the uncertainties of war cannot be fully solved by even the most advanced algorithms. Those thorny, problem laden decisions in the chaos of battle demand morally informed, legally sound judgments that are fundamentally human and fundamentally accountable.

We are all now participants in an AI-driven future. That fact is inescapable. Our mission is clear in this new world: ensure that technology remains a tool—a powerful instrument of observation and proficiency—but never the arbiter of moral decisions. Judge Advocates will always have a crucial charge to uphold the principles of LOAC and insist that every act of war, no matter how informed by data, is ultimately driven by human decision.⁷⁴ The art of war should remain a human art—a discipline that respects both our technological progress and our lasting moral commitments.⁷⁶

The Trolley Problem, Now With Drones

Paul Webber

Everybody loves to bring up the trolley problem when the conversation turns to combat autonomy.

You know the one. A runaway trolley, a lever, five people on one track, one on the other, and a room full of smart people congratulating themselves for discovering that hard choices are hard.

That’s fine for philosophy class.

It is considerably less helpful when what is actually coming at you is a mix of FPVs, larger UAS, relay nodes, and a threat picture that gets worse by the second.

Because in the real world, there is no single lever. There is no neat binary choice. And there is definitely no timeout where everyone gets to sip coffee and debate ethics before the first drone gets through.

That is what makes the autonomy conversation so strange to me. We keep talking about whether autonomous systems should make decisions, when the more relevant question is much more practical:

What, exactly, have we told the system to prioritize when things get ugly?

That is the real issue.

Not whether a machine “thinks.” Not whether autonomy sounds scary in a panel discussion. But whether the priorities inside the system make operational sense when time, volume, and chaos all show up at once.

And yes, preserving human life has to sit at the top of the stack. That should not be controversial. If the system gets that wrong, nothing else matters. But the moment you say that out loud, you immediately run into the next problem:

What are you willing to give up in order to protect people?

That is where the clean ethics discussion starts to get muddy.

Are you willing to break emission control early and reveal parts of your architecture if that gives you a better chance to stop an inbound threat? Are you willing to spend an expensive effector on a cheap drone because the drone is about to do something very expensive to a human being? Are you willing to expose a sensor, burn down magazine depth, or reduce future survivability in order to win the next fifteen seconds?

That is not science fiction. That is not some future hypothetical. That is the design problem.

And it is why good weapons pairing and scheduling logic cannot just be a glorified target list. It has to manage the fight, not just the shot.

In my view, a system in automatic mode should start with a few very simple truths.

First, protect people. Always. Not as a slogan. As an actual governing constraint.

Second, attack the coordination layer when you can. If the threat is being enabled, cued, or managed through a digital radio architecture, relay node, or some other command-and-control function, then taking apart the network can matter more than taking apart any single aircraft. Killing the brain is often more useful than killing one finger.

Third, prioritize by time-to-effect, not by whichever target looks the most impressive on a slide. The platform that creates harm in ten seconds matters more than the platform that might become a problem in two minutes. That sounds obvious, but it is amazing how often people want a system to admire the taxonomy instead of solving the problem.

Fourth, win the math. Swarm and raid problems are, at their core, volume problems. If your system is not maximizing defensive carrying capacity, conserving the right effectors, and pairing assets efficiently, then you are just losing in a very organized way.

And fifth, do not show your hand too early. A lot of modern defense is not just about whether you can engage. It is about when you reveal what you can do. Signature management matters. Survivability matters. Teaching the other side about your architecture, timing, and preferences is not free.

That is the balancing act.

And this is where the trolley problem starts to break down.

Because in combat autonomy, the question is usually not “do I sacrifice one to save five?” It is more often: “If I act now, I may save these people immediately, but I may also reveal my posture, burn resources, and create greater risk for the next wave.”

That is not a lever-pull. That is risk management across time.

It is also why I think some of the public conversation around autonomy misses the mark. We tend to talk about it like the system is some mysterious black box making moral choices on its own. In reality, the system is doing exactly what it was designed to do. The uncomfortable part is that its “decision” is really our priorities, our assumptions, and our tradeoffs...just executed at machine speed.

That part should get more attention.

Because where I sit now, at AV, working with teams trying to solve exactly these kinds of layered air defense and counter-UAS problems, I can tell you this is not theoretical. These are real questions. They show up in mission planning, in sensor and effector integration, in operator workflow design, in how you pair weapons to tracks, and in how you preserve decision advantage when the pace starts to outrun the human brain.

And that last part matters.

The goal is not to remove humans from the fight. The goal is to build systems that help humans survive the fight, keep the timeline from collapsing, and make better decisions under pressure. If the machine can help the operator keep track custody, reduce cognitive overload, and recommend the right pairing before the situation becomes unrecoverable, that is not reckless autonomy. That is good design.

The irony is that the real danger is not that these systems become too autonomous.

It is that we build them with vague priorities, fuzzy logic, or PowerPoint-deep thinking and then act surprised when they do something dumb under pressure.

Machines are very good at doing exactly what we told them to do.

That should be comforting and terrifying in almost equal measure.

So no, the modern combat autonomy problem is not the trolley problem.

It is messier than that. Faster than that. Less philosophical and a lot more unforgiving.

The real question is not whether the lever should be pulled.

It is whether we built the system to understand what matters most before the trolley ever showed up.

Paul Webber is a retired U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel and former Marine Corps Special Operations Officer with more than two decades of experience in national security, strategic operations, and leadership. A Virginia Military Institute graduate, he now works in the defense technology sector, where he helps shape innovative solutions for national defense and aerospace missions. He is also a high school wrestling coach, avid reader, terrible fisherman, and lifelong learner.

The Real Test of ‘Epic Fury’ Isn’t Just on the Battlefield

Benjamin Van Horrick

Previously published with Real Clear Defense

America often prepares for the war it has just fought. Today, the Pentagon is preparing for the next war, in real time, under fire, against the clock.

The Davidson Window marks the period beginning in 2027, when intelligence analysts estimate that China will possess the equipment and personnel to execute a cross-strait invasion of Taiwan. As America focuses on the Strait of Hormuz, it cannot lose sight of the Taiwan Strait. What the U.S. military learns from Epic Fury may determine whether it is ready before hostilities begin in the Pacific. Beijing, meanwhile, is taking notes and making moves.

Over the past year, three high-profile missions have put U.S. military personnel, processes, and equipment to the test. Midnight Hammer tested long-range strike coordination in a contested environment. The Maduro raid tested rapid force projection across domains. The January raid involved more than 150 aircraft and drones, the integration of space and cyber effects, and coordination across multiple intelligence agencies. Epic Fury now tests it all at scale, against an adversary willing and able to fight back. These operations provide more than just combat experience; they are a live-fire stress test of the entire American defense ecosystem, from acquisition to industry, before the window to deter a conflict over Taiwan closes. Each operation generates data that no sterile, static, or synthetic exercise could replicate. The question is whether the feedback loop is fast enough.

The campaign of attrition in Ukraine is also a campaign of learning. Its drone advances did not come from resources alone but sprang from treating the front lines as a product development cycle. The way Ukraine collects, analyzes, and applies data from combat is a model America must replicate. Unlike Ukraine, whose industrial base sits within range of the conflict, America must bridge vast distances between production and combat. What remains unclear is the American industrial base’s ability to produce weapons based on frontline data at the pace of conflict. The Pentagon’s recent push to fund domestic drone production lines indicates it understands the problem and is moving to address it. Whether it can compress the acquisition timeline fast enough before the Davidson Window closes remains the true test.

The demand signal to industry is clearer and more urgent. During the opening salvo of Epic Fury, the U.S. military expended 500 to 700 Tomahawk missiles. Congress responded with a supplemental appropriation to accelerate Tomahawk production, but the long production lead time leaves the joint force seeking near-term alternatives.

Last month, the U.S. Army compressed a contracting timeline to 72 hours in response to urgent needs revealed by Epic Fury. This compression should become the standard, not a crisis response. Epic Fury uncovered gaps in America’s capabilities, including counter-UAS and counter-mining operations. These gaps present opportunities for startups and established contractors to integrate open-source intelligence and frontline feedback to field solutions.

The Pentagon’s tight alignment with Silicon Valley and defense startups goes beyond adopting new products; it demands embracing open feedback loops to drive adaptation. Since Epic Fury began, defense startups have received more orders from the Pentagon. The new director of the Defense Innovation Unit, Owen West, recently asserted, “Drones are the most significant battlefield innovation in generations in Ukraine.” America must couple its tech ethos and software innovation with a manufacturing base capable of turning lessons into warheads.

Silicon Valley iterates because failure is recoverable: a firm can ship a bad product, data flows back, and the next version improves. War is not a sprint cycle. The opening phase of a conflict with China over Taiwan will not offer a second iteration. What Epic Fury can provide is not a rehearsal but a pressure test, stressing the acquisition cycle, the command architecture, and the domestic industrial base before the environment becomes unforgiving. The goal is to win in Iran and ensure that what breaks in the Middle East does not break in the Pacific when the margin for error disappears.

Critics may contend that optimizing for a desert air campaign against a technologically inferior foe could entrench the wrong lessons for a maritime strait fight against a peer competitor. The objective was never to choose this specific test environment; it was to leverage the environment thrust upon it. Epic Fury is not an export of tactics to the Pacific; it is a stress test for the acquisition cycle, command architecture, and the defense industrial base that all-domain fights demand.

Epic Fury remains an evolving operation with tremendous risks. The campaign has revealed how the U.S. military manages its now constant targeting cycle, controls maritime terrain, recovers downed pilots, maintains maritime awareness, and matches munitions to the right targets. America’s adversaries are drawing their own lessons from Epic Fury. This contest of wills is also a contest of learning. What matters now is not just who learns, but who can act on those lessons fastest.

The Written Word

Fiction and Nonfiction written by servicemen and veterans.

Did you ever kill anyone?

Larry Boggs

Maybe, maybe not.

Not in the Army in Vietnam, I am sure. But I am capable of killing—of that I have no doubt. I think most of us are. But have I killed? I honestly don’t know.

In my dream, I am driving alone on one of those winding, two lane West Virginia roads up a mountain with a never ending double yellow line. The curves are perfectly graded to smooth them out for speed.

I have driven this road many times. I have the confidence of youth. I know most of the time you have a fair, if imperfect, view of what is ahead. Only when confronted with a sharp left turn are you truly blind. Those corners are the ones where you often see a cross or two on the side of the road.

In my dream, it is turning dark, a time when it’s hard to tell the real from the imaginary. I have my lights on to give warning to approaching cars as much as to see where I am going.

In my dream, I am a little drowsy—hypnotized by the modulation of the highway moving left then right.

In my dream, I am startled: As I round a blind curve, my lights land on a scraggly old man in the road. He is frozen in fear, with his right arm outstretched, as if to stop me by magic. Before I can respond, he flies into the air over my hood. I come to a screeching stop. I get out and run to him. He is dead. His magic didn’t work.

In my dream, I am overcome by terror. I just killed someone. I am desperate. I can’t undo what’s done, but I want out of the mess I am in.

In my dream, a voice says: if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there... No one heard. No one saw. It never happened.

In my dream, I drag the man I killed to the edge of the drop-off and roll him over the side of the mountain. I don’t plant a cross. I drive on.

Every time I have this dream, it ends when I am startled awake in a cold sweat, like Burt Reynolds at the end of Deliverance.

Every time I have this dream, I see the same skinny old hillbilly dressed in black and gray with long hair hanging out from under his dirty old hat.

Every time, I see his ghost-like white face, his long-hooked nose and his beady, blazing black eyes staring into mine.

Every time, after, I say to myself, he wasn’t real. I didn’t kill him. It’s only a dream.

But every time, after, I think, if it isn’t real, if it didn’t happen, why do I keep having this dream over and over. Why am I so haunted by him?

Every time, after, I ask myself, could I really have killed a man and rolled his body over a mountain to rot?

Every time, the answer is: Maybe, maybe not.

Poetry and Art

Poetry and art from the warfighting community.

“Kilroy” 
Dan Grimm

I saw the burned-out window frames, 
vacant and broken for years, 
and gazed in awe 
at the heroes 
         warriors
        juggernauts
       destructors
      vandals
     animals
   men
boys
that came here before me, leaving their mark with 
half-inch holes in the plaster and brick. 
 
7.62 millimeter cursive 
5.56 millimeter punctuation 
“Kilroy was here.” 
“And here.” 
“And right fucking here.” 
 
The signature of Lady Liberty is 
unmistakable. 


Will You Say My Name? 
KR Harbert

Will you say my name?
Not just today,
not just because the calendar told you to remember,

But when the flags are folded,
when the music fades,
when life gets loud again

Will you still say my name?
For what was lost was not just a life.
It was your brother,
your sister,
your mother,
your daughter,
your father,
your son,
your love.

I was there for you.
For country—yes.
But more than that,
for people I would never meet,
for freedom I would never see fully,
for moments I would never live.

I was never perfect,
Just willing to serve.

Will you just say my name—
out loud?

When was the last time you did?
Does my picture still sit
on the nightstand
collecting silence?

It’s okay.
I’m still there
in the quiet,
in the spaces between your thoughts,
in the moments you almost turn around,
when something feels familiar.
Will you say my name,
and remember me?
Not the uniform.
Not the medals.
Not the folded flag.

But the laugh—
the kind that filled a room,
the life— the kind that wasn’t finished,
the love— the kind that had a name,
the joy— that never disappeared.

You were my world,
my reason.
my home.
And I would do it again—
not for glory,
not for history,
but for you.

So today,
when you gather,
when you remember,
when you speak of sacrifice—
don’t let it be distant,
don’t let it be abstract,
don’t let it be forgotten.

Say my name.
Let it be alive and large
on your lips,
in your stories,
in your homes,
in your hearts.

Say the names
of those beside me—
those who stood,
those who fell,
those who never made it home.

Because memory is the last place we live,
and we are waiting just to hear it one more time.

Will you say my name?

Transition and Veteran Resources

Career and civilian transition guidance, geared towards helping servicemembers plan their careers and help transitioning servicemembers succeed in civilian life.

Mastery Before Meaning: Stop Telling Veterans to Find Their Passion

Edward Honn

“And now for my favorite slide,” the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) instructor continued, “find your passion.” I sat in the back of class, waiting for the day’s lecture to be over so I could drive the sixty minutes back to Scottsdale from Glendale and fit in a solid workout. These PowerPoint slides, still stuck in 12-point Times New Roman, appeared to be unchanged since the Clinton administration.

“Follow your passion?” a soon-to-retire Air Force Technical Sergeant whispered to me, “When I enlisted, I just needed a job, man, not a passion.”

He made a good point. When I commissioned, my goal was to serve and mentor Marines, not to “find my passion.” But along the way, that’s exactly what happened. The ceremonies, inspections, hikes—they became meaningful. Not because the military was the perfect fit, but because we ultimately got better (some more than others).

So why is it, when each of us makes the decision to leave, whether by retirement or separation, every military transition “expert” we know tells us to go find our passion, as though that will solve all the world’s problems? This advice fails veterans not because they lack passion, but because it misunderstands how purpose was built in the first place.

The Passion Question Is the Wrong Question

“Find out what your true passion is, and you will never work a day in your life.” It sounds good. It just isn’t true.

Researcher Amy Wrzesniewski found something that should’ve killed the passion myth decades ago: people relate to their work in one of three ways: as a job (a means to pay bills and receive health insurance), a career (a path full of prestige, advancement, and increased responsibility), or a calling (work that is central to one’s identity and sense of purpose). And here’s the part TAP doesn’t tell you: those orientations have nothing to do with the occupation itself. In any given industry, roughly equal proportions of workers fall into each category.

One does not find purpose in work; they make work purposeful.

My peers didn’t commission because infantry, logistics, or communications was their “passion” (although every Infantry Officer that I’ve ever met was incredibly passionate about being an Infantry Officer). They took the oath of office for other reasons: patriotism, adventure, student loans. Looking back, all of them (including myself) would describe their time in the Marines as the most meaningful work they have ever done. How is this possible?

Psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan offer a possible answer. They proposed self-determination theory, which identified three basic psychological needs that drive intrinsic motivation: competence (experiencing mastery and effectiveness), autonomy (freedom of self-chosen action), and relatedness (community and connection to others). When one meets all of these needs, they experience a profound sense of internal motivation regardless of their actual day-to-day work.

The Marine Corps (and the military in general) satisfies all three needs simultaneously. Training, starting in boot camp or Officer Candidates School, progressing to advanced Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) certifications, builds competence and confidence. Decentralized command and control provides autonomy (in most situations). And “embracing the suck,” whether through a twenty-mile Marine Corps Combat Readiness Evaluation (MCCRE) hike or waiting in line for hours for no reason, creates vivid memories of shared hardship that most civilians will never experience. That creates meaning. Not the work itself—the conditions.

I felt all three at once during the Marine Corps’ Weapons and Tactics Instructor (WTI) course in Yuma. Fourteen-hour days, operating at the edge of everything I knew (insecure overachiever, a la Laura Empson). During one of the flight phase confirmation briefs, I stood up and delivered my two-minute communications plan to a room of over 500 joint military servicemembers. I closed with an ad hoc “standby to copy,” and watched every head simultaneously look down to take notes. Competence, autonomy, and relatedness—for two minutes, all at once. That’s what it looks like when it’s firing on all cylinders.

When a servicemember decides to leave the military, the resulting transition strips all three needs at once. They lose the structured training and competence gained over years of perfecting their MOS. The autonomy that comes from rank, trust, and confidence disappears. And camaraderie (esprit de corps) evaporates altogether. Telling someone who has lost competence, autonomy, and community to “find their passion” is like telling them to shop for oxygen. The better response is to tell them to recreate the exact conditions under which the previous purpose developed, even if the results are markedly different.

The Craftsman’s Mindset

If passion is not required to find purpose in work, but rather a result of it, then the question for transitioning servicemembers changes from “What is my passion?” to “How can I build valuable skills that no one else can offer?”

Cal Newport, author of So Good They Can’t Ignore You, coined the term “the craftsman’s mindset”—focusing on what you can offer the world at large rather than what it can offer you. Newport argues that building a set of skills that are both rare and valuable serves as the scaffolding for a genuinely satisfying career. Passion is what happens after you have worked long enough to transition from an apprentice to a true master.

Deep engagement (what we know as “the flow state,” when time and stress seem to disappear) materializes when one’s skill and the corresponding work challenge are evenly matched. Flow does not arise out of passionate work. Rather, flow is found when one pursues mastery and challenge at the absolute edge of their current ability level. The communications officer finding flow in teaching a hip-pocket radio wave theory class did so not because that class was particularly meaningful, but because it demanded the full spectrum of crystallized experience, instruction, and mentorship skills: hard-won competence.

Job Crafting: The Skill You Already Have

In Yuma, I worked with the command team to organize a “Golden Ammo Can” field meet that was borne out of dragging junior Marines to “PT” on the track, sometimes kicking and screaming (I might have been in my mid-30’s, but I still tried to outsprint everyone that I could, even on two torn calves). Nobody told me to do that. Nobody put it in my billet description. I saw an opportunity to increase unit morale and built something that fixed it (or at least got everyone at the squadron a half day off).

Wrzesniewski and Dutton created a term for this over 25 years ago: job crafting. It occurs when people expand the scope of their daily tasks, change how they think about their work, and build better relationships with their team, all without job hopping or changing their job description. They do not wait to be assigned “passion work.” They reshape the work they already have.

Marines were born for this: adapt and overcome. The logistics chief who redesigned supply chain procurement because the doctrinally sound solution didn’t fit the nature of the problem—that was job crafting at its finest. In my last role, this looked like writing an unsolicited culture memo to the Chief Strategy Officer, or restructuring a PowerPoint briefing template that spanned six regional markets because the existing one buried the data that mattered. This is a skill that translates directly into the civilian world; it just requires cognitive awareness and deliberate application to succeed.

The Right Question

Stop trying to find out what your passion is. Start building mastery over your unique skill set.

I asked two mentors, one a CEO, one a retired Marine Corps Colonel, the same question about passion and work. They gave me the same answer from opposite ends of the spectrum: passion isn’t the starting point; it’s what shows up after you’ve built something worth building.

Find work that stretches your current skill set just enough that you’re tired at the end of the day, but not numb; take the job that offers flexibility and freedom to make decisions and connects you with the community and the overall mission that you respect.

I’ve thought about what I’d tell that TSgt now if I ran into him. I wouldn’t tell him to “find your passion.” I’d tell him to find work that demands something from him: the meaning will follow.

How Offshore Sailing Helped Me Find Peace and Purpose

Frank Sobchak

I wore the uniform of the U.S. Army for 30 years, 22 of them as a Green Beret in the Special Forces Regiment. During that time, I commanded a Special Forces company in Iraq, jumped from perfectly good airplanes nearly a hundred times, and spent a large portion of my career under a heavy rucksack. I witnessed death firsthand, sometimes in the most unexpected places, and had to make decisions where life hung in the balance. But by comparison to others of my era, it wasn’t a particularly difficult career. Many who served in the post 9/11 wars saw far more combat than I, and far worse. But I served, did my duty, and never avoided challenging assignments. Military service was tough but rewarding, and even though I still have mental and physical scars from my experiences, I loved it and miss it. Or at least I miss some of it.

When I retired from the Army in 2018, it was not an easy transition, and I wrestled with a loss of identity and comradeship. At the same time, I mourned the loss of friends, classmates, and even former students who had given the last full measure of devotion to our country. I wondered why I was spared, and not those who were better than me by any yardstick, especially those who accepted my mentorship and advice to continue to serve but never made it home. Struggling to find my way and purpose, I went back to school to pivot from my life in uniform and to give myself time to figure things out. The isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic only made my struggles with self-doubt, identity, and loss more difficult. There was no respite after graduating, as I found it difficult as a 52-year-old former soldier to find full-time employment teaching in the greater Boston area. Despite having a new degree, I felt even further adrift.

My wife suggested taking on a new hobby could help, so I returned to one from my childhood. My dad raced sailboats in his prime and bought a cruising sailboat, a 1976 36ft Cascade cutter, when I was a teen. He taught me to sail on it, and we did day cruises out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and longer trips around the Caribbean. Because of those experiences on his boat, I almost went into the Navy as a career, but ultimately turned down an acceptance to the Naval Academy in favor of the Army. When my dad grew too old to sail, he passed that boat to me, and I painstakingly breathed life back into it by taking on years of deferred maintenance. But it wasn’t only the boat that needed work. As an Army officer, I had forgotten more about sailing than I had originally learned, so I went back to basics, attending formal training and taking every opportunity to practice with the new-to-me boat. Returning to sailing gave me great pleasure, and it rekindled a dream that I had given up when I chose the Army over the Navy. Could I learn enough sailing skills and build a team to finish the famous 635-mile Newport to Bermuda race? I was perilously weak in both of those criteria, so it was clear to me that there was no chance I could do either of those by myself.

As luck would have it, I connected through social media with an old Army friend who had years of sailboat racing experience, and I asked him if he would be interested in the same goal. Completing the race was also on his bucket list, and he had the connections through his racing experience and his nonprofit, Gold Star Sailing, which teaches children of fallen servicemembers to sail, to put together a team and develop a plan. Rather than jump directly into such a challenging race, my friend counseled that the team needed to train together and compete in smaller races so they could get to know one another and the boat better. The Newport to Bermuda race would also require a larger, more capable boat, underscoring the need to train together.

We followed my friend’s advice. What transpired as we did so was transformative, and in some ways, sailing saved me by bringing purpose, comradeship, and inner peace.

Sailing filled many of the gaps that I missed from military service, and working as part of a crew gave me another tribe to be part of. Humans are pack animals. We need socialization and purpose, as well as operating as part of a larger whole, to help give us meaning. In sailing, this purpose comes from working together towards a goal in a dangerous environment: my friends and I against the cruel sea. As a friend in the Coast Guard constantly reminds me, “The sea is trying to kill you 24/7/365.” Like Ranger School, offshore sailing is not for the faint of heart. One sailor died during the 2022 Newport to Bermuda race, two died in the 2024 Sydney to Hobart race, and three sailboats were lost during the 2024 Newport to Bermuda race or returning home from the race. Our crew worked together against nature, and the camaraderie I so desperately missed from my time in the Army was back. The dark humor, the fun ribbing, the practical jokes, the building of deep friendships through training and shared hardship: they all returned as the crew bonded. Despite my inexperience, every member of the crew, all of whom had decades more time on sailboats than I had, was patient and helped mentor and teach me. Just like a good military unit.

While there is an image of sailing as a luxury sport for the rich and famous toasting each other with champagne glasses on their yachts, the reverse is true for offshore sailing. The sport is physically and mentally demanding and can be dangerous. During a race, you are usually tired, cold, and wet, sometimes hungry, and you alternate between being bored or terrified as your 38,000-pound boat careens on the water like a car slipping on ice. But the more time I spent sailing, I realized that those were things that I missed being a civilian. Almost like Edward Norton’s character in the movie Fight Club, I recognized that I subconsciously missed the hardships of the Army that help remind us what it means to be alive: sleep deprivation from four-hour watches, hours of boredom interrupted by excitement and terror as a halyard breaks and the sail collapses into the sea in the middle of the night, and eating lukewarm food in the rain with water dripping off the brim of your cap into your bowl. All of that made me think that, like those days in the Army, there was no place I would rather be. Some hardship, the type that is hard while enduring it, but remembered nostalgically afterward, is simply good for the soul. An added bonus is that while sailing requires a modicum of fitness, you don’t have to be a marathon runner to compete, and if your body has some rough mileage on it (as many of those of us who served do), sailing is much lower impact and lower stress than other sports.

Sailing also gave me peace. In our crazy, harried lives perpetually accelerated by the information revolution, sailing was a refuge of peace and, often, quiet. At sea, hundreds of miles from shore, our mobile phones, those devices that constantly demand slavish obedience, become useless bricks. Our only connection to the outside world was an intermittent internet connection at America Online dial-up speeds and, at times, a disembodied voice from a nearby sailboat checking in on VHF radio. There were no emails, no tweets, no calls, and no text messages demanding attention or action. When under sail, it was beautifully silent, with nothing but the wisp of the wind over the sails. Noise, in the form of luffing or flogging sails, would only come to remind you if you hadn’t trimmed them correctly. It was a luddite paradise, completely unplugging from the modern world and all its drama, insanity, and injustice. We had no distractions; all we had to do was work together, focus on the boat, and make it go as fast as possible while staying safe.

In parallel, the power of nature, of the sea, and of the weather helped remind me that I didn’t control everything – that there were powers greater than me that controlled my destiny. The day before the race, my friend noticed a catastrophic problem with the steering column that could easily have sent our boat to Davy Jones’ Locker, had it not been addressed. During the race, there were hours without wind, and we suffered the doldrums while our boat barely moved. But there were also days when the wind howled like a hungry animal, waiting to devour careless sailors, and it took all that we could do to keep our boat and crew out of danger. Sailing reminded me of my place in the world and of the role of fate, helping me come to terms with how little I was able to control when friends perished overseas while I was assigned CONUS.

In the end, we achieved our goal and finished the Newport to Bermuda race, even winning the Finisterre division of cruising/racing boats. But we also accomplished more. Over the hours and days of training, we honed an effective team that functioned like a well-oiled military unit. That “unit” and the experiences sailing with it filled many of the gaps that developed in my life when I left the Army. I treasure the comradeship, peace, and purpose that sailing has brought me and am so thankful that it helped save me.

The opinions and views expressed are those of the author(s) alone and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Government, U.S. Department of War or its components, to include the Department of the Navy or the U.S. Naval War College.

Book Reviews

The Sarvan by Douglass Hover

Jillian Bosserdet

WWI setting, mythological folklore thriller with a bit of good ol’ fashioned friendship, love, and violence? Say less. I guarantee The Sarvan will stay with you long after you read it. It deserves a home on your bookshelf. This book found its way to my TBR as a historical fiction/horror novel, and while I suppose those themes are present, The Sarvan should not be read for a historical account nor for something that will make you shake in your boots. The only horror The Sarvan presents is the complexity of being human in a world of war and survival. Douglass Hoover creates a story that poses the question we human beings consistently debate: what is right and what is wrong? Whose moral compass are you living by? And does north always point towards good and virtuous, or are monsters sometimes needed to keep true evil at bay?

We follow a group of Allied POWs led by German soldiers into the Alps, where they are all stranded in a remote village. Already, we’re in ominous territory. Now, consider that the villagers worship a god and harbor a monster. The mystery unfolds slowly, but brutally. There is a delightful back-and-forth between the present and the past, or between other passages and books, that provides depth beyond what happens in the village.

I highly suggest the audiobook to fully immerse yourself. Character fascination easily turns to connection as the narrator flawlessly becomes each individual.

Hoover’s words are intricately woven, no detail written without purpose. Pay attention from the first word. He ties history, mythology, and current reality together to create a narrative that resonates beyond the story. While complete innocence and depravity do exist within the story, mostly good and evil are left to the reader’s perception – how do you define evil within the confines of survival?

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This ends Volume 46, Edition 1, of the Lethal Minds Journal (01MAY2026)

The window is now open for Lethal Minds’ forty seventh volume, releasing June 01, 2026.

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All articles published in this newsletter are the personal opinions and positions of the authors themselves. All content, and the Lethal Minds and Lethal Minds Journal brand is the copyright of Lethal Minds©

As discussed, the proposal has the potential to create positive change. However, the service must examine whether the proposal’s effects will positively reinforce and modify the lethality of the Amphibious Reconnaissance Community for the better, and, if not, what else can be done?

Part Three will describe the change proposal and illuminate six key areas of concern for further refinement or discussion.

The Proposal for Change - Recommendations for Planning and Execution

Force Design 2030 represented a serious bet - wholesale changes across certain elements of the Marine Corps requiring a thoughtful approach. Proposals and directives created worthwhile debate amongst senior decision makers, both past and present. Regardless of opinion, one element received wholistic agreement: appropriate risk calculus will reside at the epicenter of change. Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalions were absent from Force Design-directed change, but presently there is a strong case to be made for modernization. Should the service consider modernizing Recon, one factor is critical regarding risk – manpower. Specifically, the ability to produce the number of Marines necessary to accomplish reconnaissance missions in competition and conflict. Reconnaissance Marine production remains a challenging task. This must be addressed if the service is to ‘bet on Recon’ and modernize at scale.

Summarized in previous installments, the community maintains historic operational success spanning the continuum of conflict, all the while being affected both directly and indirectly by service level changes from the past twenty-five years. Considering the capabilities within the formation, range of missions they assume, service and joint level concepts which require their participation, and the evolving character of war, the Amphibious Reconnaissance Community deserves focused attention.

Amphibious Reconnaissance formations are one of many manned elements within the Marine Corps Intelligence and Surveillance Enterprise (MCISR-E). The distinguishing factor between Reconnaissance Marines as opposed to other formations exists in the specialization of capabilities Recon Marines achieve over time. Beginning with a rigorous accession and production process, Reconnaissance Marines acquire individual infantry-based hard skills, SOF equivalent specialized insertion and extraction capabilities (SPIE), and partake in unique unit-level training. Although the unit of action exemplifies a versatile tool required for the joint force, there are simply not enough of them. The question has and will continue to be one of quantity, not of quality.

In the fall of 2025, the Reconnaissance Operational Advisory Group (ROAG), led by representatives of the Active-Duty Reconnaissance Battalions, created a new concept of employment for reconnaissance, dubbing it the Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) Recon Enterprise. The concept incorporated all elements of the MCISRE but focused specifically on the Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalions and the requirement to incorporate an ability to sense in multiple domains, as well as facilitate multi-intelligence discipline collection. These multi-domain and disciplined units of action are positioned forward of the MAGTF during the competition phase to sense, battlespace shape, and if necessary, conduct kinetic or non-kinetic action as required during crisis or conflict on behalf of the Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) or Joint Task Force Commander.

Initial feedback from commanders within the Marine Corps Ground Combat Element (GCE) was positive. Conceptual agreement was not difficult to achieve. A multi-function unit of action comprised of complementary intelligence disciplines/domains in theater before a Crisis Response Element’s arrival represents a powerful tool, one that will facilitate success during the transition from competition to crisis or conflict.

Despite agreement, there is a limiting factor in realizing this concept to its full potential, the mass required to achieve the desired impacts. Realizing the critical linkage between the concept and fully aware of the shortfalls of Recon Marine production, a proposal surfaced from USMC Training Command with the following end state: create a model to provide sustainable, consistent reconnaissance capability for the Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF), Combatant Commander, or the Joint Task Force (JTF). Operating within the confines Training Command could impact, the lever for change was standardized entry-level training. The desired effect is an increase in both the population of Marines who conduct reconnaissance and the coupling of reconnaissance assets on the modern battlefield. An expected byproduct of the proposed reorganization would be a reduction in training attrition for the Amphib Reconnaissance community without sacrificing current quality.

Since the proposal’s release, operational planning teams explored the Doctrine, Organization, Training, Manpower, Logistics, Personnel, and Facilities (DOTMLPF) Pillars. As is the case with many initial courses of action, staff estimates guided refinement. In its current state, the concept received favorable endorsement amongst Marine Corps senior leaders. However, from the perspective of Recon community leaders, limiting factors exist, and further refinement, staffing, and decisions are necessary. Optimistically, these limitations equate to opportunities for the service. In recent history, the Reconnaissance community worked diligently without significant service-level action to support the growth and modernization of capability. With Marine Corps senior leaders’ attention squarely focused on the issue of future concepts regarding MAGTF Reconnaissance employment in the Corps, the system is primed for action.

The current proposal is nominally named the “Infantry-Scout-Recon Pipeline Proposal.” It is summarized as follows: entry-level Marines begin with Infantry skills as a foundation, are taught Reconnaissance skills pertaining to Ground Warfare during the Ground Reconnaissance Course (GRC), and subsequently finish the pipeline with Amphibious Reconnaissance skills during Amphib Reconnaissance Course (ARC). Marines who complete GRC are awarded the 0315 (Scout) MOS. Marines who complete the full pipeline are awarded the 0321 (Reconnaissance) MOS. The Course in its entirety is purpose-built to service the manning of two distinct categories of reconnaissance: Ground and Amphibious. Marines who attain the 0315 MOS will be placed within Infantry or Light Armored Reconnaissance (LAR) Battalions. Marines who achieve the 0321 MOS will man the Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalions.

Two examine the proposal, two critical questions exist:

Does the proposal represent a valid correction that will create worthwhile, lasting change?

Should the service expand its view on the Amphibious Reconnaissance community’s modernization by taking an approach beyond the proposal, creating wholesale change for the future of Reconnaissance Marines?

The course of action represents a valid correction. The production model for Reconnaissance Marines illustrates sustained levels of attrition that fail to meet the mark. Although the instructor staff at Reconnaissance Training Company and Advanced Infantry Training Battalion of the School of Infantry West have methodically and consistently manipulated the program of instruction in hopes of decreasing attrition, collective actions have yet to produce the change desired by the service. Tweaking the margins of the program of instruction has created minimal, positive change. A bold correction reinforced by service action and oversight has never been attempted. Despite the validity of attempting bold corrections, the sequencing of change, pace of change, and collection of data is a specified task to ensure the measures of effectiveness and performance are achieved.

This can create worthwhile change. The proposal integrates a military occupational specialty whose skills are aligned to ground reconnaissance-related tasks, like an 0321. The creation of training efficiencies at an entry level between manned sensing elements has high potential to facilitate a tighter linkage between our reconnaissance elements throughout the Division and MEF. This can close the current sensing gap that exists between infantry organic manned reconnaissance assets and reconnaissance at higher echelon commands. Over time, as growth occurs within the infantry battalion's organic Scouts, the Recon Battalions will naturally realign positioning as a Division and Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) asset. Should the course of action realize catastrophic success in growth and retention for Amphibious Reconnaissance formations, this can lead to the Force Reconnaissance Companies realigning doctrinally as the MEF’s premier reconnaissance element.

At its core, the proposal seeks to create positive change for both an increase in quantity and increase in quality of Marines who contribute to Reconnaissance for the future of the Marine Corps. Yet, refinement is required during detailed planning and manipulation must be managed acutely during initiation and implementation. To ensure lasting change, certain elements of the proposal must remain paramount in planning and throughout the longevity of execution. Of the many considerations, this essay will identify six areas for focused consideration, which, if not addressed appropriately, leave gaps that could lead to ineffective execution, falling short of the proposal’s goals. These six areas are: review of training standards, definition of the main effort, pipeline length and impacted military occupational specialties (MOS), manning and supervision, service intervention on the periphery, and finally attrition.

Training Standards

Ground and amphibious reconnaissance training standards must be reviewed and re-baselined for the future of recon support to the Ground Combat Element (GCE) and Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF). This will naturally be done through the Training and Readiness Manual rewrites and Course Content Review Boards (CCRBs) for the MOS and the Program of Instruction. As this occurs, the Reconnaissance community and the command echelon they support must critically examine reconnaissance tasks required on the future battlefield. When doing so, the collective is cautioned to conduct three critical actions. First, it must protect our amphibious linkage to littorals and naval integration. Second, the reconnaissance community must challenge legacy mindsets, which may add unproductive resistance to necessary modernization. Finally, technological advancements require consideration for inclusion or exclusion. This includes service level vehicles and systems belonging to the MAGTF, which Recon will sense for as well as specific reconnaissance-related equipment contributing to multi-domain sensing. Even without technological development, the specialty remains inherently complex. Planners must cautiously integrate technology on top of foundational field skills without overburdening entry-level Marines.

Define The Main Effort

Although two primary MOSs are at the center of the proposal, the Amphibious Reconnaissance community must remain the main effort as initially discussed. Explained in previous essay installments, the Amphib Recon specialty is high in demand but naturally low density due to stringent accessions and rigorous training. However, feeding talent of two recon-related MOSs under the roof of the School of Infantry (SOI) West provides a unique opportunity – the Corps can advance the best talent. If unconstrained, this can occur regardless of the entry-level contract. Should a Marine meet the MOS-specific physical and administrative requirements, modifying a career path in stride to that of an 0321 vice 0315 is a realistic request. Additionally, it is worthwhile to expand recruitment initiatives to Marines of any MOS within entry-level training who possess the aptitude and physicality. Some MOSs within the service are suppressed from conducting lateral moves for numerous reasons, but considering the current Recon MOS health, moratoriums defined within manpower management practices warrant exploration at least for an interim period to right-size the MOS. Unfortunately, in practice, this is unlikely to occur in mass because of the Marine Corps’ manpower management system.

Pipeline Length

Manipulating overall course length is a critical factor as it pertains to the infantry-based foundation and preparation for aquatic-related competencies. In the current proposal, Infantry Common Core (ICC) and Infantry Rifleman’s Course (IRC) are considered prerequisites prior to starting the Ground Reconnaissance Course. If this remains foundational, a Marine will spend six weeks at Common Core and an additional six at Rifleman’s Course – equating to just over three months. Adding on the reconnaissance-related instruction at Recon Training Company (RTC) for Scouts and Recon Marines (eighteen weeks in total), the pipeline completes seven and a half months after boot camp graduation. Critical for consideration, the established time frame above does not include the required follow-on schooling Amphibious Reconnaissance Marines attend for specialized insertion or extraction or individual specialty skills. Although the time frame of the new proposal is roughly the same as the current one, adding elements creates ramifications, both positive and negative. Impacts include but are not limited to maximization of the time of contract and longevity health concerns due to the physicality of the course. Overall length must be scrutinized and examined during pilot courses. Measures of effectiveness can be tied to any extended timeline, being justified by the return on investment.

There is overwhelming support for the inclusion of common infantry tasks; however, the depth requires attention. Integrating three months of training on the front end will come at a cost. Marines and Sailors are still required to achieve a level of competency in the water, which prepares them for the Amphibious Reconnaissance Course yielding the 0321 MOS. The current solution is Reconnaissance Training and Assessment Program (RTAP). Roughly four weeks of physical conditioning, which facilitates students achieving the water survival advanced (WSA) qualification, as well as finning exposure, and land-based physical fitness. In combination, the land and aquatic-based skills mentally and physically harden students for success during the Basic Reconnaissance Course. It remains an unconfirmed planning assumption that infantry training at the genesis of the pipeline will increase physical toughness and resiliency, thereby decreasing attrition. This requires focused consideration, specifically as it pertains to students being prepared for amphibious-specific tasks and standards as well as physical resiliency concerns.

Impacted Military Occupational Specialties (MOS)

Additionally, impacted by future course length, contract utilization concerns exist for each MOS involved in a future pipeline change. Three enlisted specialties from two branches of service are currently attending the course. If Scouts were added, the pipeline would include four. The current Basic Reconnaissance Course pipeline not only includes 0321s, but a mission-critical asset contributing to decreased risk for reconnaissance missions, the Special Operations Independent Duty Corpsman (SOIDC). Field medical training and the Special Operations Combat Medic (SOCM) school remain requirements to attain the L02A Navy Enlisted Code (NEC). These two courses total eleven months in addition to wherever a Corpsman phases in the pipeline. SOIDCs are specifically nominated as a principal concern of consideration for two reasons. First, future operational concepts require exquisite medical capability for prolonged casualty care. Second, this pipeline feeds entry-level, tactical training for L02As who not only serve in Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalions, but also Marine Corps Special Operations Command. As described in Part Two, this high-demand specialty is shared between MARSOC and Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalions.

Beyond enlisted MOSs, there are two officer specialties that are pipelined alongside enlisted students. Both Infantry Officers and Ground Intelligence Officers attend the current Basic Reconnaissance Course to attain the 0307, reconnaissance officer MOS, after their first initial tour in the fleet. As the future commanders of our reconnaissance formations, this population’s initial training exposure and integration to recon peculiar tasks are integral to the unit’s employment within Marine Corps operating concepts. As described in previous essays, Recon tasks incorporate high-risk elements and a Recon Marine’s job continues to demand technological complexity in modern warfare. The knowledge required for leadership to effectively plan and supervise operations is initiated during entry-level training. Although the Infantry Officer’s Course (IOC) is a prerequisite for attendance, the differentiation of conditions and standards for recon training remains relevant for a Reconnaissance Officer’s development prior to leading a tactical formation.

Considering the variance in an initial fleet tour for an officer after IOC, baselining both ground and amphibious reconnaissance skills during entry-level training provides tangible benefits for future platoon commanders and their Company or Battalion Commanders. Although an intangible variable, it is worth adding that entry-level training is where the climate of a close-knit, niche community initiates. Threading a common baseline between the officer and enlisted populations during ELT is valuable. During the re-write, efficiencies will undoubtedly be sought, but they must be staffed effectively, keeping the intent of the course modifications in mind; reduce attrition and create a more lethal reconnaissance formation. The numerous MOSs of both officer and enlisted, Navy and Marine, illustrate numerous equities requiring consideration. As a planning restraint, it is strongly advised that they not be divorced from entry-level reconnaissance-related training.

Manning and Supervision

For change of this scale to be effective, it must be appropriately manned and supervised. Increasing the target population will balloon demands on the school's capacity not only for Marines conducting training, but also the Marines Awaiting Training (MAT) Population. If the transition from initial infantry training to reconnaissance training is not sequenced appropriately, it may diminish the effectiveness of the proposal. To combat this, the solution will undoubtedly require additional instructor staff. However, with 0321 MOS health already strained, a complicated program re-write underway, and high-risk POI training continuing, increases in residual risk are a given. As this is a bid for success of a community, the service should consider appropriately organizing for both a successful transition and long-term success. This may include surging personnel, overstaffing during times of expected friction, or potentially including contracted solutions for manning. Additionally, although ancillary to the proposal, a key pillar to reinforce success is increasing the level of officer supervision from a Major (O4) to a Lieutenant Colonel (O5). Advocated by the reconnaissance community for years prior to this proposal, this is likely to bring stability by way of an experienced reconnaissance officer for the program of instruction.

Service Intervention on the Periphery

The fifth area of consideration resides external to the pipeline proposal. With service level attention, opportunities exist for the Corps to direct action from elements external to Training and Education Command. Training Command exemplified a drive to reinforce the success at Reconnaissance Training Company by working through Marine Corps Recruit Depots (MCRDs) to advance water survival training beyond the Water Survival Basic (WSB) level for Recon contracts. Linking external actions to the future Ground and Amphib Recon Course, which reinforces programmatic success, should be an explicit task. In a similar fashion, the service should consider any action to the left of the pipeline that contributes to higher quality candidates, thus driving down attrition. This includes but is not limited to how Reconnaissance recruiters engage and inject themselves into Marine Corps Recruiting Command (MCRC) and how the service could maximize lateral move populations both at the entry level immediately following Boot Camp, or during a Marine’s first or second enlistment. To the right of the proposal, the service has an opportunity to synchronize reconnaissance-related career fields beyond initial alignment at entry-level training. If done correctly, this can contribute to longevity, impacting retention and the amphibious reconnaissance population health over time.

Attrition

The final area worth considering is attrition. Typically, attrition statistics of the current pipeline are rarely discussed as a positive thing. It is, after all, a central factor in the impetus for change. However, it is worth stating the Manpower Management Integration Branch (MMIB) of the Marine Corps relies upon attrition. Drops from the pipeline reclassify into ‘hard to fill’ specialties for the Marine Corps because of the stringent administrative requirements to even attempt to join Amphib Recon. This manpower model is not unique to Marine Recon; the same applies to entry-level Navy washouts from Basic Underwater Demolition School (BUDS) in the SEAL pipeline.

Attrition will undoubtedly continue to be a byproduct because of the necessity for the future Amphibious Reconnaissance Course to remain a high-risk training program. Due to the nature of the training and expectations of graduates, students must retain the same option as current candidates, dropping on request (DOR). Not only is this quality required because of the classification of training, a student’s option to quit also allows the service to keep the correct talent for the future mission. When chartering the course’s evolution, the service would be wise to refine expectations for tolerable levels of attrition. As the course’s pilots occur, an unwavering stance must be kept. During the longevity of execution, the same prescription is mission-critical. As illustrated from Marine Recon’s history of employment, the product is solid. Considering the tasks the service expects Reconnaissance Marines will have in the future, the mission is likely to remain as, if not more, complicated and high-risk.

Although not a direct comparison, it is worthwhile to contrast Amphib Recon’s entry-level attrition to other high demand low density MOS’ in sister services. The mission of Amphibious Reconnaissance maintains high-risk concepts of employment like elements within the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) enterprise. After all, Force Recon is the foundation of our own service’s SOCOM element. Historical attrition for similar entry-level pipelines for the Navy SEALs, Army Rangers, and MARSOC illustrates levels strikingly similar to Marine Reconnaissance. Like the SOCOM community, difficult standards and high-risk elements are a part of the allure and attraction to join in the first place. Just as Special Operations espouses in the SOF truths, senior leaders are encouraged to remember that a product with these qualities cannot be mass-produced. Taking this into account, during execution of the pipeline changes, the service must be cautious about removing elements that impact the bottom line of the product for the sake of simply making more.

Although the description of the pipeline above is purposefully simplified, the course of action, detail, and execution will be inherently complex. Success requires both the Reconnaissance community and the service to follow through. Initial actions are well underway as two pilot courses are scheduled to be completed prior to Fall of 2026, providing valuable data from which to pivot for future modification. During the writing of this essay series, discussions with Commanders from the School of Infantry East and West as well as Training Command illustrate the initiative possesses service-level buy-in and willingness to invest. Actions underway include additional contracted personnel solutions at Recon Training Company, empowerment and training for Recon Recruiters coupled with advertising and recruitment campaign initiatives, and in-stride pipeline MOS re-coding. Although in process and unrealized to its full potential, the work thus far does not illustrate a successful fire for effect mission. The Recon Community has an opportunity it must exploit. The collective service level tools and attention send a clear message; the Corps is willing to reinforce a community that needs it.

Sustained, continuous observation of the effectiveness of both planned and currently executing changes is required for success. If done right, this will take time. The service and reconnaissance community must fully commit and exercise tactical patience. If phased over time and steered by quantifiable facts from evidence-based data, the MCISRE has the potential to grow in manned sensing elements. Amphibious Reconnaissance will not only retain but reinforce its proposition to the Marine Corps and the Joint Force.

The modern battlefield requires this high-demand, low-density asset to sense, strike, and survive. It is beyond time to invest in service-level solutions and advocacy. Creating efficiencies in entry-level training by removing all barriers to success is a prime start to achieving the goal.

This is the final installment of a series published in conjunction with The Connecting File. Lethal Minds Journal exists to bring forward challenges, opportunities, ideas, and opinions for service members and veterans. We are proud to have been a part to be a part of this critical discussion. Thanks for LtCol Eppes and The Connecting File for working to make it happen.

PART II: The Last Quarter Century of Amphib Recon – Consistent Challenge:

In the 88 years of its existence, considering the size of its elements, the Amphibious Reconnaissance community created an outsized impact. Across the conflict continuum, Marine Corps Reconnaissance represents a force capable of providing lethal and non-lethal effects, impacting or influencing both tactical and operational objectives. Although historically successful, the community has faced numerous challenges which prevented its advancement and modernization. The challenges listed below will focus on the same timeframe as Part One, the previous quarter-century.

Talent Management

The first historic challenge relevant to USMC Amphibious Reconnaissance directly ties to a practice the service espouses to conduct, but is impossible to achieve in totality. The phrase ‘Talent Management’ gained popularity and is now considered mainstream vernacular since codified service level guidance appeared in 2021. Inherent to the manning of any high-demand, low-density occupational specialty, the service seeks tools to ensure stability. However, in the case of the Reconnaissance community in the early 2000s, it is more appropriate to state that service level changes created an internal talent war.

Pre 9/11 and during the genesis of the Global War on Terror (GWOT), if a Marine possessed the desire to be a part of a high-caliber, specialized, lethal ground element, there was only one destination – an Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion. Missions were high risk, and operational units received dynamic and consistent tasking – similar to today. The challenge was the attraction. High-caliber talent longed for a home where they could test physical or operational limits and benefit from healthy competition when surrounded by like-minded Marines and Sailors. However, a history of solid reputation and operational impacts led to the community being a victim of its own success.

From 2003 to 2006, the experimental unit of Marine Corps SOCOM Detachment One (Det 1) represented the service’s solution for providing an element to USSOCOM. The specialized capabilities, individual and collective skills inherent, combined with the resident mindset and previous operational success, led service leadership to select Force Reconnaissance as the nucleus of Det 1. When Det 1 expanded and became Marine Corps Special Operations in 2007, Reconnaissance Marines were relied upon as the sourcing solution for MARSOC operators.

The operator elements were specifically pulled from the Force Reconnaissance companies of First and Second Reconnaissance Battalion. Although a valid option to accomplish the rapid task, the gutting of talent and manpower linkage has had ramifications for years. Beyond the initial pull of MCSOCOM Det 1 and subsequent stand-up of MARSOC, the Reconnaissance community continued to pay the manpower tax until the 0372 MOS (Critical Skills Operator) creation occurred in 2014.

For seven years, the operator billets at Marine Corps Special Operations Command were staffed as Billet MOS 0321, Amphibious Reconnaissance Marine. Without an appropriate structure and a pipeline for the creation of an operator, manpower flow bifurcated into both communities, diminishing Recon Battalion health. The continued trickle expanded as staff requirements existed to man elements such as the Marine Raider Training Center, while the SOCOM element grew. Because the 0372 MOS was designated as lateral move only, this meant MARSOC was pulling mid-grade talent, stymying progressive growth at critical levels for Reconnaissance elements. This at times equated to Marines from Reconnaissance Battalions receiving orders to MARSOC when they possessed little to no desire to serve within the newly minted formation.

Long-term, and potentially most damaging, the service created a war on talent for highly qualified, junior Marines. Those of both infantry-related backgrounds, and second-term non-infantry Marines who desired to laterally move now had a choice of which unit to join. Specific data is difficult to ascertain on the numerical impacts, but it is inarguable that the bifurcation led and continues to lead Marines to choose MARSOC instead of becoming a Reconnaissance Marine. Additionally, Reconnaissance Marines are posed a similar question: continue my career as a Reconnaissance Marine or laterally move to MARSOC.

To dispel the myth, the Reconnaissance Community does not notice a mass exodus of second-term Marines laterally moving to MARSOC. Although lateral movements exist, it is by no means catastrophic. The more damaging proposition is the choice. There are definite differences between each community which weigh heavily on a junior population, specifically the ability to homestead, deploy consistently as a tasked operational element, or receive increased pay aligned with operational SOCOM billets found in MARSOC.

Familiarity and Trust

The second historic challenge of the Amphibious Reconnaissance Community can be simply defined as a Commander’s willingness to commit the asset. The operational employment of reconnaissance across the Marine Corps and Joint Force has oscillated, specifically in the interwar years surrounding the GWOT. This is a result of numerous factors discussed in Part One and largely depends on the unique operational requirements for each Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) and Division, as well as the ebb and flow of potential missions while on deployment. Beyond a few specific deployment rotations within the GWOT, Reconnaissance Battalions do not normally deploy as a Battalion pure with its commander as the C2. The predominant, traditional model is the Battalion serving as a force provider for other Marine Corps deploying formations, such as a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU). The willingness of a MEU or Joint Task Force commander to utilize an Amphibious Reconnaissance asset largely rests on their comfort level and familiarity with the intricacies of employment. Any leader who commands attachments or subordinate elements possessing niche skills comes with the inherent challenge of becoming intimately familiar with their planning, execution, and contingencies required for high-risk training or operations.

Utilizing a MEU model to further explain the complexity, a MEU commander accepts numerous assets under his command authority, to which he has varying degrees of familiarity. History shows both high-performing ground officers (typically infantrymen) and pilots commanding the ‘Crown Jewel of the Marine Corps.’ For example, consider the elements of the Air Combat Element (ACE) and the Ground Combat Element (GCE). Should an infantryman be in command, he is required to familiarize himself with the ACE, its components and capabilities, and accept risk when approving air operations. Vice versa, a pilot who is in command is expected to do the same for all ground elements. Despite the level of familiarity of the commander, an additional layer of complexity that may influence the assets’ utilization is advocacy and personal experience, which can influence the trust required to employ reconnaissance elements during high-risk operations.

The Marine Amphibious Reconnaissance Community lacks advocacy in comparison to other military occupational specialties, specifically, at the ranks from which amphib recon elements typically receive mission approval. The limited number of Reconnaissance Officers in the Colonel and General Officer ranks does not help the cause, but the lack of depth is natural due to characteristics of the community, such as its selection requirements and the career path being non-traditional. The burden of familiarizing commanders with employment rests squarely on Recon Battalion leaders to combat but requires receptive leaders in the gaining unit. Engaged leadership at the Recon Battalion Commander level and the Recon Company Commander level is a specified necessity.

The higher headquarters commander’s personal experience with Amphibious Reconnaissance employment is a secondary factor of influence. As described in Part I, mission priorities and employment between the three Marine Expeditionary Forces (MEFs) differ, which will characterize a Commander’s assessment on the specific capabilities required or appropriate employment method of Amphibious Reconnaissance. For instance, the current employment of 2d Reconnaissance Battalion on the 22^nd MEU. With Visit Board Search and Seizure (VBSS) or Maritime Interdiction Operations (MIO) as a priority for the MEU, the Commander and staff afloat, as well as the Joint Task Force (JTF) operating as the Higher Headquarters, are by now well versed in the mission’s complexities. Yet a commander for a West Coast MEU may not share the same niche experience. Varying degrees of experience translate directly into comfortability which can lead to risk aversion as the commander’s familiarity will define his willingness to commit to high-risk operations. Finally, it is worth stating that at times the aversion is appropriate. Factors influencing this are based upon the capability or certification level of a recon unit in combination with the frequency and recency of executing high-risk tasks. Additionally, and potentially most critical, the desire to commit to high-risk missions resides directly in the commander’s assessment of the professionalism of the unit.

Regarding a commander’s experience, as mentioned in Part One, many tasks and capabilities of Amphibious Reconnaissance are more akin to the special operations domain. This highlights a significant difference between the two elements worthy of capture. Ranking officers who hold mission approval in SOCOM typically hold the same individual skills as practitioners from an early rank and complete numerous repetitions during their career. Through this familiarity, they are naturally more comfortable with employment considerations and risk.

Modernization

The third historic challenge to the Amphibious Reconnaissance community is modernization. Force Design 2030 represented the largest modernization the Marine Corps conducted in the service’s recent history. New decisions and directives of the service exhibited significant priority shifts, to include divestments and investments to achieve future success. Although not directly impacted by Force Design directives, the community was impacted indirectly by Force Design. The elimination of assets within each Division hampered how reconnaissance is layered and stacked within the battlespace for mixing, cueing, redundancy, and shaping. Reconnaissance laden tasks for infantry organic reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition (RSTA) were formally the role of the Scout Sniper elements. Without this element, RSTA planning and execution presents a gap, one which must be covered and may fall to an Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion element.

Not to say it would never be done, but tasking by an infantry battalion contradicts current employment models and command relationships, as Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalions are templated as Division or MEF elements. In the time since the 0317 MOS closure in late 2023, the close reconnaissance gap still exists. Although reconnaissance in the close battlespace is advancing with coverage provided by small unmanned aerial surveillance (sUAS) within tactical elements, manned reconnaissance employment will never be completely replaced. The service explicitly acknowledged the gap requiring a solution. Since the elimination of the Scout Sniper MOS, the Basic and Advanced Scout Program of Instruction (POI) are complete but have yet to produce appropriate staffing, and most critically, the viable product required for infantry commanders. Statistically speaking, nearly ten courses are complete, no PMOS exists, and close reconnaissance remains a critical task. The proposed solution outlined in Part Three of this series provides an opportunity for the creation of a Primary MOS 0315 (Scout) and will be discussed in greater detail.

It is appropriate to acknowledge that not every unit in the Corps required a facelift from Force Design. Worth noting, however, the Reconnaissance Community was largely left out when they could have used it. Sensor-rich battlefields are the norm, and the service continues to experiment and evolve tactical sensor integration, command and control methods, and ties into the joint fires architecture. Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalions are experimenting on pace with every other element of the Marine Corps regarding sensor integration and concealment, but weaving in multi-disciplined intelligence or multi-domain reconnaissance capabilities remains a challenge. Because of the sheer difficulty of accession, production, and consistent high-risk training by Amphibious Reconnaissance Marines, integration of enabling capability during employment can at times introduce more risk than reward. Although rarely completed at the speed or scale of SOF units, this gap remains worthy of exploration for future Force Design and service-level experimentation.

Regardless of the challenges above, the gravest challenge to Amphibious Reconnaissance is community internal. Most relevant is a timely solution or combination of solutions that facilitates the creation of Reconnaissance Marines. Despite similarities of Amphibious Reconnaissance to special operations units, one element stands out: Reconnaissance Marines are predominantly made in a ‘street to fleet’ model, meaning the bulk of Amphibious Reconnaissance Marines attain their specialty directly following their exit from the same Marine Corps Boot Camp as the rest of the service.

A Marine on an Amphibious Reconnaissance contract, better known as a Hotel Zulu (HZ), is one of the most difficult to fill by Marine Corps Recruiting Command (MCRC) standards. The main reasons are the required aptitude (105 GT score or above) and the necessity to possess a Secret Clearance. These stringent entry gates create additional barriers for recruiters who already have a demanding job. In a perfect world, recruiters could screen for aptitude in the aquatic skills that are bedrock to the community and a main attrition factor during entry-level training. However, to demand it would be a fool’s errand on top of their current workload. Thus, the necessity to screen and select entry-level Marines with the appropriate physical attributes must occur after accessions. Currently, the task is the responsibility of Reconnaissance Training Company (RTC) in Camp Pendleton. Yet, attrition statistics equate to a systemic problem requiring intervention.

Entry level training for a Reconnaissance Marine or Special Operations Independent Duty Corpsman (SOIDC) is split into two parts: Reconnaissance Training and Assessment Program (RTAP) and Basic Reconnaissance Course. Passing both courses produces an entry-level graduate who transitions to specialized schooling required as a Reconnaissance Marine or SOIDC to include Survival, Evasion, Resist and Escape school (SERE), Basic Airborne, Military Free Fall, and Marine Combatant Dive School. Over the past quarter-century, attrition rates have ebbed and flowed, but currently illustrate a pattern requiring attention. Although attrition statistics vary from year to year, the combination of the two entry-level courses equates to roughly a 70% attrition rate. In the last two years, Reconnaissance Training Company consistently manipulated its Program of Instruction (POI) in hopes of creating even marginal effects: maneuvering test dates for physical events, increasing physical training instruction time on high attrition aquatic skills, and establishing mentor and focus groups to increase resiliency and grit. However, attacking the margins internal to the course has yet to create repeatable and sustainable change.

Considering current manning statistics, requirements for employment, and retention rates, the Reconnaissance community requires external assistance. The health of the MOS faces a herculean fork in the road, leaving three options to impact production: drop standards expected at entry-level training, continue course internal minor manipulations in search of the panacea, or institute external POI changes to create marginal gains on top of course curriculum changes. The first two options are the least viable. Decreasing standards will create a product incapable of accomplishing the current and future task expectations of the Marine Corps Amphibious Reconnaissance. Minor manipulations did create marginal gains, but will likely not achieve the desired MOS health. The third option, however, has never been attempted. It is likely because it requires service level intervention to impact elements of the Marine Corps, which the Reconnaissance Community does not control.

Despite success of the community over the past 88 years of Marine Corps History amidst challenges and setbacks, it’s modernization and MOS health future is at the center of a new initiative. A USMC Training Command proposal surfaced in late 2025 and, with the assistance of the Reconnaissance Community stakeholders, received a warm reception from senior leaders in the Corps. The proposal aims to establish commonality in training standards for Marines who conduct both ground and amphibious reconnaissance, all the while facilitating the growth of the Amphibious Reconnaissance Community. This would serve as the foundation to create and reinforce efficiencies between multiple RSTA elements within the Marine Corps (both Scouts and Reconnaissance Marines). If done correctly, the Amphibious Reconnaissance community may realize MOS health it has not possessed in over a decade, and more importantly, be poised to assume the challenging mission of creating multi-domain, multi-int sensing and battlespace shaping required for peer-to-peer conflict. Maximizing this opportunity relies upon two groups of individuals. First, Reconnaissance community leaders must be early adopters of change and lead the community to evolve. Second, the Corps’ senior leaders should emphatically stand behind the Amphibious Reconnaissance community as the primary benefactor, reinforcing the foundation for future modernization. Both elements are mission-critical.

This is Part Two of a series published in conjunction with The Connecting File. The initiative and relevant recommendations to ensure its success will be discussed in Part Three of this series, to be released at 1800 EST on 22 April 2026. Please distribute these widely.

A change proposal from the spring 2026 USMC Ground Board holds major implications for the future of USMC Reconnaissance element manning and modernization, specifically in the smallest Major Subordinate Command (MSC) of each Division - the Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalions. If approved under the current design, the proposal has the potential to create efficiencies in generating manned elements of the Marine Corps Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance Enterprise (MCISRE) – specifically Scouts and Amphib Reconnaissance Marines. However, if mismanaged or not focused appropriately, execution may fall short of maximizing the chance to reinforce a lethal formation in the Corps.

Critical questions exist.

Does the proposal represent a valid correction that will create worthwhile, lasting change?

Should the service expand its view on the Amphibious Reconnaissance community’s modernization by taking an approach beyond the proposal, creating wholesale change for the future of Reconnaissance Marines?

This essay, and those to follow, comprise a series delivered in three installments. Part One will examine the last quarter-century of Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion employment in Marine Corps modern conflict. Part Two will lay out modernization challenges to the community over the same period. Part Three will summarize the current proposal, illuminate ongoing and planned actions, and present additional recommendations from a community stakeholder perspective. The ultimate goal – create or reinforce positive gains to advance the community’s future.

Prior to introducing the proposal and modernization recommendations applicable to the community, it is worthwhile to review the recent history of USMC Amphibious Reconnaissance elements in the last quarter century.

PART I: The Last Quarter Century of Amphib Recon – Dynamic Employment:

The previous twenty-five years of Marine Corps Reconnaissance history include swings and shifts across missions that demonstrate a depth and breadth of capability. Contributions spanning every phase of the conflict continuum. Historical employment and success illustrate valuable dynamism within the Marine Corps Ground Combat Element (GCE), worthy of examination by senior leaders for upgrade in resourcing and inclusion in operational concepts and doctrine.

In the early 2000s, Marine Reconnaissance formations cemented a pivotal role within the Global War on Terror (GWOT). Although not originally designed to be directly tied to a vehicle, Recon Marines formed the advanced guard in the march to Baghdad, providing critical information gathered by reconnoitering avenues of approach. Additionally, Recon elements engaged in both limited-scale raids and sustained kinetic engagement while assuming Screen, Guard, and Cover missions preceding the main body elements’ advancing towards the capital of Iraq. Once firm positions were established, the assets morphed into elements relied upon for direct action raids of high-value individuals (HVIs) and high-value targets (HVTs) alongside special operations elements with limited capacity and a high volume of targets.

Historical tasking in Afghanistan shared similar aspects of Iraq – reconnaissance elements were counted on to survive and thrive in both deep reconnaissance missions as well as providing lethality via small operational elements against critical targets for regimental combat teams (RCTs), divisions forward, and adjacent battlespace commanders. Whether operating individually, alongside elements of Special Operations Command (SOCOM), or owning their own battlespace, the Marine Reconnaissance community established itself as a reliable tool to be utilized within the most wicked environments the country had to offer. Recon history still tells the stories of the Battle of Shewan and Sangin as well as operations in Nawzad and Trek Nawa. The GWOT remains a defining time for the community, illustrating Amphibious Reconnaissance use during Major Combat Operations (MCO) and long-duration Counter-Insurgency campaigns.

During that time, reconnaissance elements truly illustrated their diversity of skill through employment from shipping as a part of contingency operations or what we now call the Stand In Force (SIF). Establishing themselves as one of the most capable ground forces launching from Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs), Recon elements were consistently tasked as first in the fight for missions supporting Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief (HADR) within Haiti and during retrograde operations from Afghanistan. Although not consistently used as the primary element for Combatant Command (COCOM) and Fleet Commanders, Amphibious Recon elements were involved in raid missions launched from shipping or afloat forward stage bases. Until recently, Visit Board Search and Seizure (VBSS) or Maritime Interdiction Operations (MIO) was a skill MEU Reconnaissance elements consistently trained for, were certified in, but with which they were rarely tasked. However, in the wake of the ‘Magellan Star’ VBSS, an operation in which Force Reconnaissance elements boarded and seized a vessel from the control of Somali Pirates in 2010, these taskings have become more likely. The MEU Maritime Raid Force (MRF) comprised of two Reconnaissance platoons, and a company headquarters is integral to the operational impact of the 22d MEU in SOUTHCOM supporting Operation Southern Spear. Working bilaterally with the Coast Guard Maritime Security Force (MSRT), Reconnaissance Marines consistently demonstrate themselves as a capable force in a priority theater. As illustrated by our nation’s involvement in the GWOT until today, Recon’s ability to execute varied and complex missions represents a growth opportunity worthy for consideration regarding modernization.

To assume high-risk actions across a broad range of mission-essential tasks, rigorous entry-level training as well as complementary, hyper-specific individual and collective skills are required once a Marine joins a Recon unit. History illustrates the requirement for high standards and the necessity for unique collective training to create well-rounded Marine Reconnaissance Units. Although entry-level training is not the focus of Part One, it is relevant to note that if entry-level training does not produce the quality of Marine who can assume the complex missions mentioned above, the community will fail their mission essential tasks. Thus, the Basic Reconnaissance Course (BRC) Pipeline rightfully remains a difficult primary MOS school. As such, the course represents a high attrition program of instruction (POIs) within Marine Corps Training and Education Command (TECOM).

Once a Marine or Special Operations Independent Duty Corpsman (SOIDCs) passes entry level training, the building of individual skills remains a top priority of the individual training plans (ITPs) in tactical-level reconnaissance units. As a result of the certified skills accomplished during the ITP, Individual Reconnaissance Marines and Sailors combine into a Reconnaissance Team, platoon, or company. When combined, individual and collective training standards ensure the reconnaissance unit at each echelon represents a more qualified unit than any other non-special operations force on the modern battlefield. When compared with Special Operations Force (SOF) formations at team, platoon, or company levels, Marine reconnaissance skills mirror the Marine Corps relevant skills within MARSOC, the 75^th Ranger Regiment, Army Special Forces, and the SEAL Teams.

The expectations of Reconnaissance Marines and SOIDCs to achieve difficult training standards and eventually assume high-risk missions is directly built upon a stringent accession and production process. Specialized skills in small form factor per team include but are not limited to Joint Terminal Air Controllers (JTACs), unmanned aerial surveillance (UAS) operators, Snipers, Breachers, and communication operators. On frequent occasions, a singular Marine will possess numerous qualifications and capabilities. In addition to the individual skills previously listed, it is incumbent on each Reconnaissance Marine or SOIDC to develop Specialized Insertion and Extraction (SPIE) skills in the form of Helicopter Rope and Suspension Techniques (HRST), Military Freefall, and Combatant Dive. The personalities and capabilities resident in the reconnaissance team, platoon, or company, offer a conventional element that can consistently interact and perform at par with like-sized formations in the SOCOM enterprise, an anomaly in other branches of the armed services. This fact results in a high demand for bilateral training with SOF (both American and Partner/Allied units) and demonstrates two specific characteristics: First, USMC Amphibious Reconnaissance represents a critical linkage for the service into Special Operations Integration, Interoperability, & Interdependency (SOF-I3) for the nation’s crisis response force. Second, this provides credible reason for the Marine Corps to consider how the community’s modernization could extend the elements’ contribution within current service doctrine and employment models.

As the Marine Corps continues its evolution after Force Design, Reconnaissance formations are critical for making an impact in the nation’s crisis response force. Currently, they maintain individual and collective capability certifications, which are inherently relevant not only to high-end conflict but also within the competition space. However, when Force Design occurred, the formations were largely untouched in comparison to the Infantry or other selective communities within the service.

Despite not being directly impacted by Force Design 2030 as a focused element requiring service level change, to its credit, the USMC continues to demonstrate its acknowledgment of ‘Recon’ importance. Numerous forms of directives, articles, and publications continue to relate its criticality on the evolving battlefield to include: 38^thCommandant’s Planning Guidance (2019), A Concept for Stand in forces (SIF) (2021), Maritime Reconnaissance Counter Reconnaissance Concept (2022), Frago 01-2024: Maintain Momentum (2024), the 39^th Commandants Planning Guidance (2024), and GCE-2040 (2025). Additionally, Joint and Allied documents and concepts acknowledge the importance of reconnaissance and the difficulty of accomplishing reconnaissance-related tasks left of conflict.

The above documents rarely list the Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalions explicitly; however, the elements required of a Stand-in-Force or Recon-Counter-Recon actions are squarely in the lanes of the Reconnaissance Battalions. Tasking statements that not only require reconnoitering and sensing, but also those which contribute to sea denial, battle space shaping, and command and control are maximized through the employment of Amphibious Reconnaissance. The passing of command from the 38^th to the 39^th Commandant offered a continued expectation that reconnaissance tasks be inextricably linked to service concepts such as Expeditionary Advanced Based Operations (EABO), Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment (LOCE), the Joint Warfighting Concept (JWC), and Major Combat Operations (MCO). Additionally, it is worthy to note that although the service acknowledges the importance of reconnaissance, when considering the ISR-soaked battlefields of today, traditional manned reconnaissance employment is an inherently wicked problem if attempting to remain concealed or clandestine.

The current operational imperative of the active-duty Battalions of First, Second, and Third Recon both overlap and diverge in the theaters in which they are employed. The difference is based upon the priority theater of focus, the maturity of the theater, and where current operations reside on the competition continuum.

Most closely aligned in mission are the First and Third Reconnaissance Battalions. The natural alignment stems from the service priority theater of INDOPACOM in which their forces deploy. Providing forces to the MEUs of INDOPACOM (11^th ,13^th ,15^th, 31^st) as well as the Marine Littoral Regiments (MLRs) during cooperation and competition in the Pacific, the mission imperative is Operational Preparation of the Environment (OPE) defined as the conduct of activities in likely or potential operational areas to set conditions for success during conflict. Directly in line with the 39^th Commandant’s Planning Guidance, I MEF is “focused on major contingency operations in the U.S. Indo-Pacific command” and III MEF “remains our main effort as we campaign to deter the PRC.” OPE in support of future crisis or contingency is a traditional reconnaissance mission; one naturally aligned in the competition space. Despite the recent repositioning of the 11^th and 31^st MEU in support of Operation Epic Fury, the Indo-Pacific mission imperative remains. Recent dynamic tasking provides a vivid illustration of the necessity to balance proficiency in mission support to Phase Zero operations with the capability to transition to high-end conflict at a moment’s notice. Performing well in conflict is a characteristic common to all Marines as the nation’s crisis response force. Balancing that with the proficiency to support actions prior to conflict illustrates the breadth of capability Recon provides to the service.

The divergence between INDOPACOM focused Battalions and Second Reconnaissance Battalion is apparent but justified by the fact Second Recon Battalion falls under the Service Retained, II Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF). Explicitly stated in the 39^th Commandant’s planning guidance, “II MEF is the crisis response force in readiness…not specifically assigned to a Combatant Commander and must necessarily remain flexible.” Second Reconnaissance Battalion services the 22^nd, 24^th, and 26^th MEUs, but in contrast to First and Third Reconnaissance Battalion has a current operational imperative to conduct VBSS, MIO, and contingency operations in the Caribbean. In addition, the Battalion services Marine Forces Europe and Africa (MFEA) operations, activities, and investments (OAIs) focused on Naval Integration, strengthening partnerships with NATO allies, and the advancement of reconnaissance-related operational modernization vignettes.

Despite differences between the priority tasks which consume Reconnaissance units of action, it is worth noting that the capability delivered in each area of operation remains inherently valuable, creating operational flexibility for not only Marine Commanders but also the leaders of COCOMs, Joint Task Forces (JTF), and Special Operations Task Forces (SOTF). Although priorities differ depending on geography and maturity of the theater, the reconnaissance community continues to demonstrate critical linkages to the Navy as well as Joint and Interagency training and operations. Regardless of their relevance in numerous domains in each phase of conflict, the community faces numerous challenges that plague modernization, which are worthy of action by way of service-level intervention. This topic will be explored in Part Two.

This is Part One of a series published in conjunction with The Connecting File. Part Two will be released at 1800 EST on 21 April 2026. Please distribute these widely.

I am a historian mainly of China – I’ve written books on the Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion in the 19^th century – so writing The Raider, a book on a US Marine in WWII was a new direction for me. About half the book takes place in China, but it’s really an American story.

2. Writing is a solitary pursuit, perhaps even more in an effort that takes as much research as The Raider. You are a history professor, so no stranger to research and writing, but what is it that compels you to write generally, what specifically drove you to tell a story about a relatively esoteric Marine Corps legend (albeit one with obvious China connections)?

I love the isolation of writing when it’s going well. But you also have to have a life outside – I’ve got a wife and two kids, so I don’t write or do research in the evenings or on weekends. The family time is a really necessary counterbalance to the solitude of writing. And I’d also say that when you’re really immersed in writing you’re not really alone, because you’re kind of building this world on the page and you’re in there imagining your readers in there with you - what will they think of this? Do they need more explanation for that? - so even though you may just be sitting at a table in a library with your laptop, your mind is in a place full of other people.

With Evans Carlson, I first came across him in his China context, as this intrepid Marine officer who embedded with the Chinese Communist army. That alone hooked me – he had these adventures in China that no other foreigner had. There were a number of leftist American journalists, etc., who went to visit Yan’an and spend time with Mao’s Communists but Carlson was different in every way – he was a military officer, he wasn’t a leftist (at least, not at the beginning), and he was there on a private mission for President Roosevelt, writing long, secret letters to FDR about his travels. Then you add in the second half of his career, founding and leading the 2^nd Raiders in the Pacific War, and honestly, I don’t think I’d ever come across an individual in my research who seemed so flat-out interesting.

3. Tell us about the process you undertook to write The Raider, and what sustained you through a project as significant as this one?

I was fortunate to have support at the beginning from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which gave me a grant so I could take a year off from my teaching duties and focus full-time on research. Really, the biggest breakthrough was that Carlson’s granddaughter, Karen Carlson Loving, entrusted me with his diaries and family letters – a lifetime of letters to his father and other relatives. I was the first historian she had allowed to use these sources, and it made it possible to really get into his personal thoughts. In some ways, he was a very public man – there was tons of press coverage of the 2^nd Raiders, he wrote a couple of books, he helped write the script for the movie “Gung Ho!” and he was a well-known public figure during WWII. But he was also intensely guarded about his personal life. So being able to work with more intimate materials like his correspondence with his father helped me understand what really motivated him, how he understood the world, what he cared about and believed in. I really wanted to cut through some of the mythology and understand him as a living, breathing human being.

I should also say that I was lucky to get most of my archival research done before the pandemic shut everything down in 2020. So during all that time when the libraries were closed, and travel was difficult or impossible, I had the sources I needed to start chipping away at the writing of the book.

4. What did you learn in writing this specific book, and what surprised you?

I love the self-education aspect of doing history research, and generally try to pick book topics that take me into a time period or series of events I didn’t know much about already. When I started in on The Raider I knew the basic contours of the Pacific War but I hadn’t ever taken a college or grad school course on it, so this was my chance to read widely in the scholarship on WWII in the Pacific, to talk to other historians, work through a long reading list, and really try to educate myself about the era so I could get the context right. The areas where I focused most of my efforts for this book were the history of the US Marines in the Pacific War and China’s experience of WWII, especially in the areas under Communist control.

I could go on forever about things that surprised me, but just to give one example: I’d always learned, and I think most Americans believe, that Pearl Harbor came completely out of the blue. Nobody could have seen it coming; nobody was prepared. Now, it’s certainly true that the US forces in Hawaii were unprepared – but as far as whether anyone could see it coming, Evans Carlson was telling newspapers all the way back in January of 1941 that a war with Japan was inevitable, and we needed to get ready for it. He spent the better part of a year trying to convince anyone who would listen to him that the Japanese were going to attack – there’s this wonderful correspondence between him and the commandant of the Marine Corps, Thomas Holcomb, in 1941 where Carlson says he urgently wants to reenlist (he had resigned from the Marines in 1939 in a fit of pique) because the war with Japan is going to start any day now, and he wants to be back in the Marines when that happens. Holcomb basically tells him to hold his horses.

5. This book is wonderfully readable and accessible. Was it a conscious decision to write a book that is elevated in tone yet not obscured in academic pretense?

Thank you for saying that. My style of writing was a very conscious decision that’s been with me since I first became a historian. My advisor in graduate school was Jonathan Spence, who wrote beautiful, literary books about Chinese history, and he gave me faith that history is a field of scholarship that also values good writing. I have always loved to read, and I honestly find some academic writing completely unreadable. There may be brilliant ideas contained in it, but you have to read sentences over and over to figure out what they mean, so reading it is more a matter of work than pleasure. You want to be swept away by a book, transported to another place and time, and that’s what I’ve always tried to do with my own writing.

6. I helped found MARSOC and spent almost 16 years there, retiring as a Special Operations Officer/Raider in 2021. Obviously, I am no stranger to Evans Carlson (or his Granddaughter Karen, who has kept the Raider flame burning) and own several books about him. I find him compelling for both his successes and his flaws. I think he was, like a number of Marines I’ve known, someone who lived by a pretty strict code of loyalty and duty, but it was one that did not seem to extend to the women in his life. Your thoughts?

The central irony of Carlson’s character was that on the one hand, he believed he was serving Mankind with a capital “M,” he cared deeply about the people of China, he adored his Raiders like sons, he was a humanitarian. And at the same time, he barely cared about the people who arguably needed him the most – his wives and his actual son, Evans Jr. That’s something of a type – the man who believes in some grand, overarching mission and so has little regard for the ordinary people around him. It’s an issue of ego. As far as Carlson goes, it’s also what makes him fully human. When you are writing a biography, and you start thinking you know your subject deeply, they usually go and do something that you really wish they hadn’t. Something where you kind of want to reach into the book and give them a shake and say, “What the hell?” But that’s just a sign that you haven’t really understood them. We all have flaws, and you have to embrace them as part of the person’s overall character, see how they fit with that person’s virtues. That’s what makes them three-dimensional.

7. Carlson had a personality that seemed to inspire both great loyalty and deep antipathy. How should modern Marines view Carlson now, and what should we take from how his peers and subordinates treated him?

Carlson had a lot of antagonism for the traditions of the Marine Corps but he was always a patriot and uniformly loyal to the Corps itself. He spent most of his career as a Marine officer, and he wouldn’t have had it any other way. I think his legacy gets complicated by how much antipathy other officers (especially Merritt Edson) felt towards him because of his politics, his personal fame, his unorthodox methods of leadership, and the egalitarianism of his Raider battalion. And of course, his connection to the Chinese Communists, but a lot of that was based on Carlson completely misunderstanding Mao’s followers and thinking they were more like democratic nationalists than true, Soviet-style communists (he was a far better military observer than political observer). In any case, for all of these reasons, when he dies, the Baltimore Sun calls him the black sheep of the US Marine Corps, and I think he would have agreed with that assessment.

I think it’s certainly time to forgive Carlson the controversies and remember him for his contributions, for his faith in the Marine Corps, and above all for his mentorship of the 2^nd Raiders in WWII. Yes, his politics were completely out of step with the Marines at the time of his death in 1947, but think of Smedley Butler, who retired and then started giving speeches about how “war is a racket,” and the Marines were just gangsters for the capitalist class. That certainly doesn’t seem to have tarnished his reputation in the long run. There was a lot more to Carlson than his late-career politics.

8. What do you want people to take away from this book?

As a history professor, I want them to come away with a deeper understanding of the relationship between the United States and China during World War II, because I think the hostilities we see today ultimately date back to the unraveling of the US-China alliance back then. I also want to help readers understand the complex internal dynamics of China at the time – really, a three-way war between Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT, the Japanese, and Mao’s Communists, tied ultimately into the more global currents of WWII.

As a biographer, I want them to feel the admiration and sympathy for Evans Carlson that I came to feel when I was researching his life. For all of his faults, he was a fearless, creative, moral, and patriotic man. As a military commander, he cared for the enlisted men in his battalion with all the affection of a father. It could hardly have been more fitting that when he did eventually get shot during the Pacific War, it was when he was trying to save the life of a wounded private.

9. What advice do you have for aspiring authors?

Pick a topic that fascinates you. It is sort of a cliché to say that, but if you are going to spend years researching a topic, make sure it’s something you find endlessly interesting, something you genuinely want to learn a lot more about. As I said above, half the fun of working on a book is the self-education aspect of it. And when it comes to the writing, write in your own voice, the voice you hear in your head. Don’t feel like you have to follow any particular model or style. It’s really just about you talking directly to your reader (even if you might never know who they actually are).

10. What is your favorite book and why?

My favorite book is Stephen King’s 11/22/63 – it’s a time-travel book, about a guy who is able to go back to this one day in the 1950s, and he can either stay there or come back out into his present, and ultimately he winds up living back in the past with the goal of waiting back there until November, 1963 so he can prevent the assassination of JFK. I love time-travel books in general – another excellent one is Kate Atkinson’s Life after Life, where the main character keeps dying and starting her same life over again, sort of creeping her way towards an outcome where she will try to assassinate Hitler.

I think books like these appeal to me especially as a historian, because so much of history is contingent – so many accidents and coincidences have to line up just right, and then – boom, you have some watershed event like the outbreak of a war, or the assassination of JFK, that might send the world in a different direction. The best books about time-travel really bring the accidental nature of history into relief, as the main character feels their way forward, trying over and over again to derail some major event they know is coming, hoping to change the future but not really knowing if it will be for the better or for the worse.

11. What are you working on now?

I’ve got two projects I’m working on. One is a broad narrative history of the Boxer Rebellion, which will be the third in a trilogy of books I’ve written on the major wars of China’s 19^th century (the others were Imperial Twilight, on the Opium War, and Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom, on the Taiping Rebellion). And I’m also working on a smaller, more intimate book about a WWII internment camp in north China where the Japanese incarcerated about 2,000 Allied civilians from 1943 to 1945. It was a remarkable range of people inside the camp – Western missionaries, doctors, businessmen, bar girls, graduate students, even a jazz band from San Francisco – along with about 200 British and American children from a missionary-run boarding school, a number of whom are still alive and have vivid memories of their experiences.

12. What have I not asked that I should have?

You are probably too polite to ask this, but one question is: what’s it like to write military history when I’ve never served in the military. Other members of my family have, but I have not, and I would say that there is a special kind of interest in writing about a person whose occupation and worldview and experiences are very different from your own (I guess the same could be said for my writing on Chinese history, given that I am not Chinese). As a writer, it’s a chance to immerse yourself in a life very different from your own, and I would say that my biggest takeaway, personally, after writing a book about Evans Carlson and the 2^nd Raider Battalion is that it was utterly humbling. Seeing what these young men did in the 1940s and trying to imagine what it actually felt like to them. Most of the Raiders were new to the Marines after Pearl Harbor, this wasn’t originally a part of their life plans, and the courage and resilience they demonstrated during the war – the incredible dangers and challenges they faced, the hardships they suffered – were just worlds beyond the experience of myself or anyone close to me. It brought home to me the nature of sacrifice in a deeper way than I’d really understood it before. As I said, writing this book was a humbling experience.

The Raider is a fantastic read; a comprehensive look at Evans Carlson as both man and Marine. For students of USMC history, SOF history, US/China relations, the Red Scare - it’s all in there. - RWP

On May 25, 2014, I was five months into another Afghanistan deployment when the rumor mill began grinding about a special guest coming to speak to us. Was it the President? Secretary of Defense? Some musician? Odds were leaning towards POTUS. Meanwhile, I was working really hard at not giving a shit.

I always made a habit of skipping such things. I was there for the war, not a selfie with a comedian or cheerleaders, actual or political. I saw morale, welfare, and recreation efforts in a warzone as distractions. I didn’t want to be someone who needed a distraction for, as a Ranger friend said to me in 2010, as we watched a 5K run pass us on Bagram’s Disney Drive after another all-nighter in the JOC, “Standing here? Judging these people? This is the best thing I’ll do all day.” Yeah, it was a bit of a pose, but after twenty years, more than half of it spent watching people in their late teens and early twenties lay it all on the line, I was tired of politics and bloviation by politicians and their choruses of multi-millionaire cable news twits. Little has changed in that regard.

Regardless, curiosity got the better of me, and at the last minute, I joined a very long line. Marines, much less Navy SEALs like the one standing next to me in line, were relatively rare at Bagram, with most of us in Helmand Province. Our desert utilities stood out in a sea of Army OCP and ACU patterns, attracting the attention of a man carrying a clipboard and wearing a headset who pointed at me and said, “Hey! You guys come with me!” I grabbed our Army friends and unironically said, “Follow me!”

We all followed Clipboard Guy through a metal detector, got wanded by a guy in civilian clothes who looked like he could take me and the SEAL while eating french fries, and were led into the waiting aircraft hangar where Clipboard Guy took us onto a stage, directing us to a set of bleachers behind which hung an American flag larger than any ever unfurled for Toyotathon.

As I looked out at the growing crowd of servicemembers apparently judged insufficiently telegenic, an officious young woman came out, also bedecked in a headset and carrying a clipboard, to tell us we would be on live television and not to pick our noses. I immediately wanted to pick my nose, roll it up, and throw it at her, but I didn’t because I felt like she was already sneering enough at us unwashed savages, and I didn’t want to confirm her assumptions.

That night, there was indeed music from a big-name country singer/insurance salesman. There were indeed speeches from various important people, the names of whom have faded in the mists of time. And there was indeed the President of the United States of America.

I shook hands with a President for the first time that night, as did about 4,000 other servicemembers. I didn’t vote for the man, but I felt respected in that he took time to connect with me, with all of us, literally. Still, I don’t like being a prop, no matter who is standing in front of me, and given the way the clipboard and headset crowd treated us, it was an inescapable truth that I was a guy selected as scenery because I was wearing tan instead of green. In that moment, and perhaps others for 27 years wearing the cloth of the nation, I was a prop.

Fast forward twelve years.

The “No New Wars” president who ran on gas prices has us in at least one new war, which has me paying another dollar per gallon at the pump. Then there’s Venezuela, or the announcement that came today, as I write this, that “Cuba is next.” Take that for whatever that’s worth from a president given to, shall we say, bombast. But in CENTCOM, it’s inescapably true that the 82^nd Airborne Division is on the move, two Marine Expeditionary Units are in theater, and things are exploding all over the place. It’s a war of some stripe, one for which I would have been champing at the bit at 23, professionally willing to do at 33, and resigned to at 43. If I’m honest, I would not have much use for a Marine who failed to fall somewhere on that spectrum. But at 53 and retired, I like to think I’ve learned something from the past decades about clearly defined, achievable, and consistent objectives.

However, all I can really say, and something I hear echoed from peers with years in combat is, “Can anyone explain this one?” Not in the Dr. Seuss rhymes favored by the weekend news guy currently running the most powerful military on earth, but in a coherent list of objectives, ends, ways, and means? Can I get a coherent theory of victory that survives from one press conference to another? I must ask, because I know too many dead people not to, “Are we doing the right thing? And are we doing the thing right?” It’s something one must ask when one is no longer willing, or required, to be a prop.

Which brings us to March 21, 2026, when our President and Commander-in-Chief memorialized the passing of the former FBI Director, US Attorney, and Vietnam combat-wounded and decorated Marine Robert F. Mueller with the words, “Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!” People assure me that the guy whose hand I shook hated, and that the guy who used a dead servicemember as a prop to sell newsletter subscriptions loves, the military. I don’t know either of them, so I can’t say. Far too many Americans have forgotten that it’s fine to say nothing when you have nothing good to say. Not least our current President.

In 2026 America, loyalty certainly seems to come in different forms. Mine is not, never was, and never will be, blind fealty to any man. Mine comes in questioning the wisdom of actions taken by people who were never willing to place themselves where blood and shit and steel were the currency of the day. Because my loyalties still lie, and always will, with those who were, and those who did, and even more importantly, those who are. I will always remember what it felt like to be at the edge of the Empire.

And I will never forget that I was just a prop.

Maybe you disagree. Maybe you feel the same way. Tell us how and why you feel here. This volume is poetry-heavy. In an era in which truth has become fungible, a meaningless word attached to internet missives designed for one audience, poetry always tells the truth. But so can essay, and Marine Major Benjamin Van Horrick, Editor in Chief of The Connecting File, offers a brave one below. You can be a truth teller. Send yours to lethalmindsjournal.submissions@gmail.com. 

Fire for Effect,

Russell Worth Parker

Editor in Chief - Lethal Minds Journal

Dedicated to those who serve, those who have served, and those who paid the final price for their country.

Lethal Minds is a military veteran and service member magazine, 
dedicated to publishing work from the military and veteran communities.

Two Grunts Inc. is proud to sponsor Lethal Minds Journal and all
of their publications and endeavors. Like our name says we share a
similar background to the people behind the Lethal Minds Journal, and
to the many, many contributors.

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equipping oneself with the appropriate tools is equally imperative. At
Two Grunts Inc., we are committed to providing the necessary tools to
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Our motto, “Purpose-Built Work Guns. Rifles made to last,” reflects
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In This Issue

Across the Force

Give the Company Gunny Three Drones: Heavy-Lift UAVs and the Future of Infantry Sustainment

The Written Word

A Standard Not Met

Bosnia – The Landmine Road 1997/8

Poetry and Art

Ben Cantwell Art

Operator

The Fox

Fisher, Cat and Artic Warfare

All Secure

Across the Force

Written work on the profession of arms. Lessons learned, conversations on doctrine, and mission analysis from all ranks.

Give the Company Gunny Three Drones: Heavy-Lift UAVs and the Future of Infantry Sustainment

Thomas Schueman

From submarines to IEDs, friendly logistical efforts have always been targeted by the enemy. But resupply is now contested to the point that every convoy can expect contact. Forward units will not be able to rely on traditional log trains or sling-loaded resupply from heavy-lift helos – not in a battlespace saturated with FPVs, loitering munitions, persistent ISR, and cheap precision fires.

The Marine Logistics Groups (MLG) have made real, measurable progress in integrating autonomous systems into their formations. They are experimenting, fielding, innovating, and learning fast. And while the MLG should continue this effort in earnest, a concurrent effort must commence to implement uncrewed logistics at the infantry battalion level and below. Specifically, each infantry company should be equipped with three heavy-lift UAV systems that the Company Gunny can employ to resupply platoons and squads with chow, water, and ammo.

If a company can move even 50% of its sustainment via UAV, its material readiness in the trenches and patrol bases will be substantially higher than if it had to rely on traditional means for 100% of its support. The combat power and morale boost after a successful resupply enable Marines to continue operating and fighting under austere conditions.

A platform already exists in the Marine Corps’ inventory to stitch together the last mile of logistics. The Marine Corps’ Tactical Resupply UAS (TRUAS) program fielded the TRV-150, which carries up to 150 lbs, flies at ~67 mph, and has a 43-mile range. Besides carrying water, fuel, batteries, chow, and ammo, the TRV-150 offers the modularity to carry lethal payloads, which provides significant benefit to Marines operating at the forward line of troops.

The Marine Corps should resist the urge to engineer a new training pipeline, as the TRV-150 operates similarly to other program-of-record quadcopters. Eventually, each infantry company should have a dedicated drone team attached to it, but until then, Marines cross-trained at TALSA or who are Basic Drone Operators can fulfil the requirement.

The MLG’s great work has already demonstrated the utility of a heavy-lift UAV for tactical resupply. It is now a matter of pushing the equipment to the appropriate echelon. The Corps’ focus on drone dominance and pushing lethality down to the infantry squad is a critical endeavor, but a squad of Marines armed to the teeth with FPVs but out of batteries does not increase lethality. Today’s battlefield requires more than a highback HMMWV. Give the Company Gunny the tools he needs to support the Lance Corporal. Equip each infantry company with three heavy-lift UAVs.

The Written Word

Fiction and Nonfiction written by servicemen and veterans.

A Standard Not Met

Major Benjamin Van Horrick

“Company staff, take charge of your platoons and carry out the plan of the day!”

I had been waiting months for those words, but as the three SNCOs took control of my life for the next five weeks, fear seized my body at the sound of the sergeant instructor. We rushed outside to where we had left our gear and dumped everything issued to us onto the searing asphalt. Within moments, the frenzy jumbled our neatly labeled items from the packing list. Our sergeant instructor’s profane, withering barrage tore through the mayhem.

I had considered a career in the military during high school and even began a preliminary application to the Naval Academy. But the allure of playing Division III football at Kenyon College outweighed my desire to pursue an appointment to a service academy.

But in November 2004, I sat in a seminar as Marines entered Fallujah a second time for Phantom Fury. The debate about political theory felt not only distant but also hollow.

When I expressed this to fellow students, each told me we were special for attending Kenyon. They spoke as though those in Iraq were only there because they did poorly in school and signed up at the prodding of a slick recruiter.

“But you have a future,” they told me.

As if the kids in Fallujah didn’t.

Other recruiters pumped kids full of promises of exotic adventures and bonuses. Marine recruiters offered hard work, commitment, and discipline.

Screaming turned our throats raw and focused our timid voices into a commanding presence. In the chow hall, we held trays at 45 degrees, elbows locked—a posture we would later mimic with weapons during close order drill. We sat with our backs straight, heels together, feet at 45 degrees, mirroring how we stood in formation. The tray was the rifle. The chow hall was the parade deck.

Here, rules governed everything and were enforced without negotiation: a standard met or not. Within days, the staff began dismissing candidates for violating integrity. Another lied about the number of repetitions on the obstacle course and was sent to plead his case before the commanding officer. The candidate failed and was then sent home.

Within two weeks, I began struggling. On the obstacle course, I did not execute the proper technique. Despite repeated instructions to use my feet, I used only my arms.

“You look like Donkey Kong, candidate!” yelled a sergeant instructor.

Each time a sergeant instructor corrected me, I acknowledged the correction. I told myself I understood. What I couldn’t admit was that understanding something and actually changing because of it are two entirely different things.

Negative counselings piled up.

Eight days before graduation, I faced the company board on the toughest day: roused at 0100 for a 13-mile hike, an MRE for breakfast, then the Small Unit Leadership Exam (SULE) as part of a five-man “stick.” We ran five miles with steep features, leading obstacles—moving wounded, transporting ammo, carrying a rifle and full canteens, leaving us exhausted. At the conclusion, I scrambled to prepare for the board: a lukewarm shower, a quick shave (I cut myself).

I entered the cool room, where the company staff was assembled, feeling a chill as I began sweating through my undershirt. Here in the confined office, even with eight other Marines, the lack of heat and humidity shocked my already fried body.

I trembled as I reported. “Good afternoon, sir. Candidate Van Horrick reports as ordered.”

The board was impersonal and sterile. To keep my bearing, I stood straight and fixed my focus on the company commander. My vision narrowed as my heart pumped faster. I fought to stay another day, but the board members viewed the proceedings as routine as shaving or putting on their boots. I heard my platoon commander’s voice reciting my poor physical performance and failing academic tests, then recommending my dismissal. The platoon commander’s clinical recitation of facts was nothing like the sergeant instructor’s corrections, which I had come to accept. He was a prosecuting attorney. The sergeant instructor had been a teacher.

“Sir,” I said, my voice steadier than I expected, “I know my performance hasn’t met the standard. But I want to lead Marines.”

“Candidate Van Horrick, you can’t seem to lead yourself, and you’re a danger to others.”

“Sir, I want to serve.”

The company First Sergeant shot back, “Then get hired at TSA, Candidate Van Horrick.”

The Company Commander recommended my dismissal. My instinct was to argue. But the Marines in this room had watched me for five weeks. They knew me better than my classmates, my professors, and myself. I would see the OCS commanding officer the next day. Five weeks of my life compressed into five minutes of deliberation.

The senior sergeant instructor took me into his office. His rounded features and powerful presence had shaped the platoon. He said he respected every candidate who attempted to become a Marine officer. This man had corrected every candidate with the same exacting, unhurried care, as though each of us was worthy of his time. He offered his office if I needed to cry, not wanting to embarrass me in front of the platoon. “Be honest with the colonel about your shortcomings, express your desire to stay,” he advised.

Mid-afternoon, under a green tent, we waited hours for calls with our OSOs. I sat beside candidates who blamed others, while others simply resigned themselves to their dismissal. Some I had made fun of weeks before; now we were equals, fighting for another day. Each yearned to return to cleaning rifles and squad bays. My Officer Selection Officer reassured me that desire would go far. Yet I doubted desire alone would succeed. That night, I prayed the rosary for thirty minutes, studied half-heartedly for the close order drill written exam, and penned reasons why I should remain at OCS. A short, serene sleep followed. At 0430, I awoke with rare peace. We marched to the mess hall under a golden July sunrise.

Those facing dismissal waited the better part of the day, watching platoon commanders present cases against us. None of us was ready to become Marine officers. On the grinder, I saw my platoon taking the close order drill exam.

I would have given anything to be there.

Five days after my dismissal, after a flight cancellation, I lay on the hard, cold floor, invisible to fellow travelers, who were indifferent to my failure.

I kept replaying the board, the First Sergeant’s voice, the five minutes. What I didn’t have yet was what to do about it.

The Marines who dismissed me cared more about who I might become than those who had told me I was special.

Kenyon had taught me to interrogate every assumption. OCS taught me that interrogating a standard while you’re failing to meet it is just a more sophisticated form of excuse-making.

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Bosnia – The Landmine Road 1997/8

Joseph P. Bell

Night driving in Bosnia had a way of getting inside your head.

The roads were narrow and broken, twisting through dark farmland and villages that had been scarred by years of war. Our HMMWV bounced along slowly, the suspension groaning under the weight of our gear.

We kept the speed down. Fully loaded, the old truck barely pushed forty-five miles an hour anyway.

The headlights carved a narrow tunnel through the darkness. Everything beyond their beams disappeared into the black.

Every so often, we noticed small piles scattered along the side of the road. In the dark, it was hard to tell what they were—rocks maybe, or piles of dirt pushed aside by road crews.

Nobody said much about them.

Then we reached an intersection on the road between Srebrenica and Sarajevo.

A farmer appeared from the darkness, pushing a wheelbarrow.

He walked straight toward the road as if we weren’t even there.

At first, we thought he was just crossing with tools or supplies. But as he came closer, the headlights lit up the contents of the wheelbarrow.

Landmines.

The thing was full of them.

We started yelling immediately.

“Stop! Stop! Get away from those!” Weapons were brought to the ready.

The farmer didn’t seem concerned in the slightest. He walked calmly to the edge of the road, tipped the wheelbarrow forward, and dumped the mines into a pile beside the pavement.

We squinted, heads on chests, ducking behind the frame of the light skinned HMMWV, seeking purchase behind anything that would lessen the coming explosions.

Silence.

The farmer shrugged his shoulders and turned back toward his field like it was just another chore on the farm.

For a moment, nobody said anything.

Then it hit us.

Those piles we had been passing along the road all night weren’t rocks.

They were mines.

The Bosnian war had left the countryside littered with them—plastic anti-personnel mines, artillery shells, unexploded ordnance hidden just beneath the soil.

Invisible killers waiting for someone to take the wrong step.

From that point on, every time we dismounted, we moved slowly and deliberately. Every step across an open field carried the same thought in the back of our minds.

One wrong move could be the last one you ever make.

Bosnia had been at war for years. The scars were everywhere—destroyed homes, empty villages, and entire fields that nobody dared to walk across.

The hatred that fueled the conflict was just as real.

I had seen a lot during my time in the Marine Corps, but that moment on that dark road drove something home in a way I had never experienced before.

War doesn’t always end when the shooting stops.

Sometimes it just waits quietly in the ground.

Poetry and Art

Poetry and art from the warfighting community.

Ben Cantwell Artwork

Ben Cantwell Art was founded by Marine infantry veteran Ben Cantwell, who began creating artwork in the barracks, informally designing tattoo-style pieces for fellow service members. What started as a creative outlet steadily developed into a business around 2017, built on a foundation of traditional tattoo-inspired design, military influence, and an appreciation for craftsmanship. Over time, his work has gained a loyal following among veterans, first responders, and supporters drawn to its clean style, traditional American work and authentic roots.

Today, Ben Cantwell works as a full-time Firefighter Paramedic in California and finds time to offer a range of original artwork across apparel, prints, and select goods. His production is 100% based in the US, and he maintains a strong connection to the veteran/first responder community. The brand also supports charitable efforts focused on veteran/first responder well-being and awareness. In addition to the core collection, Ben takes on a limited number of custom projects per month, creating tailored designs for individuals, organizations, and brands seeking distinctive, purpose-driven artwork. His work and contact info can be found on Instagram and on his website, BenCantwellArt.com.

Operator
Emma Blunt

The thumping in my ears
draws my focus to my chest.
Milliseconds of delay between
my heartbeat and fear.
What if I’m not listening?
What if I miss something?
Comms reign me in.
I hear it, I acknowledge.
I know what to do.
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
Call it out …
She tells me my voice
was calm and relaxed.
Soothing under pressure.
I laugh … the current that 
almost pulled me under.

The Fox
Cora Reichert

He is one in a line of glittering headlights,
his huff-puff Halliburton heart stacked
with still-locked luggage and trigger fingers
like soft white woodpiles, sinking into a 
clearing in his memory. He runs a red,
replaying the thunk of a skull on his 
bumper, the small bright body slack as a 
loogie, falling away at fifty miles an hour. 
He shot a kid in Al-Anbar once. A bright
stain on the berm with an RPG askew, 
shrinking in the rearview. He feels the kick
in his shoulder, and cold hands slime the 
wheel with the cost of health insurance. 
Stupid animal. What his sergeant said in 
Al-Anbar, and what he tells himself now. 
Steer into the center of your lane. Stop 
looking behind you for the smallness of it. 

Fisher, Cat and Artic Warfare
Evan Young Weaver

The Fisher is no cat, 
yet a fisher, a hunter, a killer, 
a trapper, a stalker, a climber,
a gutter, long toothed believer. 
 
You are a screamer. 
My favorite blood curdling proclaimer.
The best companion for northern ice nights. 
I love the diamond stars and sudden fright.

Excitement to eat or tactic to defeat?
Two animals fed; your belly, my beast. 
That scream is a treat, a reward for
patience and my luck some nights.

I saw you twice in waning light, but,
dozens of nights I, hearing, you.

All Secure 
Larry Boggs

They said all secure 
like it meant something solid,
like the world could be locked down
with three syllables and a radio click.

But I’ve lived long enough to know
nothing stays secure.
Not the ground under your feet, 
not the men and women beside you,
not the pieces of yourself 
you swore to keep intact.

I was there—
close enough to smell the war, 
close enough to hear the rotors
but not the one pulling the trigger
or dragging a brother to safety.

Some think that should make it easier.
It doesn’t.
You carry a different kind of weight—
the kind that whispers when all is quiet.
You were there, but you didn’t do enough 
to hurt this much.

Some think time patches things up.   
It doesn’t.
It just teaches you how to walk
with the weight.  
It’s the forever ruck.

Guilt, that old familiar shadow, 
is always in the corner of your mind
asking why you made it home
when better men didn’t.

So, when someone says all secure now,
I nod, but inside I know better.
The world shifts, memory ambushes.
Guilt can be managed, but it doesn’t go away.

With age, I’ve learned 
all secure is a hope, not a truth,
and some of us have been hoping
for a very long time.
 

——————————

This ends Volume 45, Edition 1, of the Lethal Minds Journal (01APRIL2026)

The window is now open for Lethal Minds’ forty-sixth volume, releasing May 01, 2026.

All art and picture submissions are due as PDFs or JPEG files to our email by midnight on 20 APRIL 2026.

All written submissions are due as 12-point font, double-spaced, Word documents to our email by midnight on 20 APRIL 2026.

lethalmindsjournal.submissions@gmail.com

Special thanks to the volunteers and team that made this journal possible.

All articles published in this newsletter are the personal opinions and positions of the authors themselves. All content, and the Lethal Minds and Lethal Minds Journal brand, is the copyright of Lethal Minds©

Send your piece to lethalmindsjournal.submissions@gmail.com.

Dedicated to those who serve, those who have served, and those who paid the final price for their country.

Washington at Boston, Part II: Intelligence is the Key to Victory

Michael Schellhammer

In the autumn of 1775, General George Washington’s Army of the United Colonies, besieging British forces in Boston, had greatly improved over the summer of 1775. Yet despite the improvements, victory was still nowhere in sight.

The American army had managed to trap and hold Crown forces in Boston since late April, after the Lexington Alarm, and Washington had commanded the Continental Army since July. Washington’s mission was to force the British from Boston. However, “observation of the movements of the enemy, corroborated by all the intelligence we receive,” led Washington to believe that Crown forces would receive reinforcements, attack American lines, and break out of the siege.

With a mission to remove the British, but convinced they would attack once reinforced, Washington took the offensive. In three councils of war with his division and brigade commanders, over a five-month period from September 1775 to January 1776, he presented plans to force the British out by assault.

The subordinate generals had listened at each meeting and considered the commander-in-chief’s plans. In September, they judged an immediate attack, “not expedient.” In October, all eight generals present voted against attacking. And, at the January 1776 council, with Massachusetts Continental Congress delegates John Adams and James Warren attending, the generals agreed to assault Boston only after Washington increased their strength with an additional 13 militia regiments.

On February 16^th, with an influx of soldiers, with the Back Bay frozen, and with the perceived need to strike before the anticipated British attack, Washington convened the council again. He proposed either an assault across the Back Bay or into the teeth of British defenses on the Boston Neck. The council, led by Adjutant General Horatio Gates, once again disapproved both of these plans.

This latest rejection frustrated Washington, but he arguably should have known better. The generals whose task it was to approve or disapprove of his plans understood the validity of Washington’s concerns: the need to end the siege of Boston before Colonial ranks were reduced by expiring enlistments; the existing shortages of gunpowder which promised to become acute; the logistical difficulties of maintaining the army; the possibility of a British attack once the British were reinforced; and Congressional pressure to eject the British from Boston. But they seem to have recognized that a recitation of urgent circumstances justifying an attack was not the same thing as the articulation of a viable plan of attack against the strong British defenses.

The February council also determined that any Colonial assault “should for some days be preceded by a cannonade & bombardment.” At Washington’s continued enquiry, the generals also voted that the bombardment could begin as soon as enough powder for cannon was available. They argued the next move should be to seize Dorchester Heights, “with a view of drawing out the enemy.” Baiting Howe into a destructive attack, they reasoned, was better than launching a costly assault.

Any traveler in Boston could not help but notice the military value of Dorchester Heights. Located on a peninsula southeast of the city across the harbor, two hills comprised the heights and stood over 100 feet high, offering clear views and fields of fire over the city and eastern harbor. Washington had reconnoitered Dorchester Heights several times in the preceding months, since taking command, and Maj. Gen. Artemas Ward emphasized the area’s importance as well. Whoever owned the heights would command Boston.

British commanders had also considered occupying Dorchester Heights since the summer of 1775. Gen. Henry Clinton, one of Howe’s subordinate generals, believed “if the King’s troops should ever be driven from Boston, it would be by rebel batteries raised on those heights.” But seizing them would have left an isolated British position, and Howe didn’t think the Americans would risk placing their artillery on the heights. “If they did,” he told Clinton, “we must go at it with our whole force.”

Only the lack of heavy artillery that could range the mile and a half to Boston had prevented Washington from occupying Dorchester Heights earlier in the siege. That gap closed in late January when artillery regiment commander Col. Henry Knox brought 58 cannons from Fort Ticonderoga, including French-made 18- and 24-pounders, along with mortars powerful enough to reach Boston. In late February, thanks to Washington’s badgering of the colonial governments, the Continentals had also obtained the minimum amount of gunpowder needed to use these guns to bombard the city.

The situation worsened in late February. Washington still expected an enemy attack, but also received reports of British preparations to evacuate Boston and reappear at another colony, probably New York. He could allow neither to occur. An unchallenged British evacuation would not demonstrate colonial resolve; it would only allow the British to shift the fight to another location. That would be a dishonorable end to Washington’s mission. He felt “the eyes of the whole continent fixed with anxious expectation of hearing of some great event.”

Washington was eager for a solution to deny the British both the possibility of a successful tactical retreat and relocation, or a successful lifting of the siege. Five days before he convened the February council of war, he worked with Lt. Col. Rufus Putnam, an astute officer with engineering experience, to assess the benefits of seizing Dorchester Heights. Putnam confirmed the Heights’ value and developed an ingenious idea for how, once the Colonials took the Heights, their soldiers could fortify them with prefabricated fascines and wicker baskets filled with stones called gabions, overcoming the impossibility of digging into the frozen ground.

The crucial information Washington needed to finalize his latest set of plans came from his intelligence system. The information from intelligence agents, deserters, prisoners, and line-crossers made Howe’s determination to counterattack if the Americans seized Dorchester Heights clear. Washington also knew, thanks to intelligence from Dr. Amos Winthrop, a physician who escaped Boston disguised as a sailor, that at the Battle of Bunker Hill, Howe’s forces suffered over 1,000 casualties, which indicated that in prepared positions on high ground, American troops could ably defend against a British assault.

This information allowed Washington to turn Crown strengths into weaknesses his forces could exploit. Washington wrote at the end of February that he was prepared to occupy Dorchester Heights “to try if the enemy will be so kind as to come out to us.” This was not wishful thinking – it was a sound assessment, informed by intelligence.

Washington’s plan called for 3,000 soldiers to occupy Dorchester Heights at night and to raise the Putnam-designed prefabricated fortifications. A bombardment from Knox’s new guns would distract the British and conceal the noise of the work parties. Thomas’s brigade would occupy the fortifications.

At Washington’s order, Generals Putnam, Sullivan, Greene, and Gates developed a detailed plan under which 8,000 Continentals could cross the Back Bay in flatboats under Ward’s command, fan out in Boston, overcome enemy defenses, and seize the city’s key hills if Howe launched the expected counterattack. In Putnam’s Division, the Roxbury native Brig. Gen. Heath believed enemy guns would shred an American attack with an over-water approach. Heath also had his doubts about whether the Continentals could withstand a British counterattack. He “made a most pointed opposition” to the plan, but “it was, however, carried, that the attempt should be made,” he wrote.

The American covering bombardment opened at 11:00 PM the night of Saturday, March 2nd, 1776. The Continentals moved up the hills in silence and began raising their fortifications. Secrecy was vital for success. In the days preceding the move, Washington ceased all communications with the city, and forward commanders double-checked their sentries to prevent any line-crossing. The work and covering fire continued at intervals for two days. A thick fog, paired with the thundering bombardment, further concealed the American activity.

By March 5^th, Washington’s plan was working as he envisioned. Howe and his generals were stunned that morning to witness the fortified Dorchester. At his own council of war, Howe stuck to his commitment to reclaim the heights. 2,000 British soldiers formed to cross the harbor and attack.

The planned day for the British counterattack, March 6^th, dawned warm, but a violent snow and sleet storm blew in, raging through the night and the next morning. The pause gave Howe time to become cautious and to have second thoughts. The cost of the battle of Bunker Hill was fresh in his mind, and he was not keen to risk soldiers in the midst of evacuating the city. Howe called off the attack, and on March 7^th, the British began their evacuation from Boston.

A Boston merchant recorded “hurry and confusion” in loading the 8,906 British soldiers, 667 women, 553 children, and 1,000 Loyalists. High winds complicated and slowed the operation. The observing Americans – now with the excellent vantage point on Dorchester Heights –struggled to make sense of what they saw through their spyglasses. Washington was wary of Howe's feigning an evacuation to attack elsewhere.

On March 8^th, Gates lamented that “neither townsman, nor deserter” had brought any information of the situation in Boston. That same day, a transport captain named Irvine and six of his crew escaped the city and gave Washington a first-hand account of the confusing evacuation. Four Boston selectmen also crossed the Boston neck under a flag of truce and with an unsigned letter from Howe that “he has no intention of destroying the town, unless the troops under his command are molested, during their embarkation, or at their departure by the armed force.” The selectmen feared the British would burn the city in case of such an attack. Because the letter lacked Howe’s signature and was not directed to Washington or any other Continental officer, Washington sent it back to the British—a formal gesture that showed he had received their message but would ignore it.

The direct observations, intelligence from Capt. Irvine, and information from the selectmen convinced Washington that Howe was truly evacuating. Although he preferred to capture the British force, he and his officers agreed there was no way to stop their departure. The Americans ordered extra lookouts to monitor developments.

The last British troops began loading at 4:00 AM on Sunday, March 17^th, St. Patrick’s Day. With a favorable wind, the flotilla – 120 ships in all – departed the wharves and sailed to King’s Road at the outer reaches of the harbor to await the winds and tide for sailing into the Atlantic. The armed ships of the fleet fired a 21-gun salute, a final farewell to Boston.

Now that the British departure was unmistakable, cheers rose from Americans on Dorchester Heights and Prospect Hill. Gen. Sullivan still saw Redcoats on the lines near Charlestown Neck with his spyglass, but then he rode closer and saw his opponents were dummy soldiers, stuffed with hay.

That afternoon, Washington sent one regiment into Boston. Gen. Ward had the honor of leading the column. Every soldier was a smallpox survivor, a precaution based on reports that Howe planned to contaminate the city. But there was no smallpox in Boston.

Washington entered Boston the next day, March 18^th, without fanfare, just as he had taken command of the Continental Army in July. He wrote to John Hancock, “it is with the greatest pleasure I inform you that on Sunday last, the 17th Instant, about 9 O’Clock in the forenoon, the Ministerial Army evacuated the town of Boston, and that the forces of the United Colonies are now in actual possession thereof.” He visited Hancock’s house and reported it, “not in so bad a state as I expected.”

The British fleet still anchored at Nantasket Road, and Washington wondered why they did not sail into the Atlantic. Theories amongst his officers included that Howe waited for a favorable wind, wanted to avoid spring storms, or still expected reinforcement and intended to turn back to Massachusetts. “I am under more apprehension from them now than ever, and am taking every precaution I can to guard against the evil,” Washington wrote. Brig. Gen. Greene commanded the new garrison in Boston, and he ordered six whaleboats into the water every night “to row about and make discoveries of any movement of the enemy.” The British finally sailed out of Nantasket Road on March 27^th and headed north towards Canada.

Now unable to gain or maintain contact with any intelligence sources inside the British command, Washington wondered about the ultimate Crown intent. “General Howe has a grand [maneuver] in view—or—has made an inglorious retreat,” he wrote to Reed. Some reports said Howe was headed to Halifax. But the Congress and virtually all other observers - including Washington, who as we have seen, had been concerned about such a move in his planning - expected that New York, with its deep harbor and placement that would enable splitting the rebellious colonies, would be the eventual target of the next British move.

On Thursday, March 28^th, a group of Boston luminaries called “The Lecture” hosted “Excellency Washington,” his generals, and their staffs to a religious service at the Old Brick Meeting House. Afterwards, they hosted an “elegant dinner” at the Bunch of Grapes tavern, after which many proper and pertinent toasts were drank. Joy and gratitude sat in every countenance, and smiled in every eye.”

The celebration was temporary for the Continentals. The same day of the Lecture event, Washington ordered six regiments to begin moving south for New York. The rest of the army followed within the next week. Their commander-in-chief departed Boston to join them on April 4^th.

Washington was already preparing to face Howe’s expected return at New York, which would bring a new set of planning and intelligence challenges.

Assessing Washington’s Intelligence Foundation

The victory at Boston made Washington a hero. And Washington deserves credit for establishing American military intelligence during the campaign. With no guidance beyond general instructions in military treatises and his own experience, Washington created what we would call today an “all-source” intelligence system that used all the information sources available at the time: human intelligence from deserters, prisoners, and spies, and open-source information from local and European newspapers. The sum was intelligence information that informed Washington’s decisions that led to the American victory.

However, Continental intelligence operations and management still needed to mature. Washington lacked a correct understanding of Crown strength. No intelligence allayed his concerns about enemy reinforcements and a breakout. Yet Washington was also concerned about a British evacuation as early as the summer of 1775. It took the next few years of the Revolution for Washington and his staff to gain the experience to focus on intelligence collection and demystify conflicting reports to determine their enemy’s true intent.

At that early stage of the war, such collection and analysis were beyond American intelligence capabilities. To know the mind of Crown commanders, an American agent would have had to access inner British command circles and operate with extreme secrecy, expert intelligence tradecraft, and have a means for clandestine reporting. Neither Washington, his staff, nor his agents had any of those skills. The closest the Americans got to having such an agent close to British commanders was Carnes, the grocer, whose spy activities were unfortunately a poorly kept secret. Washington also learned the need for counterintelligence when the army’s surgeon general, Dr. Benjamin Church, was revealed as a British spy.

After the Boston Campaign, Washington and the Continental Army would have both intelligence successes and failures. American battlefield intelligence would fail in battles at Long Island, Manhattan, and Brandywine, and succeed and enable victories at Trenton, Princeton, and Yorktown. Washington’s spying operations would tragically fail with Nathan Hale, but would succeed with the famous Culper Ring and other unheralded agent operations.

The foundation for those American successes and eventual victory in the Revolution was laid at Boston, where General Washington began mastering the business of military intelligence.

Michael Schellhammer is the author of George Washington and the Final British Campaign for the Hudson River, 1779 (McFarland, 2012), The 83rd Pennsylvania Volunteers in the Civil War (McFarland, 2003), and articles in the Journal of the American Revolution and Mount Vernon’s Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington. He is a retired U.S. Army officer and graduate of the Army War College.

——————————

This ends Part 2 of 2, Washington at Boston, Intelligence is the Key to Victory

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Washington at Boston: The Foundation of American Military Intelligence, Part I

Michael Schellhammer

As General George Washington besieged Boston in early 1776, he was frustrated. Two profound problems were brewing between him and his team of subordinate generals.

Washington’s difficult day was February 16^th, during a winter that was harsh even by Massachusetts standards. American soldiers manned snow-covered entrenchments and camps on the heights surrounding Boston Harbor, from Ploughed Hill at the northwest, south to Roxbury overlooking the Boston Neck. The forces of King George III, commanded by Major-General William Howe, were across Boston Harbor, fortified against attack. It was the eighth month of the siege.

Washington’s Army of the United Colonies consisted of three divisions with two brigades each. As commander in chief, Washington relied on the leadership, knowledge, and experience of the subordinate generals. He also required their ongoing support, as the Continental Congress required him to consult with his senior officers regarding major decisions. That day in February, Washington convened with his generals in a council of war to consider his plan to force the British out of Boston by direct assault.

They met at Washington’s Cambridge headquarters in the house of John Vassall, a wealthy Loyalist who had fled with his family to Boston for Crown protection. As egalitarian New Englanders, the generals respected Washington’s authority, but still spoke their minds. They were a tough audience.

The Council of War: Seasoned But Cautious Veterans

Present in the council was Maj. Gen. Artemas Ward, 49, whose division was dug in south of Boston. Ward had commanded the colonial militia, the Army of Observation, from its formation in the spring of 1775 after the Lexington Alarm until Congress absorbed it into the Army of the United Colonies. He remained bitter that Congress chose Washington over him to command the new “Continental” army.

Brigadier-General John Thomas commanded one of the brigades Ward had emplaced near Dorchester Heights. A physician, Thomas had fought in colonial wars and was known for his bravery and leadership. Commanding Ward’s other brigade, to the south of Boston Neck, was Brig. Gen. Joseph Spencer, a Connecticut judge and a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. At 62, he was the oldest of the American generals.

Maj. Gen. Israel Putnam’s Division was west of Ward’s in the center of the American line. Putnam was a renowned tavern owner and farmer. He was also famous for his feats in the French and Indian War (1756-1763) in Rogers’ Rangers. He led American militia at the Battle of Bunker Hill and gave the famous order: “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” He was 58, and the soldiers called him “Old Put” with respect.

Brig. Gen. William Heath, a native of Roxbury, commanded a brigade in Putnam’s division west of Boston. Heath was a farmer and colonel of the Suffolk County militia and had led militiamen in the Lexington Alarm.

The commander of the division northwest of Boston, Maj. Gen. Charles Lee was in New York planning that city’s defenses at Washington’s order. One of Lee’s subordinates, Brig. Gen. John Sullivan, who commanded the brigade near the Charlestown peninsula, attended the Boston council of war. He was a New Hampshire attorney and a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses alongside Washington. The youngest American General, he would turn 36 the next day. Sullivan was bound for more exploits in the Revolution.

Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Greene, commanding Lee’s other brigade, was too ill with jaundice to attend.

The army’s Adjutant General, Horatio Gates, also attended the council and organized the group. He was one of only two non-New Englanders, counting Washington. Gates had settled in Virginia in 1772 after retiring from the British Army as a major. Washington had known him since the French and Indian War. His experience carried much weight with the generals. Gates considered himself superior in military skill to everyone in the room, including his commander-in-chief. He would go on to betray Washington’s trust later in the war.

The division and brigade commanders knew their soldiers and the terrain, and they had directly observed the British positions. Already, they had disapproved of three attack plans since the summer of 1775. In February 1776, they remained skeptical; Washington had outlined his ideas with Ward the previous day, and it was clear the field officers held some strong opinions. Nevertheless, they listened as the commander-in-chief spoke.

Washington said that the conditions were right to assail British lines to “put a final end to the war, and restore peace & tranquility.” His reasoning was that new recruits gave them over 10,000 soldiers who could rush across the frozen Back Bay and seize Boston. Washington reasoned that the attack would not even benefit from a preparatory artillery bombardment because such an attack would destroy the city, and gunpowder was in short supply. The soldiers could carry the day, Washington believed, with muskets and good leadership.

The state of their British adversaries was a significant factor in the analysis. Washington said that according to the “best intelligence,” Crown forces “did not much exceed 5,000 men fit for duty,” but they expected “considerable reinforcements.” He expected Howe to launch an offensive with the new soldiers, either to break out of the siege or relocate to another colony. An American attack, Washington believed, would beat Howe to the punch.

Washington was wrong. Howe had about 6,000 soldiers, no reinforcements were on the way, and he was not planning an offensive. In reality, Howe was preparing to evacuate Boston as soon enough transport ships were available. The Crown troops were, however, entrenched in solid defenses with artillery; they were fully capable of repelling an American assault.

Gates addressed the group. It was the opinion of the council, he said, that the British had 6,500 men in Boston, “amply furnish’d with artillery assisted by a fleet; & possess’d of every advantage.” He also assessed multiple issues within the Continental Army and predicted failure in an assault. After Gates’ address, the council formally judged an attack “improper.” The dismissal of Washington’s plan, particularly by Gates, an old friend with whom Washington had dined at Mount Vernon, was a harsh rebuke.

The council of war highlighted two fundamental problems. First, Washington had ample, if not wholly accurate, intelligence on British positions - but not their intentions. Second, he had not learned how to use intelligence to identify chinks in the enemy’s armor. To create a feasible battle plan, Washington needed to accurately identify and then be able to exploit an enemy weakness. His seasoned, wary, and frank subordinates would accept and execute nothing less.

By the time of the February Council, Washington was already demonstrating the first-rate leadership skills that he would hone throughout the war. He had a commanding presence with the soldiers, the ability to build and administer an army, and political acumen, among other skills. But until he learned how to use accurate intelligence to effectively inform his planning, his powerful leadership would be for naught.

The council’s decision that cold day set Washington on a course to integrate intelligence into his battle planning, which would in turn lead to the first American victory in the Revolution.

Constructing America’s first military intelligence system was one of Washington’s most challenging tasks as commander in chief.

Laying the Foundation of American Military Intelligence

When Washington took command of the Continental Army on July 2^nd 1775, he was aware of the importance of gathering accurate intelligence. One of his instructions from Congress was to report “as exact an account as you can obtain of the forces which compose the British army in America.”

Washington’s intelligence gathering efforts had to start more or less from scratch. Up to that point, he had relied on the colonial militia commanders to gather information about the enemy. As a Virginian, he knew nothing about the terrain of the Boston area. His first glimpse of American and British defenses there was when he rode the area on July 3^rd. Washington found the American positions poorly sited and undisciplined. He was immediately concerned about a British assault on his weak lines, but the army lacked systematic intelligence or warning procedures. “The enemy has made several feints to deceive us,” wrote Brig. Gen. Greene of the situation in July, and “their intentions are unknown.”

Washington knew what to do. As a young officer in the French and Indian War, he had gained intelligence by questioning (or “debriefing” to use the modern term) French prisoners and deserters. He also knew some methods for gathering intelligence by reading military theory, particularly Humphrey Bland’s A Treatise of Military Discipline.

On July 4^th, Washington’s second day in command, he issued general orders for all subordinate commanders to send “all prisoners taken, deserters coming in, persons coming out of Boston, who can give any intelligence; any captures of any kind from the enemy” to his headquarters at Cambridge for his detailed questioning. It was America’s first official order on military intelligence. Washington later warned soldiers not to welcome deserters with rum, since more than a few had arrived at headquarters in a state of intoxication.

To help detect any British attack, Washington ordered Brig. Gen. Thomas, at Roxbury, and Lt. Col. Loammi Baldwin, at Chelsea, both with commanding views of Boston, to report daily “all arrivals of ships and vessels in the bay; and what changes and alterations are made, in the stations of the men of war, transports, and floating batteries &c.”

Washington also wondered about the intentions of the opposing commander at that time, Lt. Gen. Thomas Gage. The two had served together under Gen. Braddock in the French and Indian War, so Washington had some understanding of Gage’s mind and skills. But to know Gage’s current plans, Washington needed rebel supporters in Boston who could glean intelligence directly from Redcoats in the city. He needed spies.

Another book on which Washington relied, Otway’s translation of de Turpin’s An Essay on the Art of War, provided guidance for espionage activities. The Essay outlined methods for agents to “go from one camp to another, and give an account of all the enemy’s transactions,” protection of spy identities, turning captured enemies into double agents, and verifying their reported information.

The Essay emphasized the importance of generously paying agents, and in mid-July, Washington set aside $333.33 (roughly equivalent to £9300 in today’s money) “to establish a secret correspondence for the purpose of conveying intelligence of the enemy’s movements & designs.” It was one of his largest outlays of the entire campaign.

Washington’s secretary, Lt. Col. Joseph Reed, sent messages to an unnamed agent through Lt. Col. Baldwin (in command near the Shirley Point Ferry), who gave them to a supportive civilian near the ferry, then on to the ferry operator, who delivered the messages to the agent. The agent returned information via the same somewhat complicated route back to Baldwin, who forwarded it to Washington by courier. To this day, the agent’s identity remains a mystery - for security, Washington did not record his name. Other correspondence from Reed and Baldwin indicates the agent may have been James Carnes, who operated a grocery and sundry goods store in south Boston, a spot where British soldiers were likely to visit, shop, and talk.

There were other innovative intelligence sources. Some local fishermen enjoyed Crown licenses to fish the harbor and sell their catches in Boston. They also had a history of smuggling people and supplies from the countryside into the city. Washington leveraged that opportunity for intelligence activities. At least three of the licensed fishermen, William Colfleet, Thomas Maples, and Edmund Saunders, gathered information while in the city or delivered and retrieved other agents.

The spying may not have been as secret an operation as the Americans hoped. A Patriot ferryman named Enock Hopkins (who may have been the ferry operator who carried the messages in the Reed-Baldwin-Agent chain), recorded,

“They will take three fishermen and one rebel and take another on board,” according to Hopkins. “So he comes up in the stead of him that they carried down, and sees what he can, and then returns the same way he came.

Since Hopkins knew about the activity, it is likely others did as well. One wonders if the British looked the other way about suspect deliveries of fresh fish as provisions dwindled in the besieged city.

Some of Washington’s subordinate commanders embraced their intelligence collection duties. Washington commended Brig. Gen. Thomas on his ‘speedy conveyance of all intelligence of the motions of the enemy.” At Prospect Hill, Brig. Gen. Greene ordered all captains of the guard to notify him immediately if the British made “any uncommon movement.”

At Chelsea, Lt. Col. Baldwin became a one-man intelligence machine. Between July 28^th and October 2^nd, he sent a total of 20 reports with observations on British troop movements, harbor shipping, and varied information from line-crossers, escapees, deserters, and information from seized letters and newspapers. Baldwin was so diligent that even when he contracted dysentery in August, he asked Washington’s permission to take a short break from reporting duties while he went home for medical care from his family.

Information from all sources arrived at the Cambridge headquarters almost daily. From July through the end of September, Washington received over 50 reports on the enemy and the area terrain – and likely many more went unrecorded. Some of the information was delivered verbally. Lt. Col. Reed handled the correspondence, but interpretation and evaluation of the intelligence were up to the commander-in-chief.

Creating the intelligence systems was only one of Washington’s many energetic efforts over the summer of 1775 to build the Continental Army into an effective force. As autumn approached, the army’s discipline, logistics, administrative procedures, and defensive positions all improved. In late September, Washington wrote, “We are well and in no fear or dread of the enemy.”

Early Results: A Long War Ahead

Washington’s effective intelligence apparatus lent him a sense of security. “We see everything that passes,” he wrote in mid-September. The ultimate purpose of his intelligence gathering was to enable the Continentals to drive the British out of Boston. Washington was acutely aware of this mission; as he wrote to John Hancock, President of Congress, “there is not a man in America who more earnestly wishes such a termination of the campaign.” He strained the new army intelligence systems for strategic information on Crown plans.

The intelligence revealed no signs that the campaign would terminate as Washington wished. Seized newspapers reported King George III intended to vigorously prosecute the war. “The latest & best accounts” from intelligence sources indicated British preparations to spend the winter in Boston, confirmed by Continental observation posts. Washington learned, thanks to some papers seized offshore by a Yankee brig, that Gage had been relieved at the end of September, succeeded by the veteran Maj. Gen. William Howe.

Washington also knew that Howe’s forces suffered “all the hardships & inconveniencies of a siege.” Cut off from the countryside and with few supply ships from Ireland making it to Boston, Howe’s army lacked fresh provisions, struggled to feed its soldiers and the civilian population, and endured disease, rising prices for all goods, and dismal morale. At the end of November, Boston was so crowded and short of food that, to relieve his feeding burden, Howe released over 300 citizens to the Continentals. Washington feared they would spread smallpox, but still had some debriefed for information. The miserable conditions also drove many Redcoats to desert, sometimes in groups of three or four a day, all of whom added to Washington’s intelligence pool.

One deserter, Private Thomas Machin from the 23^rd Regiment of Foot, provided valuable intelligence on the Crown situation and fortifications. An American officer called Machin, “a sensible, intelligent fellow,” and Washington teamed him with the 19-year-old staff officer and artist Lt. Jonathan Trumbull to chart the British lines. Machin’s knowledge of the positions, combined with direct observations, contributed to Washington’s opinion that the enemy lines were “not to be forced without a very considerable slaughter, if practicable at all.”

By the autumn of 1775, Washington had a capable Continental Army, with intelligence systems that provided early warning, information on British intentions, conditions in Boston, monitored enemy force movements, and mapped their defenses.

But the Americans still needed to force the British out of Boston. How would Washington use his newly capable army and intelligence apparatus to fulfill his mission?

Next in Part II: Intelligence is the Key to Victory

Michael Schellhammer is the author of George Washington and the Final British Campaign for the Hudson River, 1779 (McFarland, 2012), The 83rd Pennsylvania Volunteers in the Civil War (McFarland, 2003), and articles in the Journal of the American Revolution and Mount Vernon’s Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington. He is a retired U.S. Army officer and graduate of the Army War College.

——————————

This ends Part 1 of 2, Washington at Boston: The Foundation of American Military Intelligence

Part 2 of 2 will be released next week.

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In 1932, in the grips of the Great Depression, 43,000 World War One veterans and their starving families descended on Washington DC demanding redemption of the service bonus certificates promised in the World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924. The problem was that the legislature had set 1945 as the year for payment. But when your family is starving, a bonus payment still thirteen years hence doesn’t mean much. It was a debatable benefit anyway, in a population that fought from April 1917 to November 1918 and typically only lived to be fifty or so. I am generally a “them’s the breaks” kind of guy; but I can understand the urgency they felt in demanding immediate cash payment of their certificates before heading off to eternity. It is a lesson in how reality can shape ideology.

However, the real lesson of the “Bonus Army” came on July 28, 1932, when the United States Attorney General, William D. Mitchell, sent Washington DC police to remove the encamped veterans from all government property. Veterans resisted, as we are sometimes wont to do when feeling aggrieved, and by the end of the day, two of them lay dead at the hands of police who opened fire on them and their families. Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur then led infantry and cavalry, supported by armor, in driving American veterans and their wives and children out of their campsites before burning their possessions.

A few years later, in McMinn County, Tennessee, GIs came home from World War Two to find a corrupt government waiting to abuse them. As one vet, Bill White, said at the time, “A lot of boys getting discharged [were] getting the mustering out pay. Well, [sheriff’s] deputies running around four or five at a time grapping [sic] up every GI they could find and trying to get that money off of them.” About 10% of the McMinn County population had returned from war, and they were understandably unwilling to endure assaults on the very freedoms for which they’d been told they were fighting.

The GIs began with a political solution, fielding their own non-partisan slate of candidates to unseat corrupt politicians. But they also knew how to fight. You can read about it in Chris Derose’s The Fighting Bunch, but the upshot was that election tampering led to a night of firefights now called “The Battle of Athens” and the unseating of a corrupt government by a veterans’ movement. Of course, in the tradition of our community, they couldn’t have nice things; and between some veterans acting in ways warned against by First Sergeants since time immemorial and others simply replicating the corrupt actions of the men who had stayed home to profit, things fell apart. But for a moment, there was an example of what happens when people bound together by their service decide they’re not accepting mistreatment.

So it was in February 2026.

On February 17, 2026, the Department of Veterans Affairs directed disability examiners to rate disabilities based on their severity once treated, a decision with the potential to lower ratings for conditions managed by medication. 20,000 commenters expressed their objection to the rule. Disabled American Veterans, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the American Legion objected publicly. Twenty legislators wrote the Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs (and Air Force Reserve Colonel) Doug Collins, requesting revocation of the rule. Why it wasn’t 435 legislator signatures, I don’t know. But by February 27, 2026, following ten days of bureaucratic tap dancing, the rule was formally rescinded.

The proposed standard for disability determination was fundamentally unjust, of course. The very fact that a disabling condition exists as a result of service is the matter necessitating compensation, not the level to which it is ameliorated by treatment that would have been unnecessary absent the veteran’s service. But it took a lot of people making a lot of noise to make that simple fact understood. Making noise is something I do pretty regularly, by calling my Senators and my Congressman at 202-224-3121 and following the prompts. You can too. And you should. Politicians are our employees, not our gods or a sports team we’re somehow obligated to support. They work for us. We need to let them know what we think.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, a principle that also applies to protecting your rights and earned benefits from the people Rudyard Kipling wrote about in 1890, in a poem eventually titled Tommy:

“You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires, an’ all:

We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.

Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face

The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ Chuck him out, the brute!”

But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country” when the guns begin to shoot[.]”

We are not disposable heroes; we are citizens who served. That’s a nothing less, nothing more proposition, and though you’re not a “citizen plus” as a result, you do deserve the rights and benefits that the citizenry, via our legislators, confer upon you. Some of that is a genuine understanding of the sacrifices we make when the guns begin to shoot. Some of it is the cost of the all-volunteer military that allows other citizens and legislators to stay home. Don’t let them treat you like Tommy, make them prove it to our face.

I encourage you to tell me how I am wrong, or to tell me how you’ve exercised your rights. Likewise, I invite you to publish something in opposition to or in support of anything I write here. Most importantly, we aim to be the voice of the barracks here, but this volume is damned near all officers and Marines. Speaking as a retired Marine officer, we want and need enlisted voices and folks from all service backgrounds (I’m looking at you Space Force). Speak up at submissions.lethalmindsjournal@gmail.com

Fire for Effect,

Russell Worth Parker

Editor in Chief - Lethal Minds Journal

Dedicated to those who serve, those who have served, and those who paid the final price for their country.

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of their publications and endeavors. Like our name says we share a
similar background to the people behind the Lethal Minds Journal, and
to the many, many contributors.

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equipping oneself with the appropriate tools is equally imperative. At
Two Grunts Inc., we are committed to providing the necessary tools to
excel in any situation that may arise.

Our motto, “Purpose-Built Work Guns. Rifles made to last,” reflects
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Stay informed. Stay deadly.

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In This Issue

Across the Force

The Swarm Fallacy- Rethinking Mass and Effects in Drone Warfare

Opinion

Veteran Suicide & Recruiting

Field Day

“Do you think the wars were useless?”

The Written Word

Sometimes They’re Better

The Spine on the Reference Shelf

The Young Man and Old Man: Reflections of a Peacetime Marine Corps Officer

Lucky Dog

Poetry and Art

Book Excerpt

The Adler Compound, Chapter Nine – Opening Pandora’s Box

Across the Force

Written work on the profession of arms. Lessons learned, conversations on doctrine, and mission analysis from all ranks.

The Swarm Fallacy: Rethinking Mass and Effects in Drone Warfare

Thomas Schueman

The American military is increasingly preoccupied with “drone swarms.” The term appears in concept papers, capability briefs, and acquisition discussions. Efforts are underway to evaluate competing systems in a gauntlet-type scenario, and one key performance characteristic is a system’s ability to swarm. For several reasons, the Marine Corps should not select a system based on its swarming ability.

1. Single-system swarming is not an effective TTP. On average, nearly 7,000 drones are flying over Ukrainian battlefields daily. This illustrates that while “swarms” of drones are employed on the modern battlefield, they are a mix of strike and reconnaissance systems. They are not launched in a single, synchronized wave by a single operator carrying a backpack full of identical aircraft. They are persistent, layered, and sequenced.

2. The physical burden of drone employment is often omitted from the discussion around swarms. A drone team must move to a covered and concealed position with everything required to fight: aircraft, batteries, munitions, antennas, radios, water, medical gear, personal weapons, ammunition, and sustainment for however long the mission demands. If that position is 15 kilometers over rough terrain, every drone represents a weight and space consideration that has to be carried.

3. Massing drones assumes the target remains fixed and vulnerable throughout the attack window. Because many targets are mobile, a vehicle can disappear in the time it takes a drone to reach the target, and a dismounted element can enter cover before a strike mission can be executed. Concentrating a finite resource into a single, massed event risks losing it all to a single countermeasure.

4. If a target can be destroyed by a single First Person View (FPV) or droppable munition, launching multiple aircraft simultaneously is inefficient. It is the equivalent of dropping two precision-guided munitions on a target that can be neutralized by one. Launching swarms of drones all at once is putting all your eggs into one basket. A more logical employment would be to launch one and assess the effects. If that drone is defeated by wind, netting, small arms, or electronic countermeasures, the next one can approach from a different angle or at a different altitude.

5. Drones are not the proper weapons-to-target match to achieve mass effects. Combined arms effects are achieved by creating dilemmas across domains. FPVs, droppable munitions, ISR, mortars, machine guns, and artillery each impose different problems. When layered and synchronized appropriately, they force the enemy into tradeoffs. If a unit needs to achieve mass effects on a target or an enemy’s frontage, the better weapons to use are machine guns, artillery, or mortars. An artillery round can strike a target 15 kilometers away in under a minute, whereas a drone requires several minutes to cover the same distance. Therefore, when massing fires rapidly on a target of opportunity, conventional munitions are the more effective weapon system.

6. Steady drone presence hinders an enemy’s ability to shoot, move, and communicate. It forces concealment. It disrupts logistics. It imposes psychological strain. Even when no munition is dropped, the knowledge that one could be alters behavior. Steady, persistent drone pressure forces the enemy to continually employ countermeasures. If the enemy is employing jammers, this necessitates a constant draw on their power system, risks overheating the ECMs, and burning out ECM components. Persistence creates a problem that the enemy must continuously manage and increases the potential for operator and system degradation, creating gaps and windows that can be exploited.

7. A dynamic battlefield requires skilled human pilots who can detect, identify, and maneuver through cluttered terrain. Flying through tree lines, windows, trench apertures, or netting demands judgment and practice. Sometimes a drone may be deliberately sacrificed into a physical barrier to create a breach for a follow-on aircraft. That kind of adaptation is incompatible with a pre-scripted mass launch. It requires real-time observation, decision-making, and adjustment. If we assume that drone employment will be automated into synchronized swarms, we understate the human element required to generate effects in complex terrain.

The Marine Corps should select systems that are cheap, resilient, and mass-producible. A force equipped with many affordable, durable aircraft can maintain pressure over time. Treating swarm performance as a decisive selection criterion risks privileging a narrow use case over the broader realities of combat.

Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Schueman is the Commanding Officer, Advanced Infantry Training Battalion-East

Opinion

Op-Eds and general thought pieces meant to spark conversation and introspection.

Veteran Suicide & Recruiting

Fred “Doom” Dummar

The Kid Who Lies Gets In. The Kid Who Tells the Truth Needs a Waiver.

We lose approximately seventeen veterans to suicide every day. That number hasn’t moved meaningfully in years despite billions spent on awareness campaigns, crisis lines, resiliency programs, and expanded mental health services. We keep asking why veterans don’t seek help earlier, why they wait until a crisis, and why they suffer in silence when resources exist.

We’re asking the wrong question.

The question isn’t why veterans don’t trust the system with their mental health. The question is: why did we build a system that teaches them not to—before they ever put on a uniform?

Most people don’t connect recruiting policy to veteran suicide. They see them as separate problems handled by separate offices with separate budgets. Recruiting is about getting people in. Suicide prevention is about keeping people alive after they’ve served. The two conversations rarely overlap.

They should. Because the recruiting system isn’t just filtering candidates. It’s delivering the first lesson about what this institution values about mental health. And that lesson echoes through entire careers, into transition, into the VA parking lot at 2 a.m.

We think tighter mental health screening produces a more mentally stable force. Does it? Or have we created a system where veterans warn future enlistees not to seek treatment, where parents scramble to get things off their kid’s record, where lying is the implicit price of admission—and we wink because we all know that’s how the game works?

What have we done? Is this really the best we can do?

From 2008 to 2010, I commanded the Special Operations Recruiting Battalion. My mission wasn’t street recruiting—the Army had 37 other battalions for that. We recruited soldiers already serving for attendance at selection and assessment for Special Forces, the 160th Aviation Regiment, Explosive Ordnance Disposal, Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations. We were pulling from a pool that had already made it through the front door.

But I understood the accessions mission. I had to. And I became the guy friends called when their kid couldn’t enlist, when parents needed help understanding why their son or daughter suddenly required a waiver for something that wouldn’t have mattered five years earlier.

The conversations followed a pattern: a reasonable question on their end, and no good answer on mine. A father I’d served with, calling about his eighteen-year-old: “He saw a counselor after his mom and I divorced. Took some medication for a year. He’s fine now. Has been for three years. Why is this a problem?”

There was no good answer. The system had changed, but no one had recalibrated the standards to reflect what that change meant.

Secretary of the Army Driscoll’s decision to delegate mental health waiver authority back to two- and three-star commanders addresses a procedural bottleneck. When 95% of waivers were being approved based on lower-level recommendations anyway, the Secretary-level review added friction without adding value. But this fix treats a symptom. The underlying disease keeps spreading—and its effects extend far beyond the recruiting station.

The Surveillance Nobody Planned For

Thirty years ago, a young man walked into a recruiter’s office and started fresh. His past was largely what he said it was. The eighth-grade fight never happened unless he brought it up. The counselor’s visits after his parents split were his business. The system couldn’t verify these things because it didn’t have access to them.

Recruits lied. I’m not endorsing it, but I’m naming it. Many of those kids became solid soldiers. Some became exceptional. The system’s blindness forced recruiters to exercise judgment about the person in front of them rather than the database behind them.

That world is gone.

Today, the locker room scuffle exists as an assault charge in a juvenile database. Speeding tickets accumulate into a criminal record. The behavioral health appointment your parents scheduled because they wanted to support you through a rough semester is documented permanently. The ADHD medication you stopped taking three years ago remains on file.

We’ve built an infrastructure that captures every stumble of adolescence and treats it as predictive of adult military performance. The evidence doesn’t support this. I’ve served with soldiers who had rough teenage years and went on to become phenomenal warriors. I’ve watched “clean” recruits wash out of Special Forces selection because they’d never encountered real adversity.

Documentation tells you what happened. It doesn’t tell you what someone learned from it, or who they became afterward.

We Told Them to Get Help. Then We Punished Them for It.

This is what makes me angry.

For forty years, we have been telling parents that supporting their children meant getting them professional help early. We launched campaigns to reduce stigma around mental health. We normalized therapy, counseling, and medication for routine developmental challenges. Good. I believe in that mission. I’ve advocated for it in the veteran community.

Then we told those same kids: because you sought help, because your parents did the right thing, because you’re in the system, you now need special permission to serve your country.

The Walter Reed study from 2022 found that between 2016 and 2020, more than 31,000 potential recruits were disqualified for learning disabilities, psychiatric conditions, or mental health concerns. Over a third of Army applicants needed a waiver for something in this category.

These aren’t broken people. They’re documented people. There’s a difference, and our system refuses to see it.

Quality Over Quantity—Weaponized

Katherine Kuzminski from the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) is still framing this as a balancing act between “quality and quantity.” I understand the framing, but it lets the system off the hook.

“Quality over quantity” is a SOF truth. I’ve lived it. I believe it.

But I’ve also watched it get used as a battering ram to shut down anyone advocating for actual humans, for soldiers, for a system that makes sense. Someone raises a concern about overly restrictive policies eliminating good candidates for bad reasons, and the response comes back: “We can’t sacrifice quality for quantity.”

As if that’s what’s happening. As if pointing out that documentation isn’t the same as disqualification means you want to lower standards.

Having stupid policies that are overly restrictive and eliminate people for the wrong reasons isn’t quality over quantity. It’s stupidity over humanity. It’s a system trying to be bureaucratically efficient while missing the point entirely.

Quality means getting the right people. It means identifying who can do the job, who can handle the stress, and who will show up for their teammates when everything falls apart. It doesn’t mean rejecting a capable candidate because a database flagged a counseling visit from six years ago. That’s not protecting quality. That’s worshipping an administrative process.

When we hide behind “quality over quantity” to avoid examining whether our filters measure quality, we’ve stopped thinking. We’ve drained a principle of its meaning, and turned it into a shield against thinking and accountability.

The Lesson They Learn Before They Ever Serve

What’s the downstream effect on the soldiers who do get in?

Think about what we’ve taught them. They were told once to seek help, and it nearly disqualified them from service. Maybe they got a waiver. Maybe they lied, hoping the system wouldn’t catch them. Either way, they learned something about how this institution operates before they ever raised their right hand. They either experienced it themselves or watched their buddies do it.

Now they’re in. They deploy. They see things that will stay with them forever. They come home carrying weight they don’t know how to put down. And we tell them to seek help. Go to behavioral health. Talk to someone. It’s okay. No stigma. We’ve changed.

Do you think they believe us?

Do you think they trust a system as procedurally bureaucratic and blind as the one they experienced at enlistment?

They were told to seek help once, and it came back to bite them. Why would they expect anything different now?

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

We tell people to have integrity. We build entire programs around values, character, and doing the right thing. But at the front door, we wink and let them lie to enlist—because honesty gets you flagged and silence gets you in. The system taught them, before we ever taught them differently, that transparency is a liability, documentation is a weapon, and the safest move is to say nothing until and unless you can’t anymore.

And then we wonder why veteran suicide rates don’t move. We wonder why soldiers don’t seek help until they’re in crisis. We build resiliency programs and hire more counselors and launch awareness campaigns, but we never address the foundational lesson we delivered before they ever wore the uniform: this institution punishes honesty about mental health.

The Question Nobody Wants to Answer

A kid whose parents got him help and who did the work to come out stronger gets flagged. A kid who suffered in silence and never built coping skills slides through. Which one do you want in your formation when things get hard? And which one is more likely to seek help when they need it later?

Is a young person who sought help for anxiety at sixteen, and has been thriving for three years, less qualified than someone who white-knuckled through the same anxiety, undocumented?

Our current standards say yes. The first kid needs a waiver—the second ships without additional scrutiny.

I don’t believe that’s the correct outcome. I don’t think most commanders believe it either. But the system wasn’t designed for nuance. It was built for bright lines in an era when bright lines were the only tool available.

What We Actually Need

Driscoll’s move puts decisions closer to people who understand recruiting context. USAREC commanders know their mission and their applicant pool better than a staff officer at the Pentagon shuffling waiver packets. That’s an improvement.

But it doesn’t address the fundamental mismatch between our standards and our reality. And it does nothing to repair the trust we’ve already broken.

We need to determine what predicts success in military service—not what disqualified people in 1985, but what current data shows. I’ve worked with soldiers at every stage of their careers for four decades. The correlation between adolescent documentation and adult performance is weaker than the system assumes.

We need standards that distinguish developmental challenges from enduring conditions. A teenager who saw a therapist for six months after his grandmother died isn’t the same as an adult with an active, unmanaged psychiatric illness. The current framework can’t tell them apart.

We need to confront whether we’re filtering for the right things at all. When we struggle to meet recruiting goals (yes, we’ve hit them two years running, but the underlying demographics and propensity to serve haven’t fundamentally shifted), are we excluding capable people for documentation reasons while missing genuine risk factors that never appear in medical records?

Every waiver for adolescent mental health care, every flag on a kid who sought help and came out fine, every wink-and-nod encouragement to just not mention it—that lesson follows soldiers through their entire career. It’s still operating when they’re sitting in a parking lot at 2 a.m., deciding whether to walk into the VA or drive home and drink until they can sleep.

I spent my final years in uniform working with Afghan commandos and came home to work with veterans navigating transitions of their own. The pattern is consistent: we’ve created systems that reward opacity and punish transparency.

That’s not a waiver problem. It’s a values problem.

We say we want soldiers who seek help when they need it, who don’t suffer in silence, who address problems before they become crises. But we have built a recruiting system that selects against exactly those behaviors—using recruit transparency against them when they try to serve. We teach them from day one that honesty about mental health is a risk, not a strength. And we expect them to forget that experience once they’re in uniform.

They don’t forget.

Until we acknowledge that the recruiting system teaches lessons about trust that echo throughout entire careers, we’ll keep shuffling waiver authority between echelons while the real problem festers. We’ll keep invoking “quality over quantity” to avoid the harder conversation. And we’ll keep losing soldiers to the silence we trained them to keep.

First dominoes: If you’re a recruiter, ask yourself how many qualified candidates you’ve lost to documentation that told you nothing about their actual readiness.

If you’re a commander, ask yourself what your soldiers learned about trusting the system before they ever got to your formation.

If you’re a policymaker, stop moving the approval authority and start questioning what we’re approving for—and what lesson every waiver teaches about honesty.

And if you’re a veteran who learned to stay quiet because the system taught you that was safer... I see you. The system was wrong. Seeking help is still the harder right over the easier wrong, even when the institution teaches you the opposite lesson.

Lead with Love,

Doom

Fred “Doom” Dummar is a retired Special Forces Colonel with 29 years of service who now writes about leading with love, veteran wellness, and the systems we build that break the people they’re supposed to protect. Find him at Guide to Human on Substack.

Field Day

Ryan Miller

The tradition of Field Day in the Marines is something most of us will always remember. It’s where the standards of order and discipline were introduced, executed, and inspected with outcomes measured, reported, and, if needed, sternly remediated.

When my drill instructor briefed us on his Field Day expectations in the communal bathroom (also known as the head), he reminded us that he would never ask us to do something that he wouldn’t do himself. He then slowly ran the index and middle fingers of his bare, ungloved right hand under the inside rim of the urinal, all the way around the netherside of the porcelain. When he finally withdrew them, he showed us the urine-stained grime, including pubic hairs, that he extracted.

“This pisser is fricking nasty, do you understand that?” the drill instructor admonished.

“Yes, sir,” we all yelled, a few voices still cracking from puberty, excitement, or simple fear.

Field Day is another reminder of the importance of teamwork. There is too much to do, and the expectations are so high that only organized delegation and diligence can accomplish an elite level of cleanliness. Scrub brushes and brooms become as familiar as our rifles, and we learn that AJAX, Simple Green, and Bleach can clean just about anything. We’re too young and invincible to care much about PPE or ventilation for the caustic fumes. Simple Green can also be described as the toxic Marine Corps approach to diversity. Light-green, dark-green colorblindness rings hollow in the context of the Marine Corps being the worst branch for racial disparities in punishment and promotion. But I digress because that topic deserves an essay of its own.

The variety of solvents is matched only by the variety of music heard at a barracks during Field Day. One room bumping hip-hop, another blasting hardcore rock. Further down the hall, the twang of a country western tune can be awkwardly heard alongside the accordion of a Mexican Banda corrido.

Some of us come from diverse regions and can code-switch to assimilate between different cultures. For others, it’s their first exposure to folks from vastly different backgrounds, and they couldn’t fit in no matter how hard they tried. Some don’t try at all and retreat to the comfort and predictability of troops with similar backgrounds.

I love spending time with veterans from across the country in a variety of spaces. From the veteran art and activism movements to veteran mental health and plant-medicine communities, I encounter a wide range of perspectives and endeavor to gently offer some of my own. One community that I’ve grown to treasure is the veteran literary community of readers and writers. Two groups I attend are hosted by veteran writers in North Carolina, and I look fondly forward with anticipation to the fellowship that emerges from sharing our responses to writing prompts.

We come from different walks of life with varying value systems, but we all share a love for our country. Not necessarily love for the government nor the military, but love for the land known as the United States. For some, it’s the hunting and fishing, for others it’s the landscapes and wildlife - especially amphibians. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Sierra Nevadas, from Lake Mattamuskeet to Lake Tahoe, we all love the land that many of us believed we sweat and bled to defend.

“Leave no trace” is a common refrain among outdoor conservationists. Similarly, “if it doesn’t grow, it goes” is the Marine Corps version with the same intention. The cousin of the garrison Field Day is the police call in the outdoors. Whether it’s picking up spent brass on a shooting range or MRE litter in a bivouac site, Marines have stood shoulder to shoulder, walked on-line, and stooped down or bent over to clean up after themselves and each other.

I recently saw a film that featured both North Carolina and where I was born, San Francisco, California. Its title is “Earth’s Greatest Enemy,” and it was co-produced by US Army infantry veteran of the war in Iraq, Mike Prysner. In North Carolina, it featured Camp Lejeune and told the story about how the water supply on base was contaminated by fuel and volatile organic compounds in the 1950s, and over the next three decades, as many as a million military personnel, family members, and civilian employees drank, bathed in, and cooked from water that the government knew was contaminated, and the contamination was concealed from the troops and their families. Earth’s Greatest Enemy featured a small plot of land, just outside of Camp Lejeune, known as Baby Heaven, where hundreds of infants are laid to rest who succumbed to their birth defects from Camp Lejeune’s contaminated water.

On the opposite side of the country, Hunter’s Point, is a historically black working-class neighborhood on San Francisco’s waterfront. For thirty years, the Hunter’s Point Naval Shipyard was a major economic engine that employed much of the local community. After WW2 and until 1969, the Hunter’s Point naval shipyard was the site of the naval radiological defense laboratory, the US military’s largest facility for applied nuclear research. Just like Camp Lejeune, the radioactive contamination at Hunter’s Point was concealed from the public and even covered up, including falsified soil samples. For the residents of Hunter’s Point, miscarriages are considered normal, birth defects are considered normal, and respiratory illnesses are considered normal.

Do you know what else Camp Lejeune and Hunter's Point have in common? They’re both EPA superfund sites. A “superfund site” is a location with such horrific ecological pollution that it takes a superfund of resources to remediate. Did you know that the majority of global superfund sites are current or former US military bases? With nearly 1000 overseas bases and CIA black sites, we’ve exported our toxicity across the globe. Fallujah, Iraq, for example, is a global epicenter of birth defects thanks to Uncle Sam. Mission Accomplished?

“Pack it in, pack it out” is another common phrase of outdoor conservation culture, encouraging humans to keep the landscape pristine that we leave our tracks on. This may be where the Sierra Club and Uncle Sam’s Gun Club diverge. Earth’s Greatest Enemy documented the tradition of underway night ops, when sailors aboard US Navy vessels throw bags of trash overboard. Not to be out-polluted, the documentary also featured ground-pounders that, before ending an exercise or deployment, carefully collected and stacked pallets worth of ammunition, mortars, rockets, wired them with explosive charges, and blew them up in the desert. Beyond the heavy metals, depleted uranium, vaporized and spread to the wind and water in all four directions. One reason why infantry units destroy unused ammunition is so that next year’s operating budget isn’t reduced.

One of my favorite members of these veteran writing groups is a former US Naval aviator whose aircraft was also featured in Earth’s Greatest Enemy. The EA-18G Growler is an electronic warfare aircraft whose vibrational output was shown to disrupt sea life, including the ability for Orcas to hunt.

The Marine Corps may be lean, and it may be mean, but it’s definitely not green. It was recently said that in the books of America, veterans are in the black. If that’s true, then we’re also in the planet’s deepest red, and we have an unpaid morality debt. If once a Marine, always a Marine, then what is our Field Day and Police Call responsibility with the fact that the US Department of War is Earth’s Greatest Enemy? If we want our grandchildren’s grandchildren to hunt, fish, and surf where we have, then what must we change? How long will we allow other young people to sign up to serve a government where “Troop Welfare” is obviously a cruel myth?

Another pervasive myth is that Marines guard the streets of heaven. Earth’s Greatest Enemy teaches us that if cleanliness is next to Godliness, then we truly are devil dogs. There is no livable future in which the Empire of the US military-industrial complex exists, and it’s the moral obligation of the remainder of our lifetimes to police our own and Field Day after ourselves.

Ryan Miller is a Marine Corps veteran and a therapist.

“Do you think the wars were useless?”

Heather O’Brien

I shouldn’t have been surprised. I knew this day would come; someone would ask.

I swallowed the first swear word that threatened to pop out. The teenager standing in front of me was not snidely spitting words. He hadn’t even been born when I enlisted. His was an honest question.

Do I think that? I’ve often battled the thoughts that my service did no lasting good for any country I fought in.

“I do promise to defend…” words spoken with solemn pride while smoke still wafted from Ground Zero. He doesn’t know what it was like to watch 3,000 people die on TV, the bodies floating gently from rooftop to smashed pieces on the ground. War was here whether we wanted it or not; in an instant, curious suspicion about a religion blossomed into burning hatred.

Right or wrong weren’t options. The only choices were to join and serve revenge or sit on the sidelines.

Nobody knew in those early days that we would sit and stagnate in Afghanistan while being tossed into Iraq as well. My first deployment wasn’t even into the wilds or cities of Afghanistan; instead, I sat like a ghost airman in the very country that hid Bin Laden for 10 years.

Then Iraq, good reasons or made-up ones, it didn’t matter; they hated us, so another war was declared. Whether there were ever any WMDs was irrelevant; we still toppled their government and hung the psychotic ruler. Good was done…at first. But just like Afghanistan, we stayed and stayed.

Ineffective and badly executed at times, yes, but do I think they were useless?

In the end, I must answer no. The reason is quite simple. Regardless of why we went, who sent us, and whether it was truly for the greater good, the price we paid demands that it be worthwhile.

Over 7,000 of my brothers and sisters never returned home alive. And 30,000+ more died after they came home because the war overwhelmed their hearts and minds.

They are the price those “useless” wars claimed.

Were they good wars? Morally, right? Did a man-child president persuade us to invade a country to finish his dad’s war? Maybe.

But I really don’t care about any of those reasons. I went for better or for worse, not for glory, or a President, or to see some country whose people I hated try to build a democracy. I went because they went, my buddies, siblings given to me by Uncle Sam.

And so many of them paid the terrible, tremendous, awful price.

Tens of thousands of futures shifted, changed, and many were snuffed out.

Their blood screams that our wars weren’t useless.

Heather O’Brien is a writer and Air Force veteran with deployments to Pakistan and Iraq.

.The Written Word

Fiction and Nonfiction written by servicemen and veterans.

Sometimes They’re Better

J.B. Stevens

The room is cold and dark and smells of industrial cleaners, and I’m alone. The school-issue mid-80s polyester tracksuit scratches at my arms. I exist in the dark space. My brain screams for someone to take the fear—but no one can. It’s mine. I own it. The struggle is one-on-one, and the universe is watching.

Fear and stress tickle my lizard brain. I want the dread to leave. I turn Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” up to the max volume on my Discman. My parents bought it for me last Christmas, in 1998. I try to crank it loud enough to chase off the anxiety. But it doesn’t get that loud. Nothing does.

I notice a sliver of light at my side. Coach Grey glides into the locker room, thick and bearded. He steps in front of me. Coach was a Marine before coming to St. Pius X High School to teach weightlifting and coach wrestling.

I pull the headphones down, and the goosepimples kick up.

He puts two hands on my shoulders. “You ready?”

I look down. “Fuck, I don’t know.”

Coach frowns. “Don’t curse, you’re better than that.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Time to man up.”

“Okay.” I nod and smile. I breathe deep through flared nostrils, arch my back. “He’s better than me.”

“That’s true.”

“Aren’t you supposed to say, ‘That’s crap’ or ‘Believe in yourself’?”

“I’m not a liar.”

“How do I win?”

“First match, you took him down, slammed him on his backside, got mean. Try to do that again. Get him off his game.”

“Yeah. But after that first take down, he whupped my ass.”

“Don’t curse. You’re better than that. Get mean, or give up.”

I nod. “Yes, Sir.”

I grit my teeth and stand.

Coach slaps me across the face. “Let’s go.”

I step to the gym’s prison-looking metal doors and kick them open.

I hear yelling. I think I can make out the sound of my mom, but I’m not sure.

Then the blood rushing in my ears, and the pounding in my chest, drown out everything else. I am alone.

I look up to the crowd. My mom is somewhere in there, with my dad, my brother, and my girlfriend, but I can’t see them.

Whoever’s running the place has turned down all the lights except for a lone spotlight on the mat. The only thing anyone can see is the mat. And now I must walk to the center and meet my opponent, Roper. He’s a better wrestler.

I’m alone. I’m alone.

I start my walk, and the spotlight is on me. The world is black, but for me.

I start to run. The mat’s blue vinyl is soft and familiar. I do two laps and squat in my corner. Coach Grey meets me there, and he talks, but I can’t hear him, just the thunder of my own blood.

I look down and close my eyes and try to push away the fear. I don’t want to think. The bleachers are full. A thousand people watching, and I’m alone.

There is a click, and I open my eyes. The spotlight shifts to the gym’s east side. It is Roper’s turn to enter. He was the state championship’s runner-up last year. He opens one door and steps out, slow, confident.

We lock eyes. He nods. He walks to the mat. He doesn’t run. Why did I run?

In the center, we shake hands. It’s just the two of us now, in spite of all the spectators.

The whistle blows, the struggle starts, and the universe slides away.

I shoot a double, but he sprawls his hips straight down and turns. His center of gravity is low. He twists, and my back is exposed, but I arch and bridge and roll.

Roper shifts left, then right. I try to get mean, but he is too good. I feel the tweak. He makes me turn one way, catches the crook of my knee and the base of my neck, and he has me. My back is flat on the blue vinyl, and I stare at the spotlight.

I’m exposed, the mask slips, and I’m alone.

Roper pins me.

The ref slaps the mat, and the whistle blows, and I stand. We shake hands, and it’s over.

I lift my chin and walk back to the locker room.

The spotlight cuts. The next match starts, and our struggle is forgotten.

Coach puts his arm around me. The room is colder now. I can’t smell the bleach, just my sweat, and the sounds come back—they are too loud. I feel hot tears.

Coach grabs my chin, looks me in the eyes. “You good?”

I wipe the tears. “Yup.”

“You give it your all?”

“I did.”

Coach nods. “Sometimes they’re better.”

He squeezes my shoulder and leaves.

And I’m alone.

J.B. Stevens is a former U.S. Army Infantry Officer who saw combat in Iraq and now writes fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and reviews.

The Spine on the Reference Shelf

Benjamin Van Horrick

The CIA World Factbook sat between the Rand McNally atlas and the Encyclopaedia Britannica on my library’s reference shelf, its spine creased and pages yellowed. It was the only book that mattered. CIA meant adventure. I cracked the spine, expecting spycraft, but found GDP figures instead. I read on anyway.

The experience was more like becoming a geography professor than a secret agent, but it gave depth to the world map my mother had gifted me. Moving between maps and the Factbook linked the visual representation of a country to the reality on the ground. Although the entries were brief—most were less than a page—the book made every line count. The maze of former Eastern Bloc countries particularly piqued my interest. Following the Soviet Union’s collapse, understanding how these nations formed their identities meant more than memorizing names.

Within an hour of flipping through its pages, I began forging connections among countries and regions. I learned that many African nations retained the same legal frameworks as their colonizers. Cape Verde’s main exports included fish, bananas, and salt; Midway Island remained a US territory.

In the mid-90s, the Soviet Union had collapsed, the Gulf War had been won in a matter of days, and the economy was booming. The “End of History” seemed not only appealing but real. However, conflicts in Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti, and Kosovo proved those rosy predictions false. The Factbook became my guide to an increasingly volatile world. In the post-9/11 world, I joined the Marine Corps.

Years later, before my second deployment, I received the Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB). The brief covered Helmand’s flat, unforgiving terrain, the Alizai and Barakzai tribes, and its rampant opium trade. The same information I had first seen in the Factbook. I’d come full circle from the library reference shelf.

The CIA halted publication of the World Factbook last month. For most, it was a book to look up the currency of Thailand (the Baht) or the chief export of Algeria (oil). I can still see the spine on that reference shelf, promising nothing more than facts. It propelled my career.

Major Benjamin Van Horrick is a Marine Corps logistics officer and Managing Editor of The Connecting File, the centerpoint for articles on leadership, training, and tactics for the Marine Corps infantry and reconnaissance communities.

The Young Man and Old Man: Reflections of a Peacetime Marine Corps Officer

Grant W. Boyes

It was one of those almost indescribable Michigan spring nights—warm enough to drink a few beers with your friends around a bonfire, cold enough to know you are in the Midwest; comfortable enough to want to be outside and smelling that fresh spring air, crisp enough to still want to wear a homey sweatshirt. I was a college senior in my second semester, newly voted and crowned as the senior class’s “Most Outstanding Man,” and eagerly awaiting my commission as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. Although I was not a history major, that last semester I got the opportunity to take an upper-level history class with a new, young, and energetic professor who became my sole motivation to care about school when I had so much to look forward to in the next few months after graduation. I related to him instantly because I thought I could be just like him when I grew up: he was an Army officer with combat experience, the latter characteristic being the true mark of a military officer in my immature estimation.

Invited to his home for a late-night bonfire with my classmates, I knew we were in for a treat. In the course of the evening, we discussed who is the greatest basketball player ever (Michael Jordan was allegedly the Platonic form of basketball player), my latest run-in with school administrators, and James Mattis’ use of Sulla’s epitaph before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Then, suddenly, in the darkness, the professor literally leaned into the brilliance of the fire to shed light on his most illuminating take of the evening. “You know, I know you want to see war. You want to see combat. You want to be the one who experiences it. You’re the young man. I’m the old man. The young man wants to go to war because that’s what young men want to do. The old man says that the young man shouldn’t want to go to war because he’s seen it. The young man doesn’t listen because he wants to be just like the old man.”

As my short, unimpressive, “boring,” active-duty military career concludes this spring, this conversation constantly churns in my heart and torments my soul. How ironic that I regret never having the chance to kill someone else’s son, husband, or father. The cynical side of me tries to convince myself that my time in the Marine Corps was only full of weekly operations sync, material readiness briefs (if only TBS prepared you to understand anything about GCSS-MC and what the heck a MEE is), and ensuring my platoon was “green” on all of our training requirements. What did success end up looking like as a peacetime officer? A satisfactory CGRI binder inspection? A 100 percent completion of annual and fiscal year training? Completion of Tables 3-6 and the BZO range without incident? Wow, all of this really makes me look like the modern version of Lieutenant John Bobo.

Serving in a peacetime military means constantly being told “sweat in peace so that you don’t bleed in war” or “Si vis pacem, para bellum.” If, as Aristotle surmises in the opening of the Ethics, the telos, or the end, of the art of war is victory, what is the purpose of practicing it or training it when there are no tactical or operational victories to be won? This question punctuates the philosophical underpinnings of everything you do as a military officer during peacetime. In wrestling with this question, I recount that moment with my teacher, and I feel a tremendous amount of personal shame, guilt, and embarrassment that my career ended without the opportunity to win valiant glory and lead Marines in the harshest, most dangerous conditions. Because I never “did the thing,” I reason, how can I call myself a veteran, or even a Marine, when those titles are worth something because of those that went before me, those “old men” from my teacher’s story?

Though there will always be a part of me that regrets my peacetime career, I offer consolation to anyone else who may be feeling or thinking similar sentiments. First, ask yourself these simple, plain questions: Did you do the best you could? Did you “take care of the Marines” or “do your job” when the opportunity arose? While only those that I served with can truly answer those questions for me (shout out to the Marines of Bravo Battery, 3rd platoon), I know I tried my hardest to give an affirmative answer to those questions. I know I failed as a leader to my Marines, as a lieutenant to my superiors, and as a peer to my fellow platoon commander plenty of times, but that never stopped me from getting up the next morning, putting on my cammies, and going to work ready to do better the next day.

To echo the importance of those “moto” quotes in the aforementioned paragraph, there is a reason we need to train for war. To understand this, just read or listen to T.R. Fehrenbach’s preeminent classic, This Kind of War: A Study of Unpreparedness, the story of the American military’s preparation for and participation in the Korean War. To the new lieutenant in front of his or her platoon for the first time or to the new NCO leading Marines for the first time, my challenge is to read that book, understand it as a warning to our military in 2026, and still suck at your job after that. Laziness in peacetime will cost our fellow Americans their lives. If you create a laid-back, undisciplined, dilettante unit like those Fehrenbach highlights, we will only see the same kind of failure wherever the enemy decides to fight the United States next.

One of the worst parts of military leadership is the limited time you get in one billet at one unit, unable to understand the long-term effects, positive or negative, of your investments in those you served with every day. Additionally, when the enemy never tests your unit in the fury of combat, you cannot know if your training succeeded or failed. Yet, to once again utilize clichés, if you leave your time in the service knowing you put out your best effort, that should bring you the purpose and meaning you sought when first joining the service. You see, the purpose of the training is the product you know you created, even if you do not see the practical result or consequences of that training. As a Christian, I believe Scripture’s recurring emphasis on God placing people in authority is not just about our civilian political leaders; He even places platoon commanders, squad leaders, and team leaders in authority, too. Your time spent leading in peacetime was the plan God had for you; cherish that.

To emphasize my teacher’s comments, I will close with another great warrior’s meditation on seeing combat yet yearning for peace. Episode two of the mini-series Band of Brothers depicts Dick Winters quietly saying a short prayer after surviving the jump into Normandy. “That night, I took time to thank God for seeing me through that day of days and prayed I would make it through D+1. And, if somehow I managed to get home again, I promised God and myself that I would find a quiet piece of land somewhere and spend the rest of my life in peace.”

For my teacher and Dick Winters, both extraordinary men who performed extraordinary deeds and actions for their country in faraway lands, they wished they never had to do it; they prayed for and craved a life of peace. Because of their actions to achieve victory for our country, to establish peace and security for their fellow citizens and future countrymen, I got to “enjoy” my existence as a peacetime military officer. Therefore, to quiet my worst instincts of “imposter syndrome” and guilt over my lack of combat experience, today and every day, I treasure the opportunity to serve my country during a time of peace because of the actions of those old men who saw war, so the young did not have to go. I thank God for the memory of a quaint, beautiful, yet normal spring night bonfire in Michigan because this memory reminds me of those old men and their deeds, and God’s grace that He created and made me for times such as these.

Lieutenant Grant Boyes is a Marine Corps Low Altitude Air Defense Officer.

Lucky Dog

Lance Kurnal

Nobody really knows how to retire from the service; you just do it, and then you realize years later that it all works out in the end. I was still on terminal leave when I moved my family to a small village in northern Okinawa. I got a job as a contractor on base, and I had my requisite beard, 5.11 pants, and a surly attitude toward Mother Corps. Somewhere in that first year of watching a lot of sunsets, smoking cigars, and eating way too many Doritos, a vague notion formed in my mind that I was going to get a German Shepherd and name it Lucky. I’d never had a dog before, and I had no idea what I was doing. My Lucky dog showed me the way.

She taught me that she couldn’t stand any other animals, especially cats, of which we had two at the time. She taught our family to never leave her alone in the house with anything in the trash. She loved riding in the car with me and going for walks, but it was more of a constant tug of war until we got to an open field where she could chase a tennis ball. She was unbelievably fast, and it would take around twenty minutes of constant sprinting back and forth to wear off some of her endless energy.

She had come from a breeder who supplied K-9 dogs for the local police, so we had to register her with city hall and sign her up for a series of obedience classes, which she had no interest in completing. Her purpose was clear to me from day one; we were her tribe, and she protected us. She was relentless to outsiders but an 85-pound snuggle bunny with our kids.

The only time she really listened to me was when we moved to the Pacific Northwest. When I picked her up at the airport, she was utterly dejected from the travel. We had a beautiful scenic drive from Northern California to the small college town we moved to in Oregon. Lucky was happily staring out the window in the back seat and occasionally licking my ear to remind me she was there. It was the first time she really listened to me, so when we got to our new place, I used the opportunity to teach her the only trick she ever learned: how to play dead.

Like all newly retired Marines, I struggled trying to find my new purpose. In Oregon, for the first time in my life, I couldn’t get a job, so I took the only one available, working at the front desk of a Vet Center while I went back to college. I had gotten my bachelor’s a few years after I retired, but I still had time on the GI Bill, so I enrolled at the local community college to get a general two-year IT degree. I learned that I still hate math and I can’t stand code.

A local businessman who had served in Vietnam tried to help me get a job. When I showed him my resume, which was basically my last FITREP, and dripping with obscure acronyms, he said, “We’re going to have to take out everything that talks about weapons and infantry because local businesses don’t understand anything about that stuff, and those terms just sound too aggressive to the average hiring manager.”

Working at the Vet Center was a trip. I learned that, apparently, there were very few admin, supply, and motor-T folks in the military. It seemed like everybody who came through the front door was in the stack that took out Bin Laden. My Lucky dog was there through it all. She didn’t care that I could not understand anything in my computer science classes; she was just happy I was home. I can still see her hips shaking and her tail wagging, with her tongue hanging out, while she pranced on her paws and waited for the magic words, “You wanna go for a walk?” After she spun in circles multiple times, she would slip and slide across the wood floor as she raced to go out the back door to do our nightly walks. I vividly remember her always sitting on a chair facing the front window of our house. Our kids were usually playing out front, and my Lucky dog was ever vigilant.

As I was finishing my IT degree, I got a job with a local Information Security company and found myself doing some of the most fascinating work I’ve ever done. After completing my training and vetting, I became part of a unique team of people whose job was to try and break into banks, power companies, local government, law enforcement organizations, and well-known defense contractor organizations. I found the people I worked with to be unique and brilliant characters. They were also incredibly dedicated to their craft and earnest in their approach. I was soon flying all over the country, and I learned the easiest way to break into a highly secured organization is to walk in the front door with a fake ID and a good story. My Lucky dog was always waiting for me when I got back. I felt safe knowing she was watching over my family while I was gone.

I was drawn back to Okinawa and working for the Marine Corps again. My Lucky dog couldn’t fly right away because it was too hot at the time, so she stayed with good friends in Idaho for a few months. She loved running around the woods with them. When she arrived back in Okinawa, it broke my heart at first to see her because she had made another long trip not knowing what was happening, and she was sad. I promised her I would never make her move again. She had slowed down by then, but she was still strong and always waiting for me at the end of the day. We had a nightly ritual; I had a cigar on the back porch and decompressed from the day while my Lucky dog stayed by my side. She couldn’t wait to go for walks at the Kurashiki Dam, and I had so many peaceful moments watching her sleep on the couch.

When she got sick, we thought it was just an infection. I got home from work one day, and she was hiding in the corner. She couldn’t stand up, and her ears were pinned back in pain, but she was more worried about me. Her purpose had never wavered. She knew exactly what she had to do every day of her life. The next few weeks were a whirlwind of ups and downs. There was emergency surgery, followed by a confirmation of cancer that was all over her liver. Some days, she was good, and other days, she could barely move.

The night before her final day, we just knew. We made her as comfortable as possible, and the family stayed up to watch old videos of our time with Lucky. The next day, my trembling hands held her neck tight, and my tears coated her face as she died. She didn’t want to leave us even as she faded. I didn’t realize how much she had healed me until she was gone. Her complete dedication to me and my family was something I had taken for granted for almost ten years. Her sense of purpose has stayed with me.

It’s been 14 years since I retired from the Marine Corps, and I still have no idea what I’m doing. I’m just trying to be the best father and husband I can be. My purpose is clear, and I owe my Lucky dog for setting the example.

Lance Kurnal is a retired United States Marine.

Book Excerpt

The Adler Compound

Andy Barker

CHAPTER NINE – OPENING PANDORA’S BOX

Berlin, Germany — December — Morning

Mostafa Farokhzad preferred the quiet hours—the ones before administrators arrived, before interns clogged hallways, before diplomats wandered the upper floors pretending to understand science.

Down here—three levels beneath the government research center’s public façade—the world made sense. The air-lock hum. The filtered light. The antiseptic smell baked into the concrete. The narrow corridors built not for comfort, but containment.

He stepped into the prep room and shut the outer door behind him.

Silence; controlled, familiar.

He stripped down to disposable scrubs, movements efficient; methodical, ingrained.
Inner gloves. Socks—hood liner. Each seam checked twice.

Some of the younger techs joked they could suit up in under three minutes—idiots.

Rushing was for people who believed the system would forgive them.

Mostafa eased his legs into the BSL-4 suit, pulled the torso up, rotated the locking ring until it clicked, then slid his arms into the stiff sleeves with their heavy gloves. He lowered the positive-pressure hood over his head and sealed it in place. A moment later the umbilical line snapped to his hip with a hollow clack, feeding him a stream of purified air.

The world softened—

sounds muffled, breathing amplified,

the hiss of airflow constant in his ears.

He pressed the intercom.

“Farokhzad. Entry to Lab Four.”

“Lab Four, entry granted. Cycling.”

The inner door unlocked, he stepped into the air lock.

Negative pressure engaged.

Lights rolled from red to amber to green.

Then the second door opened, revealing his sanctuary.

BSL-4.

Berlin’s most classified room disguised inside its most boring building.

No windows, no paper, no personal effects.

Only stainless steel, reinforced glass, sealed hoods, and surfaces designed to show every speck of contamination.

He walked to his station.

The mice rustled in their cages when he approached—tiny claws on plastic.

He spared them only a glance.

They were data points, nothing more.

The components waited inside the isolation hood—clear vials of clear liquid. No smell.

No color, no warning.

That was the point.

He slid his gloved hands into the fixed gauntlets and began.

Measured dispenses, recorded dilutions, temperature logs.

Time stamps.

“Sample A-twelve, baseline…

Sample B-nine, aerosol vector trial…

Time zero at nine thirty-eight.”

His voice sounded hollow inside the hood, half devoured by the suit.

He checked environmental readouts, perfect.

Stable.

He moved to the cages, verifying tags against the protocol sheet sealed beneath glass.

Control animals, component “A” animals, component “B” animals.

No symptoms, no distress.

Separate, the pieces were harmless. Together, they rewrote the rules.

He secured the nebulizer, checked the seals, slid the exposure chamber into place over the designated cages.

“Exposure chamber sealed. Initiating combined-agent aerosol.”

He pressed the control, for a moment—nothing.

Then the first mouse staggered.

Mostafa watched with clinical detachment as the onset began:

loss of coordination, muscle failure, seizing limbs, rapid, shallow gasps; another collapsed, then another.

He checked the timer: exactly as projected.

He cut the aerosol, let the purge cycle run.

Logged every observation with the detached clarity of someone who had long ago separated emotion from outcome.

He moved through decontamination of instruments, sample preservation, and final notations, step by step, letting the rhythm of discipline center him.

Then—

as he reached for the recording sheet—

a glint caught his eye, left sleeve, upper forearm, a hole.

Small—perfectly circular.

Barely the size of a pencil tip.

His breath froze; impossible.

He lifted his arm slowly, rotating the suit under the hood’s lights, eyes narrowing behind the visor.

The hole was real.

His chest tightened. Every hair on his body prickled.

A cold spike ran from his spine down through his gut.

He stared at it—

not breathing, not moving,

just calculating.

It could be nothing—

a superficial abrasion,

a manufacturing defect, a scrape from a rack or bench.

Or it could be—

He felt the memory hit him like a blunt weapon.

Not a thought or a fear, but a flash.

A trench outside of Majnoon Islands

Warm blood pooling near his knees.

The smell—burnt lungs, ammonia, something ferrous and rotting.

Men dropping around him, hands clawing at their throats.

Vision tunneling, light bending.

The medic’s voice fading as the mask tore from his face.

He blinked the memory away, once, hard, no panic.

No screaming, no collapse, just action.

He reached down, grabbed the atropine/2-PAM chloride auto-injector from the emergency kit mounted on the wall, flipped the safety cap free with his thumb, lined it up—

—and drove it into his right thigh, hard enough the suit dented inward around the needle.

Click—hiss.

He held it in place, five seconds, six, seven.

Then he yanked it free, dropped it into the biohazard bin, and moved.

Not walked or hurried but just moved.

Mostafa slammed the decon-panel with the heel of his hand.

The door sealed behind him, locking shut with that heavy, final sound he always trusted — except today.

The overhead jets roared to life.

He didn’t wait for the system cycle. His hands were already tearing at the suit, ripping open the heavy outer seals, twisting the blue shell off his shoulders and down his arms. It hit the floor in a wet slap.

Next came the inner gloves, then the disposable scrubs.

Then the last thin layers worn beneath.

Everything—all of it.

He stripped down to bare skin with the urgency of a man who understood exactly how contamination traveled — and how little margin existed between safe and dead.

The second he was clear of fabric; he stepped directly into the flood.

The water hammered down on him in a relentless, punishing column — hot, then cold, then hot again as the system cycled through its programmed pattern. He scrubbed hard, hands running over every inch of his body with the precision of someone performing triage on himself.

Chest, arms, neck.

Face, hair, legs.

Over and over, no shortcuts, no hesitation.

He braced his palm against the tiled wall, his breathing sharp and uneven despite every effort to force it steady.

Scrub, rinse, scrub again.

The water mixed with memory — the trenches at Majnoon Islands, the quiet that wasn’t natural, the stillness before the shells came, teenage boys in salt-and-oil caked boots pretending they weren’t afraid.

He wasn’t in Berlin anymore.

He was seventeen again, lungs burning, the world tearing itself apart cell by cell.

The water kept coming.

He didn’t break, didn’t sob, didn’t panic.

He just stared forward — a thousand-yard emptiness carved into his face, the kind earned only by men who had survived the worst and learned never to speak of it.

His back hit the wall, and he slid down slowly until he sat on the tile, knees bent, water cascading over him like a storm he refused to flinch from.

He stayed like that until the shaking stopped.

Until discipline returned to his hands.

Until the world came back into focus.

Only then did he rise.

It was several minutes before his breathing evened.

Before the world stopped narrowing.

Before he convinced himself—

logically, clinically—

that he wasn’t contaminated, the hole had been superficial.

Cosmetic—meaningless.

But the risk had been real enough.

His pulse slowed.

He eventually shut off the water and stepped out of the bay, the last of the emergency cycle still echoing off the tiled walls. He reached for a clean stack of sterile towels and dried himself fully — arms, legs, torso, hair — until no moisture remained.

He dressed in fresh facility scrubs, the fabric clinging slightly to skin still warm from the shower, and slipped into the decontamination-approved sandals waiting by the door. Only then did he leave the bay.

He walked the quiet corridor back to his office, each step controlled; measured, his breathing steady once more.

He sat, opened the secure terminal, and entered his observations.

Clinical. Precise. Stripped of anything resembling emotion.

When the log was complete, he opened the encrypted outbound channel.

A blank message waited — the kind with no visible metadata, no subject lines, no trackable fingerprints.

He typed only what was necessary.

No flourish, no explanation, just confirmation.

Progress confirmed, compound behavior matches projections. Awaiting next directive.

He encrypted the message, watched it dissolve into unreadable cipher, and sent it through the line that officially did not exist.

The confirmation ping appeared.

He powered down the terminal, the screen going black in front of him.

Andy Barker is a retired Naval officer with 32 years of service, including time as a Fleet Marine Force Corpsman, an Independent Duty Corpsman supporting Special Operations Forces and Surface Forces, in addition to his role as the sole medical provider aboard submarines; and ultimately ending his career as a Nurse Corps Officer specializing in Emergency and Trauma Care. Andy’s career spans combat medicine, austere operational environments, independent medical decision-making, and frontline emergency care, where precision and accountability carried immediate consequences.

Barker is the author of The Adler Compound, a military thriller shaped directly by lived experience rather than abstraction or mythology.

After an initial self-publication, he spent four years completely rewriting the book to better reflect the realities of service and its aftermath.

Following its relaunch in February 2026, The Adler Compound reached the top five in two Amazon thriller categories and the top ten in a third, surpassing the total sales of its original edition within days. His writing prioritizes authenticity, technical accuracy, and the human toll of conflict, aiming to portray the realities of service without spectacle or simplification.

Andy lives in Missouri with his wife, two children, and his Service Dog Alma; a six-year veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, who saved countless lives as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Military Working Dog.

This ends Volume 44, Edition 1, of the Lethal Minds Journal (01MARCH2026)

The window is now open for Lethal Minds’ forty-fifth volume, releasing April 02, 2026.

All art and picture submissions are due as PDFs or JPEG files to our email by midnight on 20 MARCH 2026.

All written submissions are due as 12-point font, double-spaced, Word documents to our email by midnight on 20 MARCH 2026.

lethalmindsjournal.submissions@gmail.com

Special thanks to the volunteers and team that made this journal possible.

All articles published in this newsletter are the personal opinions and positions of the authors themselves. All content, and the Lethal Minds and Lethal Minds Journal brand is the copyright of Lethal Minds©

Send your piece to lethalmindsjournal.submissions@gmail.com.

Dedicated to those who serve, those who have served, and those who paid the final price for their country.

Conor McGregor Was a Friend of Mine (PART 1)

J.B. Stevens

9.

In the dressing room, surrounded by the tired velvet curtains, Heck’s gut tightened, and his head spun. How could this have happened? They’d trained so hard, and the defense, Latisha knew it better than anything. The plan was working. Why would she kick? Why’d she shoot a takedown? It made no sense. All that sacrifice. She deserved to come out on top. Why did she always have to get the short end of the stick? Why couldn’t she get ahead? He tried to help, and now she was beat up, had a loss on her record, and wouldn’t get the win bonus.

She stood in the corner, head down, massaging her right glove.

He pointed. “You hurt your hand?”

“Yeah. I couldn’t punch. I panicked and threw a kick.”

He went over and gave her a hug. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“You lost. I’m your coach. I should’ve planned for this. I didn’t.”

“It’s not your fault. Things usually work out the way they should.”

Even when it didn’t go her way, she still kept it all in perspective. “You have a bright future in this—if you want it. I’m proud of you.”

“You shouldn’t be.” She held up the gloved hand. “Can you cut the tape?”

“Don’t get down on yourself.” He pulled out the scissors. “Whatever comes next, you’ll be ready.”

As Heck snipped, Sergio moseyed in alone, smirking. He wore a new watch, and his chain was different—this one looked platinum. He must’ve left the other necklace and Rolex at home. The pompous idiot probably had a whole collection of pointless bling. Every time Heck saw him, the accessories were different.

Latisha dropped her chin. “Nice Omega.”

Sergio sneered. “You know watches?”

“A bit. You had on a Rolex Daytona the other day, right?”

“Right.” He touched his wrist. “Work hard, like me, and you could own an Omega one day.”

“Hopefully that day will come soon.”

“Keep dreaming.” Sergio took Heck’s stool and sat. “Tough fight for you two.”

“Yeah.”

“Latisha was lighting it up,” Sergio said. “Too bad she went for that takedown.”

Heck shrugged. “Latisha had to lay off the punches. She hurt her hand.”

“Sounds like a poor tape job or a crappy game plan.”

Heck swallowed. “Or maybe your blonde just had an overly hard head.”

“She’s not ‘my blonde.’ All I wanted was to set up a good, fair fight.”

“Sure. You’re known for doing the right thing.”

Sergio reached into his pocket and produced a wad of hundreds. He peeled off one and waved it at Latisha. “A bonus.”

She took the money. “Last fight, it was five.”

“You lost. You’re lucky it’s not zero.” Sergio got up. “I’ll call you soon. Maybe we can set up another bout. I know you need cash. I want to help.”

“You already have, more than you know.”

His head tilted slightly left. He raised a hand and opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking.

He left.

10.

At the gym, inside the office, Heck looked around. Where was Sonny Liston? He hadn’t been around since the fight. And why wasn’t Latisha answering her phone? Everyone needed to cool down after a long fight camp followed by a loss, but she’d never taken more than two days in the past. It had been double that, and she still wasn’t picking up or texting him back.

He didn’t want to be pushy, but maybe he should pop in on her, swing by the apartment? He checked the calendar on the desk. He had a lesson with Thaddius at three. His watch showed 1:15 pm. It was enough time.

He went to the parking lot, unlocked his Bronco, sat in the still-glittery seat, turned on “Don’t Stop Believing,” dropped it in gear, and drove to Latisha’s apartment.

He parked and looked at the numbered spot in front of her place. Her brother’s car was gone. He knocked—there was no answer. He cupped his hands and tried to look through the grimy front window, but the curtains were drawn.

A guy sat on the steps of the next entryway over, drinking a cream soda and listening to Michael Jackson on a small speaker.

Heck walked over. “You seen Latisha or her brother?”

“They left.”

“Do you know when they’ll be back?”

“They gone. Filled up a U-Haul.”

Heck’s chest tightened. “When?”

“Two days ago.”

Heck’s mind spun. Where’d she go? Why didn’t she call? She’d needed the win bonus from the fight, and she’d kept talking about betting on herself. Damn, she didn’t bet everything and lose it all? Did she?

11.

Heck was in the center of the mat, stretching and thinking about Latisha, as Thaddius walked in jeans and a polo shirt.

“What are you wearing?” Heck stood. “I thought we were training today.”

“Nahh.” Thaddius held out an envelope. “Latisha paid me to give you this. Then she made me promise to tell you: open it alone.”

He took the packet. “You’ve seen her? Where? When?”

“A few nights ago, at her place, right before the fight.”

“You were close like that?”

“No, we weren’t.” He pointed. “I read that note, so you’re about to figure it out anyway.” He looked left and right. “She paid me a thousand dollars to place her bet.”

Heck closed his eyes and shook his head. “And she had you bet way too much money on herself to win.”

“No, fool.”

“What do you mean?”

Thaddius frowned. “She bet fifteen grand on herself, to lose.” He dropped the package and left.

Heck blinked. To lose? The air felt sticky, and his mouth went dry. Goosebumps formed on his arms, and his back tingled with pinpricks. He grabbed the envelope, went into the office, locked the door, sliced the top off the package, and dumped the contents onto the desk.

Ten $100 dollar bills fell out along with a past-due water bill. Heck flipped the bill over.

Heck,

Sorry I couldn’t tell you. This was the only way. You helped me more than I can say.. Also, Sonny’s with me. You said I could keep him. I hope you don’t mind. He reminds me of you.

THecks for everything.

L

After he read it twice, Heck pulled out a book of matches, lit the note on fire, and dropped it in the trash can. It burned until there was nothing left.

12.

Heck was at his home, Grove Bluffs, a crumbling farmhouse built just after the civil war. He was on the front porch, fixing a rocking chair. The paint’s smell filled his nostrils. There was a crunch on the driveway, and he turned. It was a sedan with dark windows.

Heck’s mind flashed to Latisha. Was she okay? Did the wrong people find out she took a dive? Damn it, Thaddius, little punk. He probably sold her out to Sergio for five dollars and a bag of ditch weed.

The car squeaked as it stopped in front of Heck. A tall, uniformed Savannah police officer stepped out of the driver’s side. An older, shorter man in a rumpled suit got out of the passenger door.

The guy in the suit spoke. “It’s hot as hell. Can we go inside?”

Heck waved them through the front door and let them into the kitchen. They sat around the large oak dining table.

“I’m Detective Lee Murray.” The short guy shifted forward and they shook hands. “My partner, Patrolman Charles Lidell.”

“Nice to meet you both.”

After a few moments of banter, including a crack about the falcon incident, the detective took out a phone, unlocked it, and slid it over. “Hit play.”

Heck did. The video showed a large, one armed, black man dragging something wrapped in a green plastic tarp. He pulled it up some steps and into a house. Twenty minutes later, the same guy left with the tarp under his arm and a duffel bag around his neck. The one-armed-man had a distinct saunter.

Heck’s gut tightened. Demetrius. What the hell had that idiot done? Is that why Latisha took a dive, to raise money to get her brother out of town?

He returned the phone.

The detective took it, clicked, pinched, zoomed, and gave it back.

Heck looked. The image showed the edge of the tarp. Poking out the top was the head of a woman with red hair. Her skin was ice blue.

Heck frowned. “Is that a frozen corpse?”

“We think so.” The detective pulled out a pen and notepad.

“Whose body is it?”

“We’re not sure. We can’t find it.”

What did this mean? What were they wrapped up in? Heck prayed that Latisha was okay. “Where’d you get the video?”

“From a neighbor. They live a few doors down.”

“Not the homeowner? The victim?”

“No. They reported the theft. They never mentioned a body.”

“What?”

“Three days ago, we responded to a robbery. The victim said he had a bunch of watches and jewelry taken, as well as a Louis Vuitton duffle bag. Also, he said his Ring cameras weren’t working. As we investigated the crime, we got ahold of the neighbor’s surveillance video. This happened a few days back. The victim waited to report it.”

Heck leaned forward. “Why would the homeowner wait and not mention the dead body?”

“We don’t know. But we figure the delay was so he could get rid of the corpse.”

“He doesn’t know the neighbor got footage of the red head being dumped?”

“Apparently not. We want to know exactly what happened before we interrogate him.”

“This is insane,” Heck said. “If he disposed of a body, why would he bother with the police?”

“The victim said he needed a report for his insurance claim on account of the stolen items. He said his whole watch collection was gone, and that it was worth a few hundred thousand, so he had to make the claim. Basically, greed.”

Heck closed his eyes. It had to be Demetrius in the video. Stealing, that made sense, but why did he have a frozen body? And why did he leave it? Why did the homeowner get rid of the remains? Whatever Demetrius did, it better not blow back on Latisha.

Heck thought of his floundering career. If he got wrapped up in all this, it was over. “Do you think I’m involved?”

“No.” The detective shook his head. “You have a strong alibi. This happened when you cornered that fight.”

Heck’s gut loosened. “Then why are you here?”

“We suspect the guy on this video is Demetrius Johnson. You trained his sister. Can you tell us where she is?”

“No.” Heck took out his phone, unlocked it, and gave it to the detective. “I’ve called and texted her a bunch since the loss, but she hasn’t responded. I swung by her place and knocked. There was no answer.”

“That’s too bad. Mind if I take down her number?”

“Please do.” Heck scrolled to the contacts and pulled up Latisha’s information.

The detective took the phone. He flipped to the second page of his notebook. “I meant to tell you Sergio White is the homeowner.”

“Seriously?”

“During Latisha’s bout, the thief broke in, dropped the body, and robbed Sergio blind. Only someone really in the know would be aware that Sergio promoted that fight, lived alone, and would be out of the house. We think Latisha concocted this plan with her brother.”

“Any idea why Sergio didn’t report the body?”

“I suspect the frozen red head was left to cause Sergio a problem. He had to take care of it before calling the cops. We suspect he has had a strong, illegal connection to the decedent. The situation gave Latisha and Demetrius time to get away.”

Heck shook his head. “You’re wrong about one thing—Latisha is innocent. She was with me, in front of a hundred people.”

“All those eyes. Best alibi ever.” He closed the notebook. “What a coincidence.” He stood and held out a business card. “If she calls, you’ll let me know?”

Heck took it. “Of course.”

13.

A few hours later, Heck laid in bed with the lights out, watching an old Micky Ward fight. His phone dinged. It was a text from a private number.

It was a picture—no words. It showed a thin, dark arm, featuring an Anansi tattoo, wearing a man’s Rolex. The arm held a fruity drink with a pink umbrella. The sun was dropping, silhouetting a beach and palm trees.

Heck smiled. With a private number and no faces, it could be anyone… No need to call the detective.

He deleted the image and shut off the phone, and everything went dark.

The End.

This ends Part 3 of 3, Conor McGregor Was a Friend of Mine (16FEB2026)

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The bar at Harry Lee Hall hummed with the low roar of Marine voices as they crowded around chipped tables. Beer bottles clinked, ice rattled in highball glasses. Old campaign photos lined the walls – black-and-white faces frozen mid-stride in a jungle or on a windswept hill.

I stood just inside the doorway, a brand-new second lieutenant, trying to hide how out of place I felt. Across the room, men in their fifties and sixties laughed the way only people who have survived hard things together can laugh. A few of them were in uniform, their chests a blur of ribbons. Others were casually dressed but still carried themselves with the same easy confidence.

My buddy Bill waved me over and started introducing me around. “Sir, this is my classmate from Kansas.” Hands were offered, grips firm, eyes sharp but kind. I realized quickly these weren’t just “old Corps” Marines – they were those Marines. The names from the stories we’d all heard at TBS.

The advisors from the Easter Offensive.

The men who’d held the line at Dong Ha.

The Marines who had walked Vietnamese Marines out of kill zones.

The men who made decisions under fire that forged Marine Corps lore.

I found myself anchored next to one older gentleman in civilian clothes who seemed more approachable than the others. He narrated who was who as they walked in, filling in the backstories behind the rows of ribbons. That’s when it hit me: I wasn’t just meeting legends.

I was watching them interact – teasing, remembering, looking after each other. They were ordinary in the way they ordered beers and told jokes, extraordinary in their accomplishments.

Standing in that bar, watching those men, one thought took hold and never left: leadership is not a mystical trait reserved for the chosen few. It is a learnable craft, built through example, honed through intentional practice, and the stories we choose to live by and pass on. The power of example, the discipline to stay calm, and an intentional approach to learning can turn any of us, over time, into the kind of leader others want to follow.

Why Example and Story Shape Leaders

Long before leadership manuals or seminars, humans survived in small tribes where cooperation meant life or death. In those groups, leaders couldn’t rely on PowerPoint or policy, they led by what they did in front of others.

Who took the biggest risk on the hunt?

Who shared food fairly?

Who stood firm when danger pressed in?

From an evolutionary standpoint, leading by example is a “costly signal.” It shows you’re willing to bear real risk or effort for the group. Costly signals are hard to fake, which is why people trust them. Over generations, we learned to follow those whose behavior matched the tribe’s values – courage, fairness, endurance – not just those who shouted the loudest.

Modern neuroscience backs up what those early tribes already knew. When we watch someone act, our mirror neurons fire almost as if we were doing the thing ourselves. Our brains are literally wired to imitate. A leader’s calm under pressure, work ethic, and integrity don’t just register as abstract virtues. They imprint themselves as patterns our brains can copy.

Emotions are contagious, too. Through mechanisms involving the limbic system and chemicals like oxytocin, people “catch” the mood of the person in charge. A leader who radiates steadiness and respect can lower the collective temperature of a team. One who radiates panic or cynicism does the opposite.

Storytelling builds on this wiring. Roughly two-thirds of everyday conversation is some form of story. The brain encodes experience as sequences of events, so stories are the native format of human memory. We remember information far better when it appears inside a narrative than a list of facts.

For leaders, this matters. The stories they tell, and the ones they embody, become the operating system of their units and organizations. Stories give meaning to hardship, frame what “right” looks like, and anchor identity. In combat, in crisis, and in everyday life, the combination of example and story can motivate people to do hard things well beyond their perceived capability.

If examples and stories are that powerful, the obvious question follows: can the rest of us learn to use them deliberately?

A Young Lieutenant Meets His Heroes

I didn’t wrestle with questions of mirror neurons or costly signals back in the spring of 1992; I wrestled with myself.

“What now, lieutenant?” is the unspoken question hanging over every new officer at The Basic School. I had been a prior-enlisted Marine, so in some ways I was more confident than my peers. I knew the culture. I’d stood in those ranks. But that confidence was welded to anxiety. Now I would soon be the one standing in front of a platoon of enlisted Marines, and I knew their ruthless judgement of new lieutenants.

After all, I had judged lieutenants myself.

Who was I as a leader?

Was I born to do this, or was I an impostor in a gold bar?

If I wasn’t a “natural,” could I work hard enough to become the leader my Marines deserved?

I had read the books but still had more questions than answers.

Amid those questions, TBS handed us a distraction. All the student companies were assigned to march in a retirement parade for a colonel. At first, I assumed this was just another Quantico requirement as some senior officer retired with the usual ceremony.

After the first day of practice, that illusion disappeared.

We learned the parade was for Colonel John W. Ripley. Even as a young lieutenant I knew the outlines of his story. At Dong Ha Bridge during the 1972 Easter Offensive, then-Captain Ripley had crawled under the bridge for hours under fire to place explosives, ultimately blowing the span and halting an enemy division. The Navy Cross he received was shorthand for the physical courage, endurance, and sheer will that feat required.

As we rehearsed drill movements on the parade deck, I tried to picture him – exhausted, bleeding, still working. I didn’t yet grasp that he was also a teacher, mentor, and lifelong competitor: Royal Marines Commando Course graduate, Naval Academy instructor, president of Hargrave Military Academy. I just knew he was one of the giants.

Parade day itself was, from my place in 5th Platoon, mostly a blur of standing motionless in the sun, hearing speeches, and stepping off when told. Afterwards, when Bill invited me to the club to hear his dad and his friends tell war stories, the real education began.

At Harry Lee Hall, I realized quickly that many of the men gathered there weren’t just retired heroes, but they remained on active duty, some in uniform, with rows of ribbons thick as armor.

My posture straightened itself. I listened harder.

The older gentleman in civilian clothes, the one who became my informal guide, introduced himself as Gerry Turley.

Only later did I fully connect the name.

Colonel Gerald H. Turley, author of The Easter Offensive. As more Marines walked through the door, he narrated who they were and what they had done.

When Colonel Ray L. “E-Tool” Smith arrived – later a major general – Turley quietly told me about the legend behind the nickname, then the real story of the night Smith led Vietnamese Marines out of an enemy kill zone, using his own body to bridge a booby-trapped wire obstacle and earned the Navy Cross.

These weren’t characters in a book anymore. They were living, breathing men laughing at the bar, checking in on one another, and making sure the young lieutenants in the room felt welcome.

I remember standing there thinking: These guys are the real deal. How could I ever build myself into a leader like them?

Calm, Critical Thinking, and Intentional Practice

Instinctively, Major General Smith understood something about the power of story. He never claimed the more dramatic version of his legend was true, but he recognized that it served the Corps by reinforcing Marines’ belief in who they are.

The story, paired with the real deeds behind it, strengthened the tribe.

That same interplay between example, emotion, and narrative showed up again in what I later learned about Lieutenant General Walter E. Boomer, who commanded all Marines during Desert Shield and Desert Storm and was the senior officer at the parade that day. Advisors from the Easter Offensive remembered that no matter how bad things were – even if the NVA were coming through the wire – Boomer’s voice on the radio sounded as if he had just woken up from a nap.

His calm under pressure helped carry them through.

Science explains that kind of steadiness. Gary Klein’s Recognition-Primed Decision Making (RPDM) theory says that experts under pressure don’t labor over a menu of options. They recognize patterns from experience and quickly move toward a workable course of action. That works beautifully for seasoned leaders with a deep mental library.

It’s shakier for brand-new lieutenants with a sample size of “not much.”

What bridges that gap is the ability to stay calm enough to think clearly. Daniel Kahneman’s work in Thinking, Fast and Slow describes two modes of thinking: the fast, intuitive, often biased “System 1,” and the slower, more deliberate “System 2.” Under stress, we naturally default to System 1. Leaders who can regulate their stress response – take a breath, delay the outburst, ask one more question – create a sliver of space for System 2 to come online.

For a young leader, that sliver is gold.

You may not yet have Boomer’s depth of experience, but you can choose not to make things worse. You can choose to pause, to listen, to ask for one more piece of information. Calm is not passivity. It is the precondition for good judgment.

Over time, I realized that if I wanted to become the kind of leader I had met in that bar, it wouldn’t happen by wishing or by relying on “natural” talent.

It would require intentional practice. Like building strength in the gym, leadership development takes reps and sets.

So I started small. I looked ahead for moments that might be stressful and rehearsed how I wanted to show up. I tried to notice when my pulse spiked and consciously slowed my breathing. I embraced the “leaders are readers” mantra and, more importantly, tried to apply what I read in real situations instead of just underlining clever phrases.

The leadership literature reinforced what my experience suggested. Research on leader development points to a simple pattern: experiences, assessment, challenge, and support (often in the form of coaching and feedback) combine to grow capacity over time. James Kouzes and Barry Posner put it plainly in The Leadership Challenge: leadership is learned behavior.

In other words, leadership is a skill, not a birthright.

We may start with different temperaments, but the capacity to lead can be cultivated through deliberate practice, example, and reflection.

Closing the Loop

Colonel Ripley’s retirement parade turned out to be far more than a drill requirement. The events of that day detonated in my young mind. Watching those men interact – Ripley, Turley, Smith, Boomer, and many others – gave me concrete images of what I wanted to become: someone who stayed calm when others were afraid, who carried themselves with quiet confidence when others boasted, who used stories and example to pull people toward their best selves, not trumpet their own deeds. .

That same dynamic plays out in less dramatic settings every day, in companies, schools, and families. People watch what leaders do.

They feel what leaders feel.

They remember the stories leaders tell – and especially remember the ones leaders live.

Which brings us back to that crowded bar at Harry Lee Hall. I walked in that evening wondering, Am I a natural leader? I walked out realizing that was the wrong question.

The better question was: Am I willing to do the work to become the kind of leader whose example is worth following?

Colonel Bill Vivian (USMC, Ret.) previously served as the commanding officer of 2d Battalion, Fourth Marines and 7th Marine Regiment. He can be reached at bill@freestonesolutionsgroup.com.

Send your piece to lethalmindsjournal.submissions@gmail.com.

Dedicated to those who serve, those who have served, and those who paid the final price for their country.

Conor McGregor Was a Friend of Mine (PART 2)

J.B. Stevens

5.

Heck worked for the choke. His heels were on the inside of Latisha’s thighs. His arms were over one shoulder and under one armpit. He squeezed and held on, looking for an opening.

Latisha’s heart rate was steady and smooth, slower than his. She controlled his attacking arm, the one over her shoulder, with both of her hands and tried to get her back flat on the mat on the opposite side—the correct technique.

Her grappling defense was coming along perfectly. He grinned—he was helping, moving her skills to the next level. There was no way anyone on the local circuit was going to get a choke on her. Her defense was too good.

He moved his right hand to her shoulder. “I found your opponent on Instagram.”

“And?”

“I’m worried,” Heck said. “She’s a judo black belt, state wrestling champ, and pretty.”

Latisha’s eyes narrowed. “And I’m not.”

“She’s the type that Sergio can make money off of. He’s trying to exploit both of you. I say we ruin Sergio’s scheme. Hit him in the wallet with this fight.”

She grinned. “I’ll shave a few zeros off his bank account. You can bet on it.”

“Great attitude. Remember the plan. Keep her on the outside, jab her in the nose until her whole universe is your left fist. Make her bleed, suffer.” He squeezed. “Now, escape my choke.”

She got her back flat and twisted away from his choking arm.

Heck grinned. “Flawless. Where’d you learn that grip detail?”

“I watched that YouTube video you recommended.”

“And you’re already hitting the technique?” He tried to slide his right knee across her thigh and into full mount.

“Yeah.” She pushed his leg and got to guard.

“Awesome.” He threw some light punches. She raised her hands, underhooked her foot on his thigh and swept him over—landing in mount.

She threw slow, gentle, arcing elbows. “Got you.”

“Yes, you did.” He tapped her on the side.

She stopped and jumped up. “And your winner is…”

Flat on his back, with his eyes closed, Heck responded. “Latisha Johnson.”

The bell chimed. “Grab something to drink. I’m going to top off Sonny’s water.”

When he returned, he grabbed his bottle. Under it rested three one-hundred-dollar-bills. “What’s this?”

She looked over. “Payment for training.”

“Where’d you get this much cash? I thought you were hurting?”

“Sergio paid me for that thing with Jimmy, keeping him out of the hood.”

Heck tilted his head to the left. He didn’t want to take the money, but his mortgage was due. Add in the fact that his government career was almost certainly over, he could really use the cash. No, it wasn’t right. He was here to help her, not the other way around.

He tried to give it back.

She smiled and pushed it onto him. “I insist.”

He shouldn’t, but he was becoming desperate. “Only this one time, no more. Okay?”

“K.”

As the bell rang and they moved back to the mat, the front door opened, and sunlight blasted the dusty space.

Sergio walked in, wearing a Rolex and gaudy gold chain. “Latisha.” He raised a manila envelope.

“What?”

“Tickets and the rest of the cash for that favor.”

Latisha took the envelope.

Sergio winked at Heck. “You messing around with any more of them seagulls with syphilis?”

“Funny.”

“I thought so. See you later, Birdman.” Sergio left.

She walked to Heck. “He is such a douche.”

“That’s why we’re going to do everything we can to get your hand raised at the end of this.”

She nodded and opened the package. There was a thick stack of bills and a wad of tickets.

Heck squinted. “That looks like a lot.”

She closed the envelope. “He paid me in fives and tens, not hundreds.”

“Oh.”

***

Two rounds later, the bell rang, and he checked the wall clock. “It’s time for my next client.”

“Who is it?”

“Thaddius.”

“That spoiled brat kid from the Ford Plantation?”

Heck nodded. “Daddy says Thad is being bullied.”

“They have bullies at Savannah Country Day?” She pulled off her gloves.

“I suspect he’s the bully and I’m making him better at it.”

“So the rich kid learns how to fight and be a more effective jerk?”

“Money can do amazing things.”

“I wouldn’t know.” She took a drink. “But I hope to find out.”

Before Heck could answer, Thaddius walked in.

Heck waved him over. “You want some tickets to Latisha’s upcoming bout? Maybe you buy some for your friends?”

Latisha laughed and walked into the women’s locker room.

“Pay for some local cage fights?” Thaddius sneered. “I went to the last UFC in Atlanta. Do you really think I’m going to waste my time watching a GameStop cashier beat up a Wal-Mart stock boy?”

Latisha called out from behind the closed door. “I’m a sandwich artist—you judgmental prick.”

Thaddius scoffed. “Exactly. How about this? Give me ten tickets. I sell them at a huge markup to idiots at my school and split the profit with you.”

Latisha opened the door. “Fine.” She opened the envelope and gave him ten. “You’ll do just about anything for cash, won’t you?”

“Yup.”

6.

Debi’s, a Savannah breakfast institution, smelled of fried bacon, the table was sticky with syrup, and silverware clinked against plates. The ceiling featured rough-hewn wooden beams, and the floor was ancient brick.

Heck held his mug. Across the table, Latisha sipped black coffee and ate a western omelet—no yolks. She eyed his French toast with its thick maple syrup and powdered sugar—but she didn’t say anything. Cutting weight meant she must abstain from pointless carbs, no matter how tasty they were.

She chewed a slice of egg white. “I got that freezer. You don’t have to look anymore.”

He had a tinge of guilt. He hadn’t been looking, but as long as it all worked out, no big deal. “Glad to hear it.”

“About my fight…”

“Yeah?”

She lowered her fork. “I want to bet on myself.”

“With how hard you train—” Heck raised his coffee, full of cream and sugar, and took a sip, “you bet on yourself every day.”

“No, not the after school special bet-on-yourself junk. I want to gamble.”

He took a bite. It’s not like the bout was on pay-per-view. Also, ethically, gambling on yourself to win felt okay. But bookmakers, all the people running around the local-fight-betting scene, weren’t exactly on the up and up. Was it worth the risk? And, even if it was, who would deal with him? Sure, he could ask around—but most of them knew he was law enforcement. They didn’t care that he was suspended. Even if he wanted to help, and he wasn’t sure he did, he probably couldn’t.

He swallowed. “You know a bookie?”

“No, but Thaddius said he does and would handle it, for a price. No one will know it was me.”

Heck set down his fork. Latisha needed cash—she’d made that clear. She had no one to help her, and she was sending money back home to Jamaica. But what if she lost? She was good, but nothing was guaranteed in the fight game, and Sergio was obviously banking on the blonde to win.

“If you’re worried about money, I got some savings. I could loan y—”

She shook her head. “You’re unemployed.”

“Temporarily.”

“You getting a paycheck?”

“No.”

“The day job—is it restarting soon?”

“No.” His mind flashed to the fugitive criminal’s messed up eye and the falcon’s bloody talons. “My boss is recommending dismissal.”

“Exactly. I can’t take your money. I’m taking the bet.”

7.

Campus Chaos 7 took place at a local college’s recreation center on a steamy Saturday night. The smell from the river seeped in and your shirt stuck to your back. Inside the venue, a black chain-link cage sat on a platform in the middle of a small basketball gym. Plastic folding tables marked VIP were in front. Behind was a ring of folding chairs, and then a few rows of bleachers.

A series of curtained-off closet-sized spaces in the back of the gym served as makeshift changing rooms. In the third one, Heck pressed the rough-textured white athletic tape between Latisha’s knuckles. He examined his work—he could smell the adhesive. The wrap job looked good.

He slipped on her gloves. “Keep her outside. No takedowns. No grappling. Jab. Don’t let her grab you.”

“Got it.” She turned up the volume on her Bluetooth speaker as it played the Wu-Tang Clan song “Protect Ya Neck.”

“Where’s your brother?”

“Probably somewhere up to no good.” She flexed her hands and smashed her fist into her palm.

“Sorry.”

She shrugged. “Things come up.”

“Fair enough.”

The ratty velvet curtain fluttered and opened—the athletic commission’s rep was there. Heck nodded. The rep came over and grabbed Latisha’s gloves. He immediately signed his name on the glove-sealing-tape—he didn’t actually inspect the gloves. Heck could’ve messed with them in just about any way he’d wanted. Hopefully, the other girl’s coach didn’t try anything shady—there were always so many scams floating on the edges of these small-time local fights. You never knew who had some scheme running in the background—who was dishonest.

The rep left and Heck squeezed Latisha’s shoulder. “Let’s get warmed up.”

“Cool.”

The two of them worked the punch mitts and did some light grappling defense and avoidance. Heck kept stressing the plan: no takedowns or kicks, jab the blond in the face until her will breaks, stay on the outside.

Twenty minutes later, a short guy poked his head through. “Latishia Johnson?”

“That’s me.”

“You ready?”

“Bet on it.”

“Come out when you hear your music.”

“Good to go.”

The curtain dropped and the lights dimmed.

Heck grabbed his bucket with water, ice bags, towels, cold presses, and cut-management supplies.

A moment later, Latisha’s walk-out-song—Breaking the Law by Judas Priest—started up. The music echoed off the cinderblock walls.

Heck’s heart rate exploded. He looked at Latisha. Her jaw clenched, and her eyes narrowed. She shook out her arms.

He gave her a fist bump. “You got this.”

“Hell yeah.”

An overweight security guard led them through a short tunnel and onto a ramp to the side of the cage. The venue was half full.

Latisha’s eyes were low, and she bounced on the balls of her feet.

There was a hoot and Heck glanced over. It was Sergio. He sat at a ringside table with a large-chested woman that looked young enough to have learned about 9/11 on TikTok.

Sergio raised his glass. “Birdman.”

Heck nodded.

Latisha entered the cage, and Heck went to their corner.

The lights dimmed, and “I Gotta Feeling” by The Black Eyed Peas came on.

A spotlight went to the tunnel and followed Latisha’s opponent on her walk to the cage. She had a long blonde ponytail, smooth tan skin, blue eyes, ears that looked like chewed bubble gum, and a button nose. Her shoulders and arms were well muscled.

She didn’t bounce—she glided. There was no nervous energy—she was pure stillness—and she was attractive in a men’s-magazine-cover type of way.

Sergio could make a ton of money on this fighter. She just had to win. Latisha was being set up.

Heck stood on the stool, leaning into the cage. “Latisha.” She turned. “No kicks. Keep your feet planted and jab. Circle and be ready to fire uppercuts when she goes for a double. Got it?”

“Got it.” Her face was low.

“Punch her in the mouth, jack up her nose, make her regret the day she was born.”

“Time to set the tone.”

Heck dropped a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go.”

The ref went to the center and waved the fighters in. Latisha bounced and clenched her jaw. Her opponent appeared as excited as a person waiting in line at the bank.

The official raised a gloved hand. “If you want to touch fists, do it now, nothing after the bell.”

Latish lifted her hand. The opponent walked away—ignoring Latisha’s gesture.

8.

The crowd appeared uninterested in a female preliminary fight—most of them were looking at their cellphones. But that didn’t matter. Latisha was ready. Heck knew it. He wasn’t here for the crowd, or for Sergio, or for money. He was here to help her.

She peeked over her shoulder. “Time to take what’s mine.”

The bell rang, time slowed, and she moved to the center of the ring.

The blonde circled right with her hips and hands low—an obvious wrestler.

Heck leaned into the fence. “Get the jab going.”

Latisha circled right and worked her left hand like a piston, taking a half step forward with each impulse. The blonde seemed surprised by Latisha’s forward pressure. The second and fourth strikes landed flush.

On the fifth, the blonde’s head snapped back. Her chin dropped, and there was a trickle of blood flowing out of her button nose. Her eyes narrowed. She dipped right and then went for a drop step to the left, a classic takedown entry.

Heck grasped the fence. “UPPERCUT!”

Latisha timed it perfectly, and her right hand landed. The blonde’s ponytail flipped, and she landed flat on her butt. She hit an Imanari roll—a wild, spinning shoulder turn—and grasped Latisha’s ankle.

Heck squeezed the chain link. “Spin, turn, jerk.”

Latisha did, escaped, and motioned for her opponent to stand.

Heck glanced at the crowd. Most of the cellphones were down. They were on the edge of their seats. At his table, Sergio glowered. Heck turned back to the fight.

The blonde girl slowly rose, wiped her formerly pretty nose, flicked the blood to the mat, and plodded in.

Latisha moved sideways while throwing a series of jabs—most landed. They were light—just enough to keep the other girl outside.

With each impact, her opponent seemed to slow.

Heck sat up. “Double jab, left hook, circle out.”

Latisha threw the jabs, the blonde got both fists up and defended. The hook came in from the side, around the defense, and landed clean. The blonde’s chin jerked, and she took a knee. Latisha stepped left, grinning.

As the blonde stood, her posture was more upright. Heck realized she’d stopped thinking about takedowns or grappling. Her entire universe was Latisha’s fists.

Heck’s gut warmed. The plan was working.

For the next two minutes, they danced back and forth. Latisha worked her punches.

The other girl kept up her (mostly ineffective) defense while shooting half-hearted takedowns.

The bell rang, and they went to their corners.

Heck took a deep breath. Latisha had rocked the blonde with great, clean punches with satisfying pops and arcing blood. She was putting on a show. A few more fights like this and a big promotion would come calling. He glanced at Sergio. The promoter scowled, arms crossed, sipping a drink.

Heck grabbed the stool and bucket and stepped into the cage. In the other corner, the blonde’s mouth was open, and her mouthpiece was out. Her chest rose and fell in deep sucking breaths. She slumped. Blood flowed in thick streams from both nostrils. There was a purple mouse over the left eye. Her cornerman fanned her with a towel and her coach was in her ear.

Latisha sat ramrod straight on the stool. Her breathing was slow and calm.

Heck put some Vaseline on her face. “Your partner’s spent. Done. Look at her. You broke her.” He handed over the water bottle.

“It’s all going according to plan.” Latisha squinted at the other corner and took a long drink.

“Bring it home. Punch her face in. Earn that money.”

“I got this.”

“Keep her hands off you. No kicks. No grappling.” He smacked her gloves. “It’s your world. You’re the main character.”

She stood and winked. “Everyone else just hasn’t realized it yet.”

“They will.”

The bell rang.

Latisha took the center of the ring and threw a body kick.

Heck grimaced. Kicks? Why would she do that? He yelled. “The plan. Stick to the plan. Calm down.”

Her opponent grabbed the leg, but it slipped out.

They circled, and Latisha kicked again.

The blonde caught it and wrapped the leg with. Then, she dropped her head to Latisha’s knee.

What the hell? What was Latisha doing? “Push the head. Get distance, space!”

Latisha shoved down and away and rotated her hips—her leg slipped out and the crowd cheered.

Heck’s heart rate ticked up. “Remember the plan!”

Latisha went to the center of the cage, dropped her hips, and shot a double leg takedown—immediately starting a grappling exchange.

“No!” Heck jumped on top of the stool. “Stand, get out of there. Push back!”

Latisha drove forward.

“No!”

The other girl wrapped her right arm around the back of Latisha’s neck, beat the underhook, and got her other hand on the chin—a perfect guillotine choke.

The crowd roared.

Nausea racked Heck’s gut. “Guillotine defense! We worked this! Get your forehead on the mat.”

Latisha’s forehead came off the mat.

Heck continued. “Up on your toes!”

She dropped to her knees.

He shook the cage. “Arm over her far shoulder and pull in!”

Latisha put both arms into the other girl’s stomach and pushed away.

Heck roared. “No!”

Blood flowed from the blonde’s ruined nose and into her eyes. She arched her back and squeezed.

Photoflashes started from all around the arena. The crowd became noisy.

The edges of Heck’s vision clouded. Time slowed, and he watched Latisha’s hands. Please. The defense, we practiced it so many times, do the defense. Latisha, you know how to stop this choke.

Stop this choke.

Win this fight.

Stop this choke.

Latisha tapped her opponent’s ribs.

The crowd went insane.

——————————

This ends Part 2 of 3, Conor McGregor Was a Friend of Mine (09FEB2026)

Part 3 of 3 released next Monday.

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I am a recovering lawyer, child of the small-town Midwest, resident of Australia, husband, father, and - a biographical fact of which I am especially proud of late - a graduate of Indiana University (Law ’98).

I have been writing fiction since I was in my 20’s, including two novels which have been published – The North Line, and While the Getting is Good. Both of these books focused on the struggles of working-class people.

2. What is it that draws you to writing?

It’s the art form I can appreciate and access. Some cavemen were good at doodling bison on the cave wall, crafting according to their talent so that we know, all these eons later, that an intelligence was there, observing, interpreting, creating something undeniably human. I can’t do that, but want to do something like that, so I string together words.

I can sing and dance as well, but my children assure me that no one would pay to watch me do those things.

3. What is the hardest part of life as a writer, and what is the best part?

The hardest part is knowing that there is a perfect sentence; precisely the right words, in just the right order, to capture what it is I want to convey and what I want the reader to experience, and knowing I will never get there. The words are always on the verge of becoming clear, but just beyond my grasp. The best part is getting close enough to that perfect sentence to push away from the desk and say, well fuck it, that’s as good as I can manage, and anyway it’s better than my dancing.

4. What advice do you have for aspiring authors/editors?

The best piece of advice would be to find some other outlet for your creative impulses because writing is a solitary pursuit characterized by near ceaseless rejection. As an alternative, I hear guitar players have it pretty good. The second-best piece of advice, assuming the first is ignored, would be to just put your ass in the chair and do it. Every day, if you can manage it. Sooner or later, you will write something you don’t hate, which is as good as it gets for me, and a pretty good start.

5. Everyone hates this question, but I persist in asking it: What is your favorite book and why?

My list of favorites would include a lot of 20th-century American masters - Hemingway, Kerouac, Salinger, Elmore Leonard, Hunter S. Thompson - but the book I most often recommend is Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson. I give copies of it to people and then ask how they liked it. I judge harshly anyone not stunned.

I have on occasion, played golf poorly, and I regularly surf, to about the same standard. When I see someone surf well or hit a drive dead straight down the fairway with a satisfying thwack, my usual petty impulse for envy has a way of dissolving into fandom. I’m just happy to witness another human beat the game, or the ocean, or creation, or whatever. I feel that way when I read Jesus’ Son.

6. You are an (retired?) attorney now and, amongst other things, have been a commercial fisherman. Your first novel, The North Line took place on a commercial fishing boat in Alaska. The protagonist of While the Getting is Good is a commercial fisherman on Lake Huron and a veteran of World War One. Those are story elements and experiences that appeal to a certain type of reader, often young men looking for rites of passage. But this is NOT a manly book for manly men, despite having a lot of the requisite elements. What about those kinds of lives, set against danger and adventure, appeals to you? Is it just a convenient plot device, or are you working through things in your own life?

I did work as a commercial fisherman, and while not an easy job, I don’t know as I have any unresolved personal traumas that are the genesis of my writing, or if so, they remain undiagnosed. Of course, from time to time, life has served up the inevitable shit sandwich, and like everyone else, I’ve had to take a bite, but on the whole, my life has gone pretty well so far. Certainly better than I deserve. I don’t blame my writing habit on personal misadventure – though I’ve had my share.

There are plenty of books about dragons or vampires, or stories featuring characters who live comfortable lives in Brooklyn and are concerned that their romantic/professional/family life is not all that it could be. That’s not what I want to read about, and I couldn’t write it if I tried. Somewhere between domestic relationship melodrama and those books for sale in the airport with missiles on the cover are stories about people under stress (in the case of my books, usually men) who are forced to make difficult choices and live with the consequences. Though not particularly fashionable at the moment, that’s what interests me. Give me a character in an opiate plagued Appalachian town trying to make a go of it as an EMT, or an unemployed logger in eastern Washington. Or how about a truck driver with a wandering wife and a failing kidney? Those stories seem more real to me, and that’s what I try to write about. That they might appeal to men doesn’t surprise me, but I hope a good story appeals to everyone.

7. What did you learn in the process of researching and writing While the Getting is Good, both substantively and personally, and what surprised you?

Family legend has it that some of my ancestors smuggled whiskey across Lake Huron from Canada during Prohibition, finding that enterprise more profitable than their commercial fishing efforts. Minden, the fictional town in While the Getting is Good, is a stand-in for the town on Lake Huron where I grew up, and when I was a kid, we used to smoke cigarettes in old storage caves dug into the banks, allegedly by prohibition era rumrunners. We even used the cases of old liquor bottles we found for target practice, shooting hundreds of antique bottles with a .22. I knew that alcohol was smuggled over the border from Canada during Prohibition, but I was surprised to learn that out of all of the liquor smuggled into the US during that time, 75% of it came through Detroit.

Sadly, I did not inherit a fortune built on rumrunning. I’m told that my family’s success at smuggling was undercut by a tendency to indulge too much in the product. That I did inherit.

8. I really love the twists and turns this book takes. They’re not all thriller-type twists; some of them are, I thought, gutsy narrative choices. What do you want people to take away from While the Getting is Good?

When I started writing While the Getting is Good, I had in mind a story about a fisherman living through the depression who takes a big chance for the sake of his family. As I wrote, he acquired some flaws, and I started to see a story where he was a failed hero, as were most of the other characters. I hope that readers see flawed characters who are nonetheless brave in the face of difficult circumstances – like the people we often encounter in real life.

9. None of the main characters in While the Getting is Good are entirely sympathetic, nor are they wholly unsympathetic. Was that a conscious decision or an organic development? Is there a message there?

In my experience, real people are sometimes brave, sometimes cruel, and sometimes do stupid shit they later regret. Those are my people.

10. It would be fair to say this book is told from at least two separate perspectives, but it really is a book that almost transcends that model and becomes a book with a shift in who the main character is. I can’t think of another book on which you might have modeled that arc. I feel like it absolutely makes the book transcend my assumptions about what I thought would be a hard-boiled thriller. How did you come to that construct and why?

Without getting into the plot, I thought that limiting the story to one character’s perspective would miss a lot of what I wanted to write about. The people at the center of the tale are basically decent, though seriously flawed, and they are pushed into taking a chance that sets off a chain of disasters. A whole family pays the price for that one bad decision, and I wanted to write their story in a way that showed how each of them experienced the consequences.

11. Why should anyone read While the Getting is Good?

Most importantly, I hope my book is a good story. Everything else - ideas I tried to weave in about how we are all imperfect, buffeted by fate, deserving of forgiveness - is a distant second. I like books that have something to say, but also have a tale to tell, and I don’t think the former is a substitute for the latter.

12. What have I not asked that I should have?

You might have asked if it was fun to write. It was. Mostly.

I got While the Getting is Good for Christmas and tore through it on the heels of reading The North Line. You should read both - RWP

Send your piece to lethalmindsjournal.submissions@gmail.com.

Dedicated to those who serve, those who have served, and those who paid the final price for their country.

Conor McGregor Was a Friend of Mine (PART 1)

J.B. Stevens

1.

Heck didn’t get the punch mitt up in time.

Latisha’s fist skimmed the top of the leather, caught him on the point of his chin, and everything went dark.

As his eyes opened, he saw the raw pipes that lined the exposed ceiling. “Was I out long?”

Latisha knelt to his side with her boxing glove on his shoulder. “Just a second. You got knocked out by a girl.”

“You’re not a girl, you’re a fighter.”

“Your brain okay?”

He smacked his skull. “Not much of it left.” He closed his eyes and massaged his temples. The slight headache drifted away. The ringing in his ears, there since the war, remained. “It’s basically useless.”

“You always seemed slow. Come on. Let’s work. I need that win, and we don’t have a lot of time left.”

He rolled over and pressed himself up.

The round timer beeped, the session began, and Latisha’s glove slammed into her target. The impact caused sweat to fly off Heck’s elbow, catching and refracting a bit of sunlight. It cut through dusty, damp air that smelled of adrenaline, old sweat, and cleaning products.

They moved together through the room, relaxed and familiar with one another’s patterns. Heck knew it looked like a dance, and he loved it. All of his problems floated away, and he simply existed.

Latisha jabbed as Toto’s Africa started up on the gym’s sound system. She was a bit shorter than Heck and in above-average shape. She’d grown up in a rough part of Savannah with her mom and brother. Mom had worked as a hair-braider, right up until she passed.

Latisha punched.

Heck brought the mitt forward with a slap, and a satisfying pop echoed off the cinderblock walls. “Hands up, protect the chin.”

She did as she was told, just like always. She was a quick learner and possessed an almost photographic memory for combative techniques.

Heck circled right, ignoring the pain in his foot—it bothered him on humid days. Latisha cut the angle and forced him to the left, her dominant side, just like they’d practiced.

“Good.”

She dipped her chin and threw a straight right. Pop.

“Teep.”

Latisha brought her rear knee up and jutted out the ball of her foot, catching Heck in the pad covering his belly button. Pop.

The kick sent him back two steps. “Good stuff!”

She bit down on the mouthpiece and circled to her strong side.

He loved preparing her, even if he didn’t love the idea of her fighting for Sergio. “You sure about this?”

She nodded. “The bills keep coming. I’m running out of time. My whole life feels past due.”

“Jab.”

Pop.

Heck shifted positions. “Sergio’s the shadiest promoter for a thousand miles. Hell, he’s just a scumbag in general.”

“Don’t care. I need this,” Latisha said.

“Jab.”

Pop.

He lowered the punch mitt. “And if I refuse to get you ready.”

“I’m still taking the fight.”

“Jab.”

Pop.

He nodded. “I figured, but I had to try.” Heck put his palms, one on top of the other, in front of his gut and pointed them to the floor. “Clinch, four knees, go—”

She faked a kick, stepped forward, and cupped the back of his head. Her forearms levered on his neck, pulling down his face. She shot four knees straight up, hard, lifting him off the ground, released the clinch, and stepped back, circling right.

He moved his hands. “Lead hook.”

She slid an inch forward, rotated her core, and drove her fist towards his chin.

Pop.

Her tattoo, a half man/half spider thing, quivered.

Heck pointed at it. “Remind me, what’s with the bug?”

“Anansi, he’s a trickster from African folklore.”

“Cool.” He brought both mitts to his right, stacked on top of one another. “Switch kick.”

Latisha’s shin crashed into the target.

“Good stuff. How much is Sergio paying you?”

“We agreed on two hundred to show, two thousand to win, and he’ll give me fifty tickets to sell—I get to keep the cash.”

Heck’s jaw clenched. The win money was way too high, and the fight was so close. She was being set up.

The wall clock beeped, and Heck dropped the mitts. “Let’s get some water.”

As she went to the fountain, Heck grabbed his bottle and sat on the wooden bench. She’d only fought MMA once, and it hadn’t gone well. Her cardio was good, and her strikes were elite, but her grappling was as pathetic as Heck’s love life.

Heck lowered the bottle. “Do you know the name of the opponent?”

“Not yet. But Sergio swore it’s a fair fight.”

“I’m sure he did.” Heck shook his head. “Sergio’s a promoter. He’s here to build up his fighters, make a star, and sell tickets. If you’re not the star, you’re the victim.”

“Doesn’t matter. I got you on my side. Plus, the money.”

“What about your day job?”

“I need more than minimum wage and free sandwiches. I’m tired of struggling. I want to be sitting on the beach back in Jamaica, sipping a fruity drink with a little pink umbrella in it.”

“There’re better ways to get there than getting punched in the face.”

“For a kid from Yamacraw with a GED?”

“What about the military?”

“How’d that work out for you?”

His mind flashed to Baghdad. “Fair point.”

Latisha nodded. “If you think of that better way, let me know.”

“I will.”

The front door opened, and Heck looked to the entrance.

Sergio stood there, backlit in the frame.

2.

Sergio always looked like he’d just glided out of a steam room. His hair, skin, hands—they always seemed damp. Between that and the tracksuit, he could have been an extra on The Sopranos.

As he strolled onto the mats, he raised his left hand. “My favorite fighter and my favorite has-been.”

Heck grimaced. “Has-been?”

“I heard Heck Thomas got kicked out of the U.S. Marshals for attacking someone with a bird.”

“I’m suspended, and I didn’t attack anyone. I was chasing a fugitive. The situation got weird. A guy hunting with a falcon happened to be nearby. I used the available tools to get the job done.” Heck pointed at Sergio’s feet. “No shoes.”

Sergio looked down. “Always clucking with the bossiness. I heard it was a vulture with a venereal disease. And the bird ran down a schoolteacher.”

“From who?”

“Doesn’t matter. I don’t care. I come bearing gifts.”

“What kind?”

“Easy money for simple work.”

Heck frowned. “I’ve accepted your ‘gifts’ before. Fool me once…”

“Sorry that you’ve made thousands of dollars off me for an hour of your time. You’re a victim.”

“There is still glitter inside my truck. I’ve cleaned it seven times.”

Sergio rubbed the corners of his eyes. “Suck it up. Now, let’s talk, back in the office.”

“Fine.” Heck gestured to the side of the training area. “Walk around the edge.”

“Yes, sir. Captain Thomas.” He stomped across the center of the mats, into the office, and took the seat behind the desk.

Heck followed. “Get out of my chair.”

“It’s not yours.” He didn’t move. “You’re the help.”

“Gustavo’s letting me run the place while he’s away, so it’s mine.” He leaned in. “Move.”

Sergio rose and went to the other side of the desk.

Heck sat. It was warm. “What do you want?”

“I need something, immediately. You need money, fast. Our interests have aligned.”

“How do I know you’ll pay?” Sonny Liston, a stray cat Heck was looking out for, jumped into his lap. “You stiffed me on my last fight.”

“Incorrect. We didn’t sell enough tickets. Conor McGregor was supposed to make an appearance—he’s a friend of mine. That would’ve had attendance through the roof. When Conor chose to stay in Dublin, and announced it on Instagram, things went south. You know how it goes. That Irish prick didn’t want to come to Savannah for St. Patrick’s. Anyone ever say you look a bit like him? Like maybe if his mama was Spanish?”

“I don’t care about what McGregor does on vacation.” Heck scratched Sonny behind the ears and the cat purred. “I care about you not paying me.”

“Go back and read your contract. It says, ‘up to’ not ‘shall.’ I paid you more than I could afford. I lost money. I did you a solid. You do this new job for me, and I’ll pay cash, now.” He touched his pocket.

Heck rubbed his chin. If only someone would put Sergio in his place, teach him you can’t mess with people forever and get away with it.

Sergio sneezed. “It’s a nothing gig. A few hours work, for good pay. Can you get rid of the cat?”

“I like Sonny more than you. The cat stays.” Sergio’s offers always included hidden strings. But he was late on the electric bill and the clock was ticking. “How much are you paying?”

“More than your last four fights put together,” Sergio said.

“What’s the gig?”

“You know my nephew?”

“Jimmy, the drug addict.”

“Settle down—the kid has a problem. It’s a disease. Let he who is without sin throw the first stone and all that. He’s a good kid, at heart.”

“I remember the time he fixed the senior center bingo game and stole the prize. He’s a peach.”

“Mistakes have been made. Anyway, Jimmy has this lady he spends time with. Things went a bit sideways.”

“I’m an out of work cop. I can’t get her, or anyone else, out of legal trouble.”

Sergio leaned back. “There’s no getting out of this one.”

“Is she locked up?”

“No. They were partying, and she snorted something that was spiked. We think it was fentanyl. She’s in the back of Jimmy’s car. They’re parked outside the emergency room.”

“What do you need me for? Get her inside.”

“Jimmy has priors. I don’t need him accidently catching a new charge. His stupid ginger girlfriend, she loves smack. I need someone that is in good with the cops to walk her inside, right now. That’s all.”

Heck bit his lip. If the girl needed help, and he got her help, he was doing something good. “They’re already parked outside?”

“Yup. You go over there and say you want your hand checked out. Say it hurts on account of all the fighting. Whatever, make up a legit reason to be at the ER. You saw her on the curb, freaked out, and brought her in. You’re a good Samaritan. However, if that red-headed slut is dead and—”

Heck slammed his fist on the desk. “Stop talking.” The cup of pencils jumped, fell, and rolled to the floor. Sonny darted off.

“Wow, wow, wow. Slow down, Wyatt Earp.”

“I’m not helping you with a corpse. You text Jimmy and order him to get the girl inside, now, or I’m calling the cops.”

He sneered. “Over a junkie? You serious?”

“Get out your phone.” Heck stood and walked behind Sergio. “I’m watching you send the message, or you’re not leaving.”

“Dudley do-right over here.” Sergio didn’t move.

“I’m serious.”

“Fine.” Sergio typed out a message. “Get the girl inside. It’s your only play. Understood?” He sent it.

Jimmy responded. “She’s not breathing.”

“You’re not a doctor. Do the right thing before the pigs start oinking.”

“K.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah.”

Sergio pocketed the phone and looked over his shoulder. “We good?”

“Not even remotely,” Heck said. “But I’ll let this one go.”

Sergio got up. “Again, sorry about the hawk with herpes.”

“Funny. Before you leave, what’s the name of Latisha’s opponent?”

“Can’t remember, but it doesn’t matter, girl’s a nobody. Latisha’s gonna mop the mats with her.”

“Sure. Now leave my office.”

He smirked. “It’s Gustavo’s office.”

Heck got up, grabbed Sergio by the collar, shoved him out, and slammed the door.

On the other side, he heard Sergio. “Latisha, come talk to me outside, in my SUV.”

Heck frowned.

“We talking about my fight?”

“And something else. You need money? I need a problem taken care of. I think you’re just the lady for the job. You don’t have any priors, right? You know that emergency room over by the Army base?”

“Yeah.”

Heck jerked the door open and walked to the training area, but the gym was already empty. He went outside and watched the car pull off.

He texted Latisha. “Don’t do him any favors. He will screw you.”

A while later, she answered. “I got this. See you at training.”

He wanted to respond, but didn’t know what to say.

3.

Heck was on top of Latisha, dropping gentle elbows—just enough to keep her moving. The gym’s air was sticky, and he was having a hard time finding his breath.

He threw a strike. “Move your hips. You can’t push me off, but you can slide like a shrimp, sideways. Use your core. Protect your face.”

She crunched left, then right and got her feet onto Heck’s hips.

He gently tried to get back to top position. “Push me away and stand, be ready to defend and throw that trailing uppercut.”

She kicked him off and jumped up. He did a drop step, going for a double-leg takedown. She unleashed a perfectly timed punch, pulling back the power before taking out Heck’s nose.

“Great work.”

She circled right, taking a deep breath.

He faked a jab and went for another takedown. She mistimed her strike and ended up on her back with Heck to her side, chest-to-chest.

He started with the low-speed overhand punches. She took a deep pull of air, got her feet on his hips, and shoved him off, immediately popping up into her fighting stance.

Heck tapped the mat. “I need a break. You taking one?”

Latisha pulled off her gloves. “No, going to jump rope.”

She walked to the other side of the gym. She had a chance to go far, into the UFC, and maybe win a belt. A lot more than he’d ever done.

Heck smiled—Latisha was breaking her family’s pattern of squandering talent. She’d once told him that her mother had been a beautiful singer who’d developed throat cancer young due to a three-pack-a-day habit. Her dad was a super-star in triple-A baseball, but never made it to the majors, on account of the booze. And her oversized brother—he’d signed to play football for the Georgia Bulldogs, but before he arrived in Athens, he got high and lost an arm while screwing around with a train.

Heck sipped water and listened to the rhythmic slap of her rope hitting the mat. The round timer beeped. He set down his water bottle. “Let’s work on your Thai clinch.”

She walked over and went for her gloves.

“Leave them.” He gestured to the center of the mat, and she came over. “Now, if your opponent tries to get in tight, what comes next?”

“Knees.”

He nodded. “Only when her hands are occupied. Got to watch out for the takedowns.” Heck stepped in. “Control my neck, break my posture, and slam your knee through my face like you’re trying to touch the ceiling.”

She palmed the back of his head. “Like this?”

“Exactly.”

She gently threw two knees.

“Perfect. One of those sneaks through and it’s game over.” He grinned. “Now, the easiest way for me to escape is dropping my hips low, and that sets up your guillotine.”

“Guillotine? I’m not here to choke people. I’m here to knock them out.”

“Everyone knows about your strikes. And they will try to avoid them. The blonde is going to try to get you to the ground.” Heck put in his mouthpiece. “I’m gonna hit the double. As I come in, bump your hip a bit, make me think you’re fighting the takedown. Then, when my head gets right up against you, my ear on your hip, cup my chin and suck my skull into your armpit. Let me drive forward. Overhook my far arm, clasp the back side of your own hand. One foot in my hip, one over the back. Turn to your hip, and arch, and wait for my tap. Ready?”

She got into her fighting stance. “Yup.”

Heck lowered his hips and drove forward. His hands caught the back of her legs, and he put a cheek against her side.

She did exactly as he instructed, cupping the chin, overhooking and clasping her hands, and sunk the choke.

Heck tapped. “Good job.”

She released. “Now what?”

“We practice the guillotine defense until it is second nature.”

They drilled the move for an hour. When they were done, she could defend the choke in her sleep.

4.

Heck slid the grey metal chair behind the desk, next to his own. Latisha sat.

As she settled in, Sonny jumped into her lap.

“He likes you. You have a cat?”

“No, I always wanted one.” The cat purred.

“Sonny needs a permanent home. Do you want to adopt him?”

She scratched behind the cat’s ears. “He can’t stay here?”

“Gustavo doesn’t want hair everywhere.”

“Why don’t you take him?”

“With the day job, if I ever get back to it, I travel too much.”

She smiled. Then her face dropped. “My landlord doesn’t allow pets.”

“Last time I dropped you off, cats and dogs were everywhere.”

Latisha shrugged. “My neighbors don’t care much about the rules.”

“And you do?”

“When I have to.”

Heck frowned. “What do you mean?”

“If I knew I wouldn’t get caught, or the risk was worth the reward, I’ll break them. But not this time. I can’t get kicked out.”

“If things change, you’ll give him a home?”

“Yes.”

She grinned and rubbed Sonny’s head.

Heck rotated the computer monitor so they both could see. Then, he went to Sergio’s social media page. “They put out the first promo for your bout.”

He clicked, and an image came up. The headline fighters, two local guys with good records, were at the top. Down below, on the third line, was a small picture of Latisha with her fists raised. Next to her was a pretty blonde in a wrestling stance.

“Look at her posture,” Heck said. “We need to go over grappling defense again.”

“Sergio swore it’s a fair matchup.”

“I’m sure he did. I trust him as far as I can throw him. What did he want from you the other day, when you went for a ride?”

She hesitated, taking far longer to answer than normal. “I promised if I saw Jimmy trying to buy anything in my neighborhood, I’d call Sergio.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.” She looked down and away. “I guess Sergio assumes since I live in the hood, I spend time around drug dealers.”

“He’s a jackass.” Heck moved the wheel on his mouse, zooming in on the other girl’s image. Her name was underneath in small print. “Sergio told me about some problem Jimmy was having with his Irish girlfriend, sounded like a medical issue. Did he ask you to help with that?”

“Nope.”

“Good. Be careful. He’ll try to trick you.”

She shrugged. “I’m pretty tricky myself.”

Heck Googled the blonde opponent. “She has a ton of wrestling matches.”

Latisha leaned in. “She probably doesn’t know jack about striking.”

Heck wanted to say, and you couldn’t stop an outside trip from a geriatric cancer patient. He actually said, “You have an advantage on the feet, for sure. We need to keep her from grabbing you, maintain distance, keep outside—in punching range. Minimal kicks. Zero takedowns. You need a good game plan.”

“And you can help with that.”

“Yes, I can. You just have to follow it.”

“I always do.” Latisha sat back. “Speaking of help, you don’t have a freezer, do you? A big one, with a lock.”

Heck turned away from the monitor. “That’s a weird question. No, why?”

“I need to keep a lot of meat fresh.”

“You get a side hustle as a butcher?”

“No. My brother bought a whole dead goat. He got a deal, and we need to keep it cold. You know us Jamaicans, love our goat.”

Heck pictured gigantic Demetrius, carrying the animal with his one arm, moseying by with his too-cool saunter. “When did he get out of jail?”

“About a week ago. The robbery charges were dropped. No one was home, no witnesses to the alleged breaking and entering. They can’t prove it was him. Anyway, about the freezer—”

“Hold up. Why does the freezer need to lock?”

“You’ve seen where I live. Can’t keep nothing.”

“I guess that makes sense. Either way, I don’t have a freezer, only the fridge. But if anyone mentions one, I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks coach.” Latisha stood. “I need it, fast, before the meat spoils.”

“Makes sense. Don’t want things to go bad.”

“I hate it when things work out the wrong way.”

——————————

This ends Part 1 of 3, Conor McGregor Was a Friend of Mine (02FEB2026)

Part 2 of 3 released next Monday.

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I was writing an editorial about the document I carry every day, along with my watch, wallet, keys, and Les George Protech SBR, when it occurred to me: some guys already said it better than I can. Plus, it seems like some among our number, most of whom swore to defend it till death, might need a reminder. So, I give you the…

The U.S. Bill of Rights

Amendment I

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Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

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Amendment VII

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Amendment VIII

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Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

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In This Issue

Across the Force

Generative Logistics: The Application of Artificial Intelligence Automation to Tactical-Level Logistics

From Incidental Operator to Professional: Recommendations on Drone Training and Employment

No Bench, No Game: Reconstituting Special Operations Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Depth from the Reserve

The Written Word

Let It Rip

Tolstoy's First Deployment

Opinion

The Kessler Vulnerability

Poetry and Art

Bagram

Traintings

Book Review

The Raider: The Untold Story of a Renegade Marine and the Birth of U.S. Special Forces in World War II

The Ambition of H.R. McMaster

Across the Force

Written work on the profession of arms. Lessons learned, conversations on doctrine, and mission analysis from all ranks.

Generative Logistics: The Application of Artificial Intelligence Automation to Tactical-Level Logistics

Captain Bryson Curtin

Throughout the 20th Century, American military strength and dominance has relied on technical and tactical advancements born of a union between the scientific and military communities. As we progress through the quarter mark of the 21st Century and are again engaged in Great Power Competition, we face a renewed need to maintain a technological advantage over our enemies, specifically the People’s Republic of China. While there are a number of research areas that could be called our new Manhattan Project, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is chief among all new frontiers. Although the United States initially achieved an edge in AI, our arrogance, fear, and inability to refrain from committing an “own goal” have allowed us to slip behind the PRC. Earlier in 2025, China released its Deepseek AI model, which is allegedly faster and cheaper than those from American firms such as OpenAI, X AI, or other such entities. This was a wake-up call to many that the United States can no longer sit behind the comfortable quad of Wall Street, the Ivy League, the Capitol Beltway, and Silicon Valley, self-assured in its preeminence in scientific matters. While “Artificial Intelligence Integration” is almost as ubiquitous a buzzword as “tranche” in the Pentagon, integrating AI into military tasks is very much an issue needing focus. As with the original Manhattan Project, the operative question is not so much teaching a computer to think (splitting the atom) but how effectively to apply thinking computers to practical defense problems, including logistics.

It is helpful to lay down a baseline understanding of AI before going further in the analysis. AI is a branch of computer science that enables machines to mimic human intelligence, including learning, reasoning, and decision-making. AI systems begin by receiving large volumes of data through various inputs such as sensors, text, images, or user interactions. This raw data is preprocessed and fed into algorithms that identify patterns, correlations, or anomalies. Machine learning models, a key subset of AI, are trained on labeled data to recognize features and make predictions or classifications. As the system is exposed to more data, it refines its understanding, often improving its accuracy over time. Interpretation and understanding in AI involve organizing data into meaningful insights. Natural language processing (NLP) helps machines understand human language, while computer vision enables the recognition of visual inputs and data displayed on a screen. These capabilities rely on neural networks and deep learning models that mimic the human brain’s structure.

While some AI tasks are automated completely, AI systems are divided into two formats: Human in the Loop and Human Out of the Loop. In Human-in-the-Loop systems, people are involved in supervising, training, or making final judgments, which is important for high-risk or ethical decisions. In other words, an AI model may automatically sift data, analyze it, and prepare a series of decisions for humans to validate, speeding up processes and potentially minimizing or eliminating errors. Human-out-of-the-Loop systems, on the other hand, operate autonomously, offering speed and efficiency but with reduced oversight, raising concerns about accountability, bias, and control. A Human out of the Loop system will be given the order to initiate and/or monitor a task or tasks to produce a certain outcome and carry that order out without the need for (or benefit of) human input.

AI can dramatically simplify logistics planning operations by streamlining complex processes and reducing the cognitive load on planners and operators, specifically by automating redundant or routine tasks, in essence creating a series of simplified decisions and inputs for users to make. One particularly effective application is within systems like the much-maligned Global Combat Support System (GCSS), where AI can be used to automate time-consuming tasks such as form filling, requisition requests, and consumption tracking. By embedding AI into these systems, logistical decision-making can be transformed into a much simpler, user-friendly interface—reducing a potentially multi-step process into a binary prompt like, “Do you want to order more of X? Yes, or no?” This simplification allows operators at the tactical edge to focus on mission execution rather than navigating clunky or redundant data entry. AI can learn from patterns in supply consumption, predict resupply needs based on operational tempo, and automatically populate forms with accurate, validated data. These capabilities reduce errors, speed up the logistics cycle, and increase responsiveness. AI can also help logistics planners analyze trends across units, anticipate shortages, and propose efficient distribution plans. For example, a motor transport unit that has consistent issues with parts breakdown in the JLTV that affect readiness could employ an AI model to analyze all of the reported statuses in GCSS, how often trucks are broken down, the amount of time between parts being ordered and the amount of time of their journey to the unit, the amount of time it takes before the trucks are reported as operational again, and the number of parts needed. The AI model could take all of this information, analyze it, and produce a simple decision to automate the orders process that would look like a prompt of: “Every 44.6 days, this unit has a vehicle become deadlined due to a failure of system X, which is caused by Y part based on current and historical work orders in GCSS. Would you like me to set a recurring task to order Part Y every 31 days so that on the average day that the JLTV breaks down, the part is on hand or on its way already?” The user could then simply say “yes”, and the model would carry out the task until told to stop, or the user could say “no” and issue more direct or limiting instructions to the model, such as “Order the part only on command by me but prompt me every 31 days so that I can take into account the Unit’s budget”. This could all be done in less than a day, automating a simple task that eats away at a unit’s man-hours. By integrating predictive analytics with simplified user interfaces, units can significantly improve sustainment planning and operational readiness while minimizing administrative burden on small unit leaders.

AI’s predictive and analytical powers can supercharge the sustainment planning of units at multiple levels and across stages of the Military Decision-Making Process and other such planning processes and considerations. In crisis scenarios or environments with degraded or intermittent connectivity—such as expeditionary operations, ships at sea, or combat zones—AI-enabled systems can fall back on probabilistic models like Monte Carlo simulations. These models can simulate thousands of possible outcomes based on historical data, previous order cycles, and mission profiles, allowing units to anticipate demand across multiple variables (e.g., operational tempo, geography, failure rates of specific levels of equipment, and stock expenditures). Additionally, they allow planners and staff to adjust certain elements and variables to wargame with greater speed and breadth, such as an unexpected loss of fuel access or an increase in maintenance failures due to fatigue and other human factors.

With these analytical models preloaded and updated periodically during planning cycles, logistics elements can maintain intelligent supply flows even when real-time communication is limited. This allows units to handle their own data gathering and synthesis portions of logistics planning, freeing up the commander’s time and the bandwidth of higher staff sections to focus on the application of that data and the overall commander’s intent. The net effect is a logistics network that is more resilient, responsive, and adaptive. This is not about replacing Marines but about enhancing their capability with tools that manage complexity at scale—especially in contested or resource-constrained environments where efficient use of bandwidth, time, and manpower is critical to mission success.

In addition to the inventory control and planning sides of logistics, AI can also be used to significantly enhance the quality and timeliness of financial and supply analytics available to commanders, inspectors, and supply personnel. By automatically aggregating and analyzing logistics data across multiple touchpoints, AI can generate detailed insights that go far beyond simple dollar amounts. For example, AI systems can track and report the average time it takes for an item to move from delivery at the unit to being sorted, placed into layettes, and finally stored in the correct location under the right supply account. These metrics offer a clear picture of process efficiency, highlight bottlenecks, and expose areas where accountability or procedural delays may be affecting readiness, whether due to human error or systemic supply chain issues. For commanders, this information can inform resource allocation, manpower usage, and unit performance. For inspectors or auditors, it creates a real-time, data-driven audit trail, reducing reliance on anecdotal evidence or manually compiled reports, and can even change a dreaded “finding” on an inspection into a simple, actionable solution that units can input in real time. Over time, patterns can emerge— trends in supply delays, excessive handling times, or inventory mismatches—enabling corrective action before issues become systemic. Ultimately, AI doesn’t just make supply chains faster or simpler; it makes them transparent, accountable, and more tightly aligned with operational goals and fiscal responsibility.

While the points I have described may frighten some or make some assume that AI is currently on the cusp of perfectly replicating human capacities and taking jobs from Marines, those fears are not at all well-founded within the realm of what is technically possible at this writing. AI in its current form is a great tool for analyzing and synthesizing mass amounts of data. It only knows what data it is fed and does not take into account other general probabilities it was not told to consider, such as the presence of natural disasters, changes to funding, or the increased or decreased risk of a crisis in geopolitics such as major wars or a pandemic. Frankly, AI systems are frequently only as good as the data fed into them or the person tasking them, meaning humans will very much be required to be in the loop. Government agencies already know this and are racing to learn to use AI, a prime example being the Department of Defense’s own Project Maven, which has been used to synthesize and interpret UAS and other gathered intelligence data by the US Army’s 18th Airborne Corps.

AI integration is not something that “could” happen or “might” happen; AI integration is already here. However, AI is not by any means ready to replace human beings, nor do we want it to. Human-in-the-loop decision-making will be essential to military operations for the future of AI integration. And while AI cannot fully replace a human being, it can and should be utilized and exploited. No technology is perfect, and all have their weaknesses. But it is helpful to think of AI as something analogous to prior innovations in technologies with profound military applications: aviation, the submarine, the machine gun. Just as the Maxim Gun gave the firepower of a company to a three-man crew, AI will empower single individuals to produce the work of many. If we fail to incorporate AI across as many warfighting functions as possible, we will lose the next big fight—and our heirs will judge us as we now judge those who refused to evolve on the Western Front in 1914.

From Incidental Operator to Professional: Recommendations on Drone Training and Employment

LtCol T.K. Schueman

The Marine Corps is moving quickly to integrate small unmanned aircraft systems into infantry formations. That urgency is warranted. What is not yet settled—and what will ultimately determine whether this effort succeeds or fails—is where these capabilities belong, who should operate them, and what tasks they should actually support.

We cannot continue treating Group I ISR and attack drone operation as incidental skills for 0311s. Doing so is not additive; it is subtractive. The current approach assumes infantry Marines can perform ISR and attack drone tasks incidentally, without those responsibilities detracting from the formation’s combat power. That assumption is flawed. The infantry squad is already fully tasked and undermanned. During OEF, we cross-trained infantrymen to sweep for IEDs. Those Marines could technically operate the equipment, but they were not nearly as proficient as combat engineers performing the same duties. We must learn the lessons of GWOT and understand that just because you can ask a grunt to take on an additional duty does not mean you should.

The current trajectory is increasingly clear: we are attempting to solve a force design problem with a training workaround. We are standing up central and regional hubs to train attack drone operators, pushing that training onto infantry Marines, and then returning them to their units as incidental drone operators alongside their primary MOS duties. The Corps is also sending infantry Marines to TALSA to qualify them as Group I ISR operators. This tax on the rifle squad is not sustainable. It is neither scalable nor operationally sound. If we continue down this path, we will not build a drone-enabled force—we will cannibalize our infantry.

Short-Term and Long-Term Solutions

A short-term solution—necessary to meet the massive influx of inbound drones and to be ready to fight tonight—is to temporarily designate MCT regional hubs where every Marine is certified as an attack drone operator before advancing to their MOS school. MCT should suspend its current POI and execute the proposed attack drone operator course.

In the near term, the central hub should be divided between TECOM Headquarters and MCWL. TECOM PSD would continue to develop standards and policy, while MCWL would advance research, development, and experimentation.

Under this imperfect but pragmatic solution, the Marine Corps would not lose any combat capability by embedding the attack drone operator course within MCT and would position itself to meet DIU/DoW initiatives by producing drone operators at scale. Rather than focusing on placing a drone operator in every squad, we should aim to field a professional drone team in support of every rifle company. If placing a drone operator in every squad is non-negotiable, one company from ITB could send its graduates to the MCT course as a one-time stopgap measure to fill each squad with an operator.

The advantages of this short-term solution include unity of command and unity of effort, with each MSC aligned under TECOM. The current approach instead asks various FMF units to establish their own training hubs without providing any additional resources. An additional benefit of this approach is that it would allow us to anticipate production numbers.

The long-term solution requires the Marine Corps to develop a robotics training regiment where air, ground, and maritime robotic operators are trained to operate uncrewed systems at echelon.

Recommended Current State:

Recommended Future State:

The focus of this essay is not to solve how the Marine Corps must standardize robotics training at a formal learning center and feed these operators into robotic FMF units—things robotics—but rather to make recommendations for the integration of SUAS and the employment of drone teams at the battalion level and below.

Squad Level ISR

The infantry squad does need organic ISR—but it should be a ruggedized, short-range ISR platform, closer to an auto-stabilized, ducted-rotor drone than a racing quadcopter. Think Avata-style survivability: capable of bumping walls, flying indoors, surviving minor impacts, and operated with a tiny, intuitive controller.

The expected performance should be modest:

• 500 meters of range

• Short duration

• No payload

• Simple controls

• Easy to replace

At the squad level, the requirement is simple:

• “Look behind that wall.”

• “Check the rooftop.”

• “Scan that trench line.”

• “Confirm what’s upstairs.”

It should be intuitive enough that it does not meaningfully compete with the squad’s cognitive load. It should function like binoculars, not like a weapons system. It should reduce risk, not introduce complexity.

Battalion-Level Employment: Professionalized Drone Teams

Four-man hunter-killer drone teams should be organized within robotics platoons that attach to infantry battalions at D-180. They would operate 3–5 km behind the Forward Line of Troops (FLOT), in positions analogous to our mortars.

This standoff posture allows them to remain supplied with batteries, munitions, and airframes while also enabling basic maintenance. All ISR platforms should be primarily sensors but capable of acting as shooters when necessary. They should be capable of carrying a payload—such as a 40mm or M67-type dropped munition—but for most of their flight hours, their primary function would be to sense, not to strike.

The ISR operator supports the collection plan. The FPV provides an additional capability to the fire support plan.

Future State of Squad-Level FPVs

Until the technology fundamentally changes, the squad-level FPV strike concept is unsound.

Lethal FPVs can be returned to the squad when industry delivers a drone that is as simple to operate and as lightweight as the M72 LAW. Historically, we strapped M72 LAWs to Marines with minimal training, and they were able to employ them effectively.

A drone of this simplicity would:

• Operate in denied and degraded environments

• Fit in an ammo can

• Have 1–2 km of fiber-optic spool

• Carry a HEDP-equivalent warhead

• Require no RF link

• Use a small, simple controller

Squads could then employ these FPVs as pre-assault fires in the same way they employ rockets—but with greater range and accuracy.

Conclusion

The Marine Corps does not suffer from a lack of enthusiasm about drones. It suffers from a lack of structural discipline in how it is integrating them. Drone operators and their systems provide a crucial capability. The Marine Corps should train and develop this capability—and integrate these enablers—the same way it does for every other community. That way, when these drone units attach to deploying battalions, they can effectively support the 0311 lance corporal as he closes with the enemy.

No Bench, No Game: Reconstituting Special Operations Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Depth from the Reserve

Previously printed in the Eunomia Journal and the Small Wars Journal

Lucas Harrell

President Volodymyr Zelensky’s NBC Interview on February 16, 2025, served as a sobering reminder of the human cost inherent in modern warfare. Zelensky estimated 46,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed during the three years of war since the Russian invasion in 2022.[i]

That’s substantially more casualties than the U.S. has endured in a long time. For example, according to the U.S. Defense Casualty Analysis System, the U.S. lost an estimated 6,743 service members since 2001 in five different named operations. That’s 6,743 military losses across 24 years as opposed to 46,000 in 3 years.[ii]

That’s a monthly rate for the U.S. (2001-2025) of approximately 24.3 deaths per month versus Ukraine (2022-2025) of approximately 1,243.2 deaths per month. (And this is not counting Russian losses.)

I pause to emphasize that our losses during 24-plus years of war were tragic and felt by every family member and brother- and sister-in-arms across our country and military community. Statistics are cold and unfeeling, but hopefully set the conditions for preparation for what’s next, especially in a global setting that is already experiencing two large-scale conflicts.

The reality is, the U.S. military faces near-peer conflict as its next fight, and a careful analysis has to be conducted on our ability to face losses unseen in the last 40 years of U.S. military-involved conflict. This will require the replacement of, or rather the reconstitution of, U.S. forces, including those who are often first to fight: U.S. military special operations.

In contemporary military strategic discourse, reconstitution—the process of rebuilding combat capability after significant battlefield losses—remains inadequately addressed within the unique operational context of Special Operations Forces (SOF). Specifically, Civil Affairs (CA) and Psychological Operations (PSYOP) forces critical to the modern application of Special Operations and a recognized teammate of the Special Forces that have arguably been over-relied upon for almost every military objective and solution since the beginning of the global war on terror.

Existing U.S. Army doctrine for reconstitution, specifically FM 4-0, Sustainment Operations and FM 3-0, Operations or the process of rebuilding combat capability following significant battlefield attrition is heavily oriented toward conventional forces.[iii] While effective for replenishing standard military units, this approach inadequately addresses the complex training, cultural expertise, and nuanced operational capabilities required by CA and PSYOP forces. The SOF truths, specifically III and IV (Special Operations Forces cannot be mass produced, and Competent Special Operations Forces cannot be created after emergencies occur), specifically highlight this exact fact, yet integration planning ignores its own advice. These units that have been increasingly pivotal to achieving strategic, operational, and tactical military objectives throughout the Global War on Terror and in places not recognized as active war zones, yet full of danger.

For that manpower replacement planning, it’s critical to remember that 92 percent of Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations personnel are in the U.S. Army Reserve, yet that overwhelming percentage of the force is both doctrinally and institutionally hindered from training to the level in which they could be expected to perform in the middle of a near-peer conflict, replacing those who were engaged first with no loss in performance. To argue that the Reserve Component is not expected to perform at the same level and therefore not in need of similar training is to argue that the same aforementioned component is not capable or worthy of such training and protection.

China’s and Russia’s doctrinal emphasis on achieving strategic and operational effects through cyber warfare, information manipulation, and even targeted assassinations amplifies the vulnerabilities of SOF personnel deployed in proximity to direct-action operations. In fact, in such future conflicts, Special Operations Forces (SOF), particularly Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations units, will undoubtedly be targeted aggressively by adversaries employing advanced detection and targeting capabilities unseen in our historical experience. In the next fight (as templated by the modern conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza), we can expect:

• Leveraging sophisticated signals intelligence capabilities to detect electronic emissions, track secure and unsecured communications, and exploit vulnerabilities in communication equipment. By intercepting and analyzing digital and radio communications, adversaries can pinpoint SOF units’ locations or operational patterns, enabling precise targeting for missile strikes, drone attacks, or ambushes.

• Utilizing extensive surveillance infrastructure combined with AI-driven facial recognition technologies, adversaries could identify SOF personnel through captured imagery from surveillance drones, security cameras, social media exploitation, or reconnaissance satellites. China, in particular, has heavily invested in facial recognition and AI-enabled surveillance, dramatically enhancing its capacity to rapidly track and neutralize high-value targets.

• Russia and China maintain robust human intelligence networks capable of infiltrating local populations, allied units, or even logistical chains supporting SOF operations. These HUMINT assets could gather detailed intelligence about unit movements, tactical objectives, or operational plans, facilitating targeted assassinations, ambushes, or sabotage operations. Combined with targeted disinformation campaigns, this method undermines local support and increases operational vulnerability.

Each of these methods presents substantial challenges to SOF survivability. Historical precedent indicates that adversaries will prioritize neutralizing SOF due to their disproportionate operational impact and the strategic disruption that follows their attrition. Are we ready to replace these losses in a timely manner to maintain operational tempo?

In fact, according to a wargame report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the United States would lose 3,200 troops in the first three weeks of combat with China. That number is nearly half of all the American troops that died in two decades of war in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.[iv]

Historical analyses of reconstitution efforts during protracted conflicts, such as those detailed in the recent Military Review article on lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war, underscore the limitations inherent in traditional reconstitution doctrine.[v] Conventional frameworks, which prioritize rapid numerical replacement through accelerated training and equipment replenishment, fail to accommodate the complex demands of the CA and PSYOP community, where so much of the force resides in the Reserve. The detailed expertise required for effective CA and PSYOP operations—ranging from language proficiency and regional specialization to psychological resilience and sophisticated strategic communication capabilities—cannot be hastily replicated.

Moreover, traditional reconstitution approaches do not address the qualitative aspect of SOF regeneration, a concern highlighted in recent NATO analyses examining Russia’s challenges in replenishing its elite forces during ongoing conflicts.[vi] In essence, the current doctrinal framework does not recognize that SOF casualties create capability voids that cannot be quickly resolved merely by numerical replacements.

The readiness gap between Reserve and active-duty SOF personnel, particularly in CA and PSYOP roles, represents a critical vulnerability in the event of protracted conflicts. Addressing this gap requires a paradigm shift from traditional Reserve training models toward a system designed for seamless integration from its current role in conventional support to rapid integration in doctrinally established reconstitution strategy.

Such a discussion, and I emphasize the word discussion, would rigorously evaluate cognitive aptitude, physical performance, and psychological resilience, selectively identifying Reserve personnel suitable for intensive SOF-aligned training pipelines.

For our well-educated, experienced, and capable Reserve Component CA and PSYOP teammates, I will argue that unlike previous senior leaders who argue that we can only do one thing, that in fact, we can both train for and accomplish two things. It’s at least worth discussing, isn’t it?

An article from Breaking Defense discusses how Special Operations Command leadership envisions a “renaissance” for Special Forces amid rising great power competition, emphasizing that Special Operations Forces (SOF) will return to their original, unconventional warfare roots. The SOCOM chief highlights the need for SOF units to adapt quickly to evolving warfare environments characterized by advanced technology, cyber threats, and hybrid warfare tactics posed by adversaries such as China and Russia.[vii]

By elevating Reserve training standards and fostering regular integration exercises with active-duty SOF units, the Army can significantly reduce mobilization latency and enhance operational interoperability. This selective training model, advocated in recent publications addressing Special Operations readiness, ensures that Reserve forces meet the demands of immediate deployment into complex operational environments. Adding a measurement of performance (How well can we replace, if asked, our SOF CA/PSYOP counterparts in modern warfare at our current state of readiness and training) can only push the whole team towards success. Can additional capacity for integration, reconstitution, and downtime minimization not be added into our current conventional doctrinal roles and training? I would argue that modernization demands we must.

Historical precedent and contemporary analysis consistently affirm that the capacity to rapidly replace specialized personnel is integral to sustained operational effectiveness. The development of scalable wartime training pipelines tailored explicitly for SOF roles is thus a strategic necessity.

Such pipelines should maintain rigorous selection and qualification standards while streamlining training timelines to enable expedited deployment without compromising mission effectiveness.

One approach worth debating is establishing a specialized, merit-based selection pipeline within the Reserve CA and PSYOP communities. Such a model could identify reservists with exceptional cognitive aptitude, advanced language skills, cultural agility, and higher physical fitness standards. Would this inadvertently create divisions within the Reserve force, potentially leading to morale issues? Or might it instead foster a positive competitive environment, increasing overall readiness and effectiveness, characteristics of a winning team?

Implementing pre-war identification systems for potential SOF candidates within conventional forces and Reserves can expedite mobilization. Establishing strategically located regional training hubs further reduces logistical bottlenecks and enhances the responsiveness of the training apparatus during the early and middle phases of conflict.

A second approach could involve increasing the frequency and intensity of joint Reserve and active-duty SOF exercises. Embedding reservists directly into ongoing training rotations could dramatically reduce integration friction. While these do occur, is it common enough to build depth?

I can’t help but think of when I completed an Observer Controller and Trainer (OC/T) rotation a few years ago, in which the maneuver commander asked the Civil Affairs element attached to the Rotational Force if they provide a particular type of support to his planned engagement. When the Reserve Civil Affairs team leader started highlighting what he could bring to the table, but stated that they weren’t the SOF Civil Affairs group that were also within the battlespace, the maneuver commander interrupted him with “You’re CA, aren’t you?”

Rarely have I seen a battlespace owner interested in the intricacies of internecine branch conflicts over who is who, and not just expect the same level of results from all parties associated with a job.

This is often the point at which the staunch defenders of the separation between U.S. Army Reserve Civil Affairs and U.S. Army Special Operations Civil Affairs rise up and begin defending U.S. Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command.

They’ll highlight that the Reserve Component CA and PSYOP units and soldiers have a different, unique mission, critical to the conventional forces. That the Reserve soldier brings their civilian career experience, their knowledge of the civilian community, and their wealth of experience that comes from having one of the most arguably utilized military occupational specialties and mission set across the entire world during both peacetime and war as opposed to those active duty soldiers who often aren’t familiar with the civilian environment that they are trained to manage.

I would agree with all of that.

Otherwise, I wouldn’t have spent more than 10 years and 3 deployments within U.S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) in what I consider the best job in the Army and the highlight of my operational experience, where I have seen the most tangible effects of both inter-agency efforts and non-lethal/center of gravity targeting.

This simply isn’t rehashing that same old conversation.

And it’s certainly not another article from within the CA community asking for a beret, a tab, or anything else that makes our special operations peers sigh and side-eye us.

We have a unique job which makes us special, and it’s okay to like your job.

This conversation is about the reality of war today and preparing to win it tomorrow. We owe that to our peers to realize that asking for self-improvement is not an attempt to degrade or differentiate between our SOF and Reserve Component brethren, but to start to have the discussion on what we can accomplish together. I can’t help but notice during each training iteration with 19th and 20th Special Forces Groups, 4th Reconnaissance Battalion, Naval Special Warfare Group 11, 123rd Special Tactics Squadron, and more, that these sister service Reserve Component special operations groups’ training is modernized and purposeful and they can (and do) integrate quickly into mission planning with their active-duty brethren with no lag.

So, what are we missing?

Special Operations Forces (SOF) are uniquely positioned to be the first units engaged in conflict, particularly in high-stakes, near-peer confrontations where rapid response and strategic initiative are paramount. Given their forward placement and critical roles in shaping operational conditions, these units may also be among the earliest to suffer casualties. Therefore, the ability to swiftly and effectively replace or reconstitute these specialized forces becomes a decisive factor.

Minimizing the wait between frontline losses and the deployment of equally capable replacements ensures that operational momentum is maintained, allowing the U.S. to outpace the adversary’s capacity to adapt. This rapid regeneration of combat power directly supports the fundamental doctrinal principle of unity of effort, enabling commanders to seize and retain the initiative by maintaining continuous pressure at a tempo faster than the enemy can respond.

In tomorrow’s fight, when you enter the battlefield as the second person to do your job, we won’t have time to argue over unit identification codes and special military occupational specialties, but rather who can do their duty. Which is still, and always will be, to win.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect any official policy or position of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, of any other U.S. government agency.

About the Author

Major Lucas Harrell is a U.S. Army Civil Affairs officer, currently serving in the United Kingdom, as the Operations Chief for the Africa Command Counter-Threat Finance Group. MAJ Harrell has completed four military deployments to Afghanistan, East and West Africa, and Eastern Europe. In addition, he has recently completed an operational embassy assignment in West Africa and is currently a student in an Army sponsored master’s program. MAJ Harrell’s writing has been published in the Modern War Institute at West Point, the Civil Affairs Association Journal, Small Wars Journal, and Real Clear Defense. His civilian occupation is within the intelligence community.

The Written Word

Fiction and Nonfiction written by servicemen and veterans.

Let It Rip 

Benjamin Van Horrick

“The Big O loved those Rip Its,” said Richie.

“Oliver loved a lot of drinks and food,” retorted Mallory.

His mother had hugged Mallory at the cemetery. “Thank you for watching over my boy in Afghanistan.” Mallory held on for an extra beat.

She and Richie exchanged a glance—Oliver had watched over them. 

Richie stared at Oliver's dress blues displayed on a table, absent his Purple Heart and Navy Achievement Medal with V. 

Richie and Mallory sat shoulder-to-shoulder at Dagwood’s, racking up a tab while Seger played. 

Richie, Mallory, and Oliver came of age in Helmand—driving, A-driving, and the Big O manning the 240 on convoys. 

In the ten years since they’d last seen each other, Mallory and Richie had texted each other on the Marine Corps birthday. Now each stared at the row of microbrew taps, realizing their once-familiar trio was now a pair. 

“We should get one,” she said. “For Oliver.”

Richie grinned. “Where? We ain’t on Leatherneck anymore.”

“I know a spot—Dollar Tree.” 

“Richie, you sure about this?” Mallory shook her head and laughed. “You good to drive?” 

“Yeah, sure...” 

Richie drove, massive hands engulfing the wheel. Pulling out, Mallory yelled 'CLEAR RIGHT'—muscle memory unchanged.

Inside Dollar Tree, Rip It tall boys sat waiting. 

“They make tall boys?' Richie marveled. 

“Oh, God. This can’t be real.” 

“If we had tall boys, we could have won the war.” 

“You want to split one for O?” asked Richie. “Fuck yeah,” responded Mallory. 

Richie grasped the dusty can.

Mallory paid, and Richie held the door open as the pair returned to the S-10. 

They popped the tab, drank, and shook their heads. 

“It was like a roll of nickels in your mouth,” said Richie. 

“Why did we do this to ourselves?” said Mallory.

The can clinked against Richie’s spare change as he set it in the cup holder. 

Silence filled the cab. Mallory reached over, brushed the tears from Richie’s cheek.

Tolstoy’s First Deployment

Eric Strand

I’ll bet that many veterans of the GWOT wondered how on earth they ended up in this remote part of the world. Well, if it’s any reassurance, a young Leo Tolstoy was asking himself the same thing over 170 years ago.

Decades before he wrote his most famous epics like War & Peace, Tolstoy was a young university dropout who racked up significant gambling debts, fancied himself a writer, and left the life of the city and society in 1851 to become an untested artillery cadet deployed to the far reaches of the Russian Empire. He soon found himself stationed in remote forward operating bases and camps in the Caucasus mountains, where the Russian Army had been fighting a low-level conflict for decades against Muslim tribal insurgents in the rugged forest, valleys, and ridges of Chechnya. In many ways, two of his earliest published works, ‘The Raid’ (1853) and ‘The Wood Felling - A Cadet’s Story’ (1855), resemble the writings and memoirs of American veterans of Afghanistan during the Global War on Terror.

In “The Raid,” Cadet Tolstoy describes tagging along with a Russian unit sent to punish a local tribe. He arrives with that familiar cocktail of adrenaline and idealism—the belief that this mission will be dramatic, noble, something to write home about.

Instead, what he finds is hours of waiting, uneasy marching through imposing mountain passes, and the constant sense that the “enemy” is close but invisible. When shots finally crack out of nowhere, the action is chaotic, confusing, and over fast. The officers try to impress each other with bravery and intellect, shouting out lines in French to their educated comrades like ‘Charming... War in such a beautiful country is a real pleasure- especially in good company!’ Yet it is not glory. It’s not a movie. It might as well be a memoir of an NCO’s first patrol in Afghanistan’s Kunar Province in 2006.

In his next piece, “The Wood-Felling,” Tolstoy’s unit is tasked with leading a platoon of artillery to provide overwatch for an infantry company tasked with chopping wood in a hostile valley.

That’s it—he’s eager for glory but bored. In classic Soldiering fashion, one of his soldiers is late to formation before the march starts. There is no sweeping battle—just cutting wood in a valley forest, hoping nobody ambushes them. He watches enlisted soldiers shrug off danger, gripe, joke, and get the work done. In his observations, he ends up classifying the men into 3 distinct types of soldiers that could easily be found in a modern military. I’m sure veterans know them all:

1. The Submissive Soldier: Calm, honest, and resigned to fate—this is the most common type. He comments that a number of these men have limited mental capacity, but exhibit purposeless industry and great zeal.

2. The Domineering Soldier: These are higher-ranking men who are stern, with poetic impulses to duty and courage. They are the preeminent military type that know how to take charge. That said, many of this class are ‘diplomatic’ leaders, meaning they think highly of themselves but aren’t as good as they believe they are.

3 The Reckless Soldier: Impulsive, turbulent, and prone to risk-taking. These men believe in nothing and are drawn to trouble, vice, and other dangers. Often amusing, lucky, and a liability.

‘The War’ drags on—casual and dull. While the infantry is cutting through the forest, Tolstoy’s artillery battery on watch decides to fire on some distant enemy skirmishers for their own amusement. The Cadet chats with his educated Company Commander, who finds the mission dull and wishes he were back in a staff position, when Tartar cannons challenge the Russian artillery battery to a duel—the young officer (very much Tolstoy himself) struggles to hide his nerves and tries to figure out how to look brave as the potshots slowly escalate into a larger skirmish.

It’s a portrait any vet will recognize: the mundane mission that feels pointless, the young leader overthinking everything, the seasoned NCO equivalents who just want to finish the job and get back before chow. Combat, it turns out, is often labor—sweaty, tedious, necessary labor, occasionally punctuated by incoming fire.

And then, like every first deployment, it costs him something. He suffers his first casualty, the humble, experienced, and honest-to-a-fault Soldier that was late for formation who he had spoken to earlier. As the firewood is gathered and the sortie returns to camp, his death haunts the young officer. Back at camp, we see Tolstoy and the men struggle to make sense of it all around the campfires fueled by the chopped wood as darkness sinks in.

These stories remind us that before Tolstoy became a philosopher of war, he was a young officer learning the same lessons many GWOT veterans learned the hard way: war is confusing, courage is quiet, and the truth is rarely heroic—but it’s always human.

The-Raid-Leo-Tolstoy.pdf

The-Wood-felling-Leo-Tolstoy.pdf

Opinion

Op-Eds and general thought pieces meant to spark conversation and introspection.

The Kessler Vulnerability

I. Satellites and Modern Warfare

As the Russia-Ukraine War drags into its fourth/twelfth year, defense establishments the world around continue to reorient towards peer conflict. In doing so, a slew of domains with civil-military overlap must be reconsidered with a sharper military focus. Supply chain integrity, for example, was frankly not of interest to American military planners trying to untangle the tribal politics of the Kandahar Province. Nowadays, the ubiquity of “Made in China” tags on military hardware is cause for ever-growing concern.

Like supply chains, satellites are indispensable to American military operations, but, due to the nature of post-Cold War conflicts through 2022, have developed in a non-kinetic, largely commercial environment. The inauguration of the Space Force in 2019 was a recognition of the coming sea change in warfare, a reallocation of resources proven worthwhile by the Ukrainian experience, which has affirmed the criticality of satellite communications to success on the modern battlefield.

A recent RAND report, Lessons from the War in Ukraine for Space: Challenges and Opportunities for Future Conflicts, extracts key lessons from the Ukraine front. Commercial satellites, in particular the SpaceX Network, which has launched 8,811 of the estimated 12,149 satellites currently in orbit, are observed to have “enhanced Ukraine’s warfighting and reduced the need to field its own capabilities,” although there are “concerns over the reliability of Starlink.” Just what sort of predicament, depending on a single, private satellite provider, a military can find itself in was evident during Ukraine’s late 2022 push into the Kherson region, when Elon Musk shut down connectivity in the contested terrain, hampering the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Private sector considerations aside, each of the three satellite-dependent “satellite communications (SATCOM), positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT), and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities “have played an unprecedented role” in Ukraine. Countermeasures, naturally, have materialized apace. RAND concludes that “Cyberattacks, Global Positioning System jamming, and other threats have significantly shaped the war, and the growing sophistication of both Russian and Chinese counterspace capabilities only increases the likelihood that the United States and its allies might face similar disruptions in a future conflict.”

In the context of RAND’s report, disruption is a gentle term, implying a temporary and reversible obstruction that slows or hinders operations, and is consistent with the hacking and jamming activities that have defined Russian and Ukrainian counter-space efforts thus far. Disruption is not consistent, however, with a capability only briefly mentioned in the RAND report: anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons.

II. Kessler Syndrome

Anti-satellite weapons have been tested only a few times in history. In 1985, the United States destroyed a defunct satellite with an ASM-135 ASAT missile. In 2007, China hit one of its own satellites orbiting at an altitude of 530 miles. And, in 2021, Russia joined the club of countries to have blown up a satellite in low Earth orbit (LEO). Anti-satellite tests have been relatively taboo.

Each successful ASAT test left a satellite-sized debris field floating in LEO. The second-order effect of such a strike, then, is that satellite debris may impact other satellites, moving through orbit at approximately 17,500 miles per hour. The propensity for a domino effect to occur in which one satellite’s debris destroys other satellites, whose debris affects yet more satellites, was first identified by scientists Donald Kessler and Burton Cour-Palais in their 1978 paper, Collision Frequency of Artificial Satellites: The Creation of a Debris Belt, and is today known colloquially as the Kessler Syndrome.

At the time Kessler and Cour-Palais published their research, there were 3,866 satellites in orbit. Describing the random impact between miscellaneous debris and a satellite, “The average impact velocity of 10 km/s ensures that almost all of the earth-orbiting objects will exhibit hypervelocity impact characteristics when they collide. [...] the shock waves, particle fragments hitting other surfaces, and vapor pressure may cause fragmentation outside the cratered region, possibly resulting in the catastrophic disruption of both objects.” The scientists’ use of the term “disruption” differs notably from RAND’s. The point is that in low orbit, a small, otherwise innocuous piece of debris can destroy a larger satellite.

Kessler concludes—given certain assumptions about how fragments maintain orbits, the relatively unstudied characteristics of impacts between non-homogeneous objects, and anticipated satellite mass—that a debris cloud could create an “average potential flux between 700 and 1200 km” such that “all types of missions into this region would experience a flux level far in excess of the natural meteoroid flux. In fact, since it becomes impractical to protect against impacts larger than about 100 g, all missions would have to expect damage in certain regions of space.” At a time when 3,866 satellites orbited Earth, Kessler’s models indicated that a debris field could affect all satellites in certain parts of the Earth’s orbit. With four times that many satellites and ASAT weapons abounding, Kessler syndrome is no longer a theoretical phenomenon.

In modern peer-on-peer conflict, any country with a suite of ASAT missiles could reasonably exploit the Kessler syndrome to create a debris cloud that damages and likely destroys the preponderance of satellites in low Earth orbit. As militaries come to grips with this eventuality, resources will be dedicated towards developing technologies that might prevent or mitigate the Kessler syndrome, and towards those that might allow military, and indeed civil, communication architectures to persist in the event of a SATCOM blackout.

III. Active Debris Removal

Cleaning up space trash, regardless of its satellite-destroying consequences, is already the subject of significant investment and research. The European Space Agency (ESA), for instance, has approved the Clearspace-1 Mission, in which a Clearspace satellite “will rendezvous with, capture and safely bring down a derelict object for a safe atmospheric reentry - the near future of what space experts call Active Debris Removal (ADR).” The ESA has advanced the Zero Debris Charter, which, as the name implies, seeks to “prevent, mitigate, and remediate” space debris.

Like so many innovations seeping into the consciousness of the world’s militaries, active debris removal is inherently dual-use. The capability to remove satellites or debris from orbit is what Kessler would call a “sink.” Removing satellites from orbit is also enticing from the perspective of those preparing for peer-on-peer warfare. In the most extreme case, one could selectively remove all the competitor’s military satellites, leaving intact both the world’s non-military satellites and one’s own communication architecture, while completely degrading the other’s SATCOM capability. This sort of ASAT strategy is much less crude than forcefully invoking the Kessler Syndrome, but is a technological hurdle beyond simply blowing up a few satellites in LEO and letting physics do the rest of the work.

IV. LORAN and INS

The RAND report notes that, whether ASAT weapons and their corresponding Kessler vulnerability bear out or not, GPS and PNT Jamming are now the status quo within several kilometers of the ‘Zero Line’ between Ukrainian and Russian troops. GPS-guided weaponry is being retrofitted to use alternative guidance systems, such as the TERCOM systems used conventionally by ICBMs or artificial intelligence that can identify targets in-stride. PNT and GPS are critical for much of modern weaponry, and dependence on these systems has been baked in by the experience of facing an enemy—Al-Qaeda and its spinoffs—which could jam neither. Now, it is time for the pendulum to swing in the other direction.

Long Range Navigation (LORAN) receivers achieve positionality by receiving signals from several ground-based beacons that transmit at a low frequency. Following the Second World War, the technology was maintained by the Coast Guard, which used it until 2010. China, which adopted LORAN in the South China Sea in 1984, has maintained the technology. Interestingly, it ought to be possible to develop American LORAN receivers that use the Chinese signals to determine one’s position in the South China Sea (SCS), given an understanding of where the Chinese transmission stations are.

Historically, LORAN was considered an expensive and unwieldy technology. For the ship’s captain trying to launch a missile or torpedo in a GPS- and SATCOM-denied environment, it will be worth every dollar invested in alternative systems. LORAN is proven and can likely be rapidly improved as the technology has idled for decades. Reestablishing it as a capability is a hedge against the Kessler Effect, and a wise investment.

V. Subsea Cables

The natural counterpart to communicating up and over a battlefield is to communicate down and beneath it. Today, there are approximately 750,000 miles of subsea cables crisscrossing the Earth’s ocean floor. It is no news that Russian and Chinese militaries have taken an outsized interest in the thin and fragile fiber-optic connections that move data around the world, and each has developed capabilities to disrupt and destroy cables. The destruction of the Nordstream 2 Pipeline has validated the investment in these investments. And, indeed, severing the cables running offshore of Taiwan would no doubt be part of the opening salvo intended to isolate the island. The current protests in Iran are a stark reminder of the internet’s central place in modern conflict.

In situations where satellite communications are degraded, subsea cables are a partial alternative, provided they can be protected and maintained. Given their relative vulnerability, it is probably wiser to invest in repair and creation capabilities as opposed to attempting to harden fiber-optic cables against the blast, heat, and fragmentation effects they will be targeted with. The lesson here is that individual cables are vulnerable, but a robust network of cables that is not dependent on any one, and which can be easily repaired, will survive on the modern battlefield better than a single, hardened subsea cable. The cables themselves ought to be envisioned as part of a greater communication network, which ought to be able to survive the elimination of any of its respective components, such as satellites, for example.

VI. In Sum

Our dependence as a modern military on satellite communications and GPS, paired with the unyielding physics of the Kessler Syndrome, yields the Kessler Vulnerability. State or non-state actors could use anti-satellite weaponry to trigger a chain reaction, destroying or compromising the majority of the 10,000-odd satellites currently in low Earth orbit and degrading capabilities American forces are accustomed to relying on. Even in circumstances in which satellites are untouched, GPS jamming should be assumed as we move towards peer conflict.

In either eventuality, investments ought to be made in technologies and capabilities that can reduce the propensity and impact of the Kessler Vulnerability. These include active debris removal, LORAN, and subsea cables. None alone will eliminate the risk from ASAT weapons, but in concert, they will be a step toward closing the satellite-sized gap in our communication architecture.

Poetry and Art

Poetry and art from the warfighting community.

Bagram
After Richard Siken

Evan Young Weaver


Remind me of when we forgot the unspoken rule to not talk about
and to forget about those things.
When we spoke to only each other, when others slept, when the diesels humming,
the absence of them is louder now.
It was more as if a baby cried through the night than it was as if
someone woke to comfort, and it stopped.
It stopped but there was another voice and another thump and another thump,
that was not different than our own voices,
not heard against the diesel hums.
Top third of the mountains to the West bright from the rise to the East, telling us,
we are several hours into the fighting season.
Always the fighting season,
always not the fighting season.
We have both forgot.

Traintings

Russell Robinson | www.soggybottomsoyboy.com | @soggybottomsoyboy

16x40", oil on canvas

Email: SoggyBottomSoyBoy@gmail.com

Book Review

The Raider: The Untold Story of a Renegade Marine and the Birth of U.S. Special Forces in World War II

Stephen R. Platt | Published by Alfred A. Knopf | $35.00

Reviewed by Russell Worth Parker

The Raider, Stephen R. Platt’s exceptional biography of Brigadier General (at retirement) Evans Fordyce Carlson, is subtitled as the “Untold Story of the Birth of U.S. Special Forces in World War II,” almost certainly written by the publisher’s editorial and marketing departments rather than the author and esteemed historian, Stephen R. Platt. Speaking from my own experience in publishing, “Special Forces” and “Untold” are words that publishers love, regardless of their accuracy, for their ability to grab a potential reader’s eye. However, there are, on my own shelves, at least nine books detailing the Raider Battalions’ formation, deployment, and combat exploits; their story is hardly “untold”.

What matters, though, is that the Raider story is not what this book is truly about. That is a distinction not meant to diminish the work, but rather to clarify that Platt has produced a comprehensive accounting of Carlson’s life, particularly his experiences in China, offering a far more significant contribution to American and Raider history than yet another blood and guts WWII combat tale (though that exists between the covers of The Raider as well).

The Raider is an important addition to American history, as much as that of the Marine Corps or the Raiders. Platt’s is a thorough examination of Carlson as a man and Marine, with a significant focus on his experiences in China. It’s a complex study of a complex man, something particularly important as we live through an era in which people seek to define one another solely by political affiliations or single events or statements.

Marching with the Chinese 8^th Route Army as a military observer impacted Carlson deeply, far beyond the way he would organize and lead the 2^nd Raider Battalion in two of the Corps’ most storied combat actions. With a direct line to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Carlson was an advocate for the Chinese communists, whom he saw as espousing democratic principles more enthusiastically than did Chiang Kai-shek and his nationalist army. Carlson was not a communist, a statement Platt offers unequivocally. Carlson was also a clarion for the dangers posed by Japan, perhaps part of why he fought them so passionately once he had the opportunity. But before that, as a man of deep resolve and immutable principles, not least his unwillingness to bend on China policy, Carlson resigned from the Marine Corps. He was, in fact, a reserve officer when World War Two offered him his second and third Navy Crosses.

In combat, Carlson was hell-bent on serving with rather than over his Marines, and the term he inculcated in them, Gung Ho, is one we still use today, though often inaccurately. Platt details the combat on Makin Island, Guadalcanal, and Tarawa through which then Colonel Carlson was unscathed, before being grievously wounded at Saipan while trying to recover a wounded enlisted Marine.

During the 1950s hysteria of Senator Joe McCarthy’s Red Scare, Carlson was tarred with the communist brush, not entirely surprising given his relationship with leading American communists that dated back to the 1930s. In this period, Platt truly illustrates who Carlson was, a man dedicated to his ideals, focused on changes he saw as critical, and demanding of a nation he loved in holding it to account for deficiencies between its professed ideals and its reality.

That Carlson was physically courageous is unquestionable. But Platt does not spare the familial frailties that saw Carlson married three times, the first of which produced a son he saw little of until that son became a Marine himself. For me, it’s a curious aspect of Carlson’s character. He was unwilling to abandon the Chinese, putting himself at a real reputational and financial disadvantage to maintain that fidelity. He risked everything for his Marines. He spoke out forcefully for African-American civil rights well before it was accepted. But he also walked away from two wives and a son, something I feel should have been anathema for a man who lived the creed of the Corps, Semper Fidelis, or “Always Faithful” in so many ways.

Platt’s book is far superior as a history of Carlson’s strategic impacts than any of the other books I’ve read on him or his rival, Merritt Edson. Those books tend to stay at the tactical level, with occasional elevations to the operational, which makes sense. Battalions, regiments, and even divisions are tactical formations, and the people who lead them are tactical leaders. But Carlson forged friendships with Zhu De, an 8^th Route Army officer who would later command all Chinese forces in Korea, including those fighting Marines at the Chosin Reservoir. He knew Mao Tse-Tung at least professionally. One cannot help but wonder what could have been had Harry Truman been as interested in Carlson’s thoughts on China as was Roosevelt.

Through his analytical writing, his front-line reporting, his determination, and his ability to forge relationships with a four-term president (and his son, Jimmy, Carlson’s Executive Officer at 2^nd Raider Battalion), Carlson transcended his rank and relatively humble beginnings to have genuine strategic impacts on United States policy, something few brigadier generals can say. The Raider details the life that he lived in doing so exceptionally well and offers students of China, geo-politics, military, Marine Corps, and Raider history alike something to enjoy in the process of learning about it.

The Ambition of H.R. McMaster

Jacob Hagstrom

Last month, I exchanged emails with Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, who may be the most accomplished soldier of his generation. I mention the general in my forthcoming book about Afghanistan, so I thought he might be willing to provide a promotional blurb for the back cover. It is common practice for younger authors to ask established experts for endorsements as a way to attract readers.

I was not surprised when McMaster declined to comment on my book. He is, after all, a busy guy who owes me no favors. But I was surprised by the reason he gave.

In one chapter, I compare McMaster’s views on military strategy with those of his West Point classmate Harry Tunnell:

“The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a boon for the careers of ambitious officers such as Tunnell and McMaster. But their paths through Iraq pushed them to opposing views on counter-insurgency.”

In response, McMaster emailed: “I do object to your description of Harry and me as ‘ambitious.’ I thought we were just serving our nation and our fellow Soldiers like you were.”

This reply puzzled me for a couple of reasons. I thought of “ambitious” as a good way to describe competent officers. Army promotions are competitive, and nobody gets to be a Colonel — let alone a Lieutenant General — without a great deal of focused effort. Moreover, if McMaster did not like my description of him, he could have offered no response. He could have said he was swamped at the moment or made up another excuse. Why was ambition such a sensitive subject for him? For answers, I turned to McMaster’s recent memoir, At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House (HarperCollins, 2024).

I had hoped General McMaster would see in me a fellow-traveler: an officer-historian willing to speak truth to power. But it seems the relative value of truth and power has shifted in the general’s estimation following his service as National Security Advisor under Trump.

McMaster’s first book, Dereliction of Duty (HarperCollins, 1997), argued that top military officers in the 1960s had failed to provide President Lyndon B. Johnson with honest advice about the war in Vietnam. Instead, they told Johnson what they thought he wanted to hear. McMaster displayed courage in publishing his book, which was critical of many former officers who continued to hold sway on military policy and promotions.

McMaster was then a Major, already an army celebrity for his tactical prowess in the Gulf War’s Battle of 73rd Easting. He would go on to command the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq under General David Petraeus and then serve as anti-corruption czar in Afghanistan. He had joined a rare breed of intellectual soldiers, at home in classrooms as well as on battlefields. Many journalists, familiar with his first book, believed McMaster was the perfect person to offer Trump candid advice, including information the President did not want to hear.

But history does not repeat itself. Though McMaster noted the similarities between LBJ and DJT — both large men whose deep insecurities led them to bullying behavior — the problems for Trump were not the same as those for LBJ (67-8). Whereas Johnson had not heard the truth about conditions in Vietnam, Trump proved impervious to truthful advice. Remember, this was the administration that introduced “alternative facts.”

The book, coming from a once-pro-Trump insider, is a welcome addition to the polarized publishing on the administration. McMaster reveals that not only the nation, but Trump’s team itself was hopelessly divided. There were ideologues, led by Steve Bannon, who encouraged the President’s destructive streak to bring down the “deep state.” Others, such as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, sought to protect the President from his unhinged impulses. In the aftermath of January 6, 2021, McMaster admits, the secretaries’ instinct to restrain the President had proven wise. But no one could have predicted that outcome in 2017, he claims.

McMaster sought to serve as an apolitical “honest broker” between the camps, to provide Trump with informed courses of action from which he could choose. The problem was that Trump proved incapable of sticking with any decision. Even when McMaster was able to convince his boss to take an unpopular position, it was often not long before MAGA ideologues persuaded him to change course.

McMaster lasted just over a year in the role, or 41.3 “Scaramuccis,” the unit of measure named for the shortest tenure in Trump’s White House. His antagonists fared little better. Trump fired Tillerson a few days before McMaster, and Mattis retired in frustration when Trump abruptly pulled military assets out of Syria in 2018. McMaster dealt with problems across the globe, from North Korea and China to Afghanistan and Pakistan. But the main foreign policy bugbear during his tenure was Russia.

McMaster took a middle path between the partisans on the left who said that Trump’s campaign team had “colluded” with Russia and those on the right who denied that Russia had interfered with the election. McMaster maintains that Russian hackers did meddle in the 2016 election, but that the intent had been to sow general distrust with the democratic system, rather than to install Donald Trump as President. Trump was averse to all implications that Russia had helped him win; he seemed unable to understand McMaster’s distinction. The issue eventually led Trump to fire McMaster after he joked at a press conference about the prevalence of Russian cyberattacks on the United States.

The author admits he was never able to understand his boss’s weakness when it came to Putin and Russia. Perhaps this insider’s lack of clarity lends more evidence to the theory that Putin has some information on Trump that would compromise even the most shameless man. McMaster, a devout Catholic, does not even dare to speculate about what Putin has Trump on camera doing or saying.

But sometimes the account is gossipy. We learn from At War with Ourselves that Mattis once called McMaster an “unstable asshole” after a meeting about North Korea (224). The author includes this insult as evidence that Mattis and Tillerson refused to collaborate with him. But after my own interaction with H.R., I began to think perhaps Mattis was right. The problem was not that Mattis and Tillerson sought to rein in Trump’s erratic aggression. The problem was that McMaster was eager to enable the President’s militaristic streak. In this case, McMaster was angry that the Defense Department was “slow rolling” his options to the President. Journalist Fred Kaplan has clarified that Mattis sought to prevent his boss from seeing military options that could have had disastrous results.

McMaster’s first book focused on the need for government appointees to give honest advice. His latest book laments that his own advice went unheard. The refrain of At War with Ourselves is: “if only Trump had listened to me.” But if that had been the case, the United States might still be in Afghanistan, and Trump might have started wars against North Korea and Iran, as well. It’s ironic that McMaster criticized Vietnam-era officials for dishonesty that prolonged a wasteful war. McMaster’s purported honesty could have kept the U.S. permanently at war. In short, it is unclear whether armed conflict or diplomacy, collaboration or competition, is best in any given foreign policy situation.

McMaster assumes the shift from collaboration with troubled regimes under Obama to confrontation under Trump was the right move for the United States. In doing so, he reveals his belief that the military should reclaim its role as global policeman. For a career soldier seeking to mask his personal ambition, that worldview may serve an important purpose.

McMaster poses as a centrist, yet he lets slip some embarrassing invective. He referred to Obama’s easing of sanctions on Cuba as evidence of a “New Left interpretation of history at America’s top universities, where students learned that the world is divided into oppressors and oppressed and that geopolitics is a choice between socialist revolution and servitude under ‘capitalist imperialism’” (167). The rhetoric seems more suited to a Fox News anchor than an academic historian. McMaster provides no evidence that ideology forced Obama’s hand in this case. Instead, it is more likely Obama recognized decades-long sanctions had only hurt the Cuban people, with little effect on the Castro regime. Fellow officer-scholar Andrew Bacevich has noted the retort to McMaster on his own “maximum pressure” foreign policy views would be to label him a “madcap militarist,” if one wanted to descend to partisan name-calling.

The book closes with an odd appeal. McMaster hopes that “young people” will read his account and find inspiration to serve public institutions (334). But his book is filled with good reasons not to do as the old soldier chose to do in his final tour of duty. His boss rejected his recommendations, ignored his staff’s careful research, and often subjected him to curse-laden tirades. Fellow executive branch members shunned and belittled him. Only the most dutiful at heart will come away from this memoir with an ambition for a career in politics.

For what it’s worth, McMaster only uses the word “ambition” once in At War With Ourselves, when he discusses the National Security staff’s Christmas party:

“To cap off the evening, I introduced DJ Max Powers and confessed my ambition to be remembered as the funkiest national security advisor” (286).

I can only hope that General McMaster, after washing off the funk from his time hanging around Trump, has been able to get down with his bad self. To me, he will always be the hero of 73rd Easting and Tal Afar. And even without his endorsement, I hope you will read my new book, America’s Favorite Warlord, which will hit bookshelves this Spring.

About the Author

Jacob Hagstrom is a 2009 graduate of the United States Military Academy and a former artillery officer. He holds a PhD in history from Indiana University, Bloomington. He is the author of Asymmetric Warfare (Cambridge University Press, 2025), and his forthcoming book, America’s Favorite Warlord, will be published by Pen and Sword Press in Spring 2026.

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This ends Volume 43, Edition 1, of the Lethal Minds Journal (01FEB2026)

The window is now open for Lethal Minds’ forty-fourth volume, releasing March 01, 2026.

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All articles published in this newsletter are the personal opinions and positions of the authors themselves. All content, and the Lethal Minds and Lethal Minds Journal brand is the copyright of Lethal Minds©

Hello, I’m Olivier Norek. For 15 years, I was a police captain in the region with the worst crime rate in France (Seine Saint-Denis, on the outskirts of Paris). I specialised in investigating sexual abuse, homicides, safe-cracking crimes, and kidnappings with ransom demands. That’s why when I began to write, I naturally gravitated towards what I know and do best: police investigations. Then one day, I came across an incredible story that left me no choice but to tell it. And it wasn’t crime fiction.

2. I spent 27 years in the US Marine Corps and most of that time around snipers, so I knew the story of Simo Hayha. But The Winter Warriors taught me about the war in which he fought, about which I knew nothing. What drew you to him and this story?

27 years… a lifetime in the service of others. I can understand that. Others, and being useful to them, is a fantastic motivator! But to return to your question: When Russia declared war on Ukraine, I needed to understand why, and above all to understand who this aggressor was. So I studied a century of relations between Russia and the rest of the world, because knowing our past allows us to understand our present and to have intellectual weapons to confront our future. That was when I discovered the incredible Winter War in 1939, when Russia, a country the size of a continent with 171 million inhabitants, decided to invade Finland, a neutral and peaceful country of 3 million souls, and how Finland resisted for 105 days, in negative 51 degree Celsius weather. And within this conflict a legend was born: the legend of the White Death—Simo Häyhä, a Finnish sniper, the greatest sniper in the world.

3. What did you learn in the process of writing it, both substantively and personally, and what surprised you?

The Finnish people are known for being quite reserved and secretive. Feelings are not readily shared, but kept to oneself. A thousand books have been written about the Winter War, how it unfolded, the techniques, weapons, strategies… But regarding those soldiers and their courage, no novel had been written concerning the emotions, the human side, to evoke what is never spoken about: the fear of seeing your brother-in-arms die, the fraternity, the friendship and love, and even, faced with an enemy, just what it destroys inside us to take another person’s life. That is perhaps why my novel came to be a huge success in Finland, and why their president himself wrote to thank me personally, astonished that it had taken a little Frenchman to write this story in this way.

4. What do you want people to take away from The Winter Warriors?

One single, simple idea: The history we forget is doomed to repeat itself. Inform yourself, learn, read, don’t let the world pass you by while you are wasting your time on pointless social media. Most answers to today’s problems are to be found in our past history. To learn and to know is to begin to defend oneself.

5. What is it that draws you to writing?

We remember our father. We know scraps of the history of our grandparents. We are almost completely ignorant about our great-grandparents. So we disappear from memories in three generations. To write is a legacy. To write is definitely what brings us closest to eternity, to immortality. For a man like me who thinks a lot about death and what comes after it, who has panic attacks and sleepless nights over it, it’s possibly my way to mock the Grim Reaper. You can get me today or tomorrow, but I’ll still be there, somewhere in an old library or on a bookstore shelf.

6. What is the hardest part of life as a writer? What is the best part?

The greatest difficulty is having to constantly re-invent yourself. To offer the reader new universes, avoid literary routine and not write dozens of novels with the same character, unless you are Agatha Christie, Conan Doyle, or Simenon, because their matchless genius shields them. To finish a novel ought to bring joy, but to me, it only brings one question: and now, what am I going to write? It’s the eternal cycle, the myth of Sisyphus in a pen.

The best part of a writer’s life is obviously to create an emotion in your readers and go to meet them to share it. The “other” is absolutely everything. Always.

7. What advice do you have for aspiring authors?

You want to write? That’s great—here are two bits of advice, if you’ll allow me. For a first novel, don’t stray too far from what you know. Write the book that resembles you, the story you have in your gut. Then you’ll discover the precise vocabulary and emotions you need. Later on, when you’ve developed more skill, you’ll be able to write all stories, with only your imagination as a limit. Finally, don’t wake up one morning saying to yourself: ‘I’m going to write a book’, but instead: ‘I’m going to write a chapter’. The huge effort it takes to write a novel often leads to discouragement. A book and a chapter aren’t the same mental burden. It’s easier to climb a succession of small hills (the chapters) than a mountain (the book).

8. Everyone hates this question, but I persist in asking it: What is your favorite book and why?

It’s always hard to choose one book from amongst all those that have made me. Catcher in the Rye could be an answer… The Pillars of the Earth would do as well… but there is one book which taught me that reading is the only parallel world accessible nowadays… it’s The Neverending Story.

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9. You are a career policeman with a long body of work in crime fiction. Why the shift to history? It is easy to cast the Russians as “Orcs” in both the Russo-Finnish War and the current war against Ukraine. Did your experience with criminals and their humanity influence how you sought to balance the complexities of humans on both sides?

That’s really two very different questions in one, so let’s take them one at a time.

I don’t decide in advance if I’m going to write a crime novel or a historical one…I simply fall in love with a story. If it contains a murder, a scheme and investigators, then it will be a crime thriller; if it’s about soldiers a hundred years ago, then it will be a historical novel…

Secondly, you’re absolutely right. It would be easy to consider “all” Russians as Orcs, bloodthirsty and lacking humanity. Unfortunately, those who decide to go to war are never those who actually go, or who send their children. Those who decide to go to war send other people’s children. That’s why I wanted to give some humanity and empathy to the Russian soldiers, who sometimes were not even adults, and at other times not even Russian. Stalin sent more than ten different nationalities to the front. Romanians, Ukrainians, Mongols… kids who had no idea what they were even laying down their lives for.

10. I did some reading on Aarne Juutlainen and his life before and after the war (which did not go well). Can you talk about why you chose to make him a focus? What are your thoughts on those people who find themselves at their best in chaos?

Aarne Juutilainen. Probably my favourite character. Some people consider him a psychopath (and I wouldn’t say they were wrong), others as a beast of war, necessary and invaluable in times of conflict. He is both. It’s also very likely I have a great affection for him because he was in the French Foreign Legion with my own grandfather between 1934 and 1939… Some men are willing to risk their lives for their country or their loved ones; others will bend the knee. I don’t judge them; courage and audacity are not shared out equally. But when you go forward under a hail of bullets and fire to defend freedom and peace, the respect you are due is infinite.

11. There are some significant military lessons to be drawn from the stories on which The Winter Warriors is based, not least about the importance of terrain and weather. Are there any books that you particularly recommend for studying the Russo-Finnish War?

I would suggest another novel, written by Merja Mäki: Before the Birds. It’s a different way to mine for telling the story of the Winter War: this time not from the soldiers’ point of view, but that of a woman and her family forced to leave their land as the Russian enemy advances. A more poetic, more lyrical version showing the civilian experience rather than the military one.

12. What have I not asked that I should have?

You haven’t asked any questions about the main character in this story: Simo Häyhä, the Finnish sniper. He was so deadly accurate and brilliant that the Russians called him ‘The White Death’ and even thought he was immortal. A young thirty-year-old, only 1m 52 (five foot two) tall, who became the Red Army’s nightmare… But perhaps it’s better this way, the readers will be able to discover him for themselves. But above all, remember this: nothing written in this novel is invented. I even had to put that at the end of my book; otherwise, reading about so much valor and courage, so much madness and temerity, no one—absolutely no one—would have ever believed it!

All translation for this interview was performed by Nick Caistor, the translator of The Winter Warriors, as arranged by Grove Atlantic.

Chris Perry

While serving for 21 years in the Marine Corps, from enlisted to officer, as a 0352 and 0302, I sometimes heard that combat arms service members would have a hard time finding a place in the civilian sector where they could apply their skill set. My experience has been that the work ethic and resourcefulness one can develop in the military service are valued and sought after. I initially wrote this for publication in the International Association of Healthcare Security and Safety’s Journal of Healthcare Protection Management. I hope that sharing aspects of this article here in Lethal Minds Journal – aspects of applying problem-solving, decisiveness, and adaptability – will resonate with others who are transitioning after service.

I retired from the Marine Corps in 2006 and was hired as a hospital security director while on terminal leave. In 2011, I became aware of an active shooter training course that law enforcement officers were attending, usually held in schools during summer or winter breaks. This course, the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) course (www.alerrt.org), is designed to create a common mindset and standard set of tactical formations and methods for responders to active shooter events. Texas State University San Marcos is the site where the curriculum was developed and one of the locations where officers can become instructors. As a hospital security director overseeing a non-sworn department, I had trouble gaining access to this law enforcement-only training until I was able to get my training officer, who was also a reserve police officer, into a class. Once personal contact was made with the instructors, they agreed to teach our security officers in exchange for the hospital hosting the class. In May 2012, we hosted the first course and had a half-dozen security officers complete the 16-hour course alongside nearly 20 law enforcement officers. In all, we hosted nearly 20 classes with roughly 20 students per class. We obtained vital training for our armed security officers, assisted local law enforcement in getting training, and derived benefits from the training being held on a hospital floor plan. We continued developing coordination between hospital security officers and law enforcement officers who are likely to respond to our work sites.

Many readers are probably familiar with the Run, Hide, Fight program, which trains civilians to respond to and survive an active shooter event. As we were developing our program, the Alabama Department of Homeland Security began educating the public on the Run, Hide” program. Some of the same officers who were ALERRT instructors also conducted Run, Hide, Fight training programs in high schools and middle schools in order to prepare teachers to be part of the solution in these challenging situations. Combining ALERRT-trained hospital security officers with hospital clinical staff during a Run, Hide, Fight drill inspired quarterly active shooter drills in a vacant hospital space. It is hard to overstate the value of conducting active shooter training and drills in a hospital setting because law enforcement and security staff can train in hospital-style floor plans, and hospital leadership can develop and exercise immediate action plans.

Our goals were (1) to improve the survivability of hospital staff and patients in active shooter events; (2) to improve the response time and effectiveness of hospital security and law enforcement in stopping the threat; (3) to compress the timeline between injury and victim care in these scenarios; and (4) to validate our Active Shooter written plan, development of security dispatcher scripts, response team go-bags, and medical incident commander checklists.

In Sept 2013, we began to include medical personnel as role players in a med-surg unit, nursing students as patient role players, and security staff and law enforcement as responders. Our hospital education department provided invaluable assistance in developing victim scenarios, setting up the cardiac trainer robots (so staff would have the added difficulty of dealing with that medical emergency), videotaping the drills, serving as observers, and facilitating the clinical debrief. Our training officer played the role of the active shooter, and his use of blank shotgun ammunition to start the scenario ensured that participants moved with a sense of urgency. The drill participants provided useful feedback during drill debriefs and confirmed the value of this realistic training.

Lessons learned from these drills included the following:

-People seldom rise to the occasion; they more often fall back on their training, especially when the adrenaline is flowing. Having rehearsed the plan is vital, whether it is evacuation from an area or sheltering in a safe room. If staff don’t have that “muscle memory,” they will likely freeze or do something else wrong.

-Most medical staff can rapidly take positive steps in the event of cardiac arrest, but very few hospital staff are current and proficient in dealing with penetrating trauma or in taking charge of a situation that requires triage of trauma victims. We developed a short checklist that the security staff bring to the area and provide to the medical staff member in charge so that the person can more rapidly organize the actions that may lead to preservation of life. Our checklist is provided at the end of this article.

-We continue to develop the idea of a medical response team that could be escorted from the ER by security to the scene of the victims. The question is whether it is more timely and beneficial to have the team go to the victims or have the victims taken to the ER. The answer may be that it is best to be able to do either, depending on the situation.

-Crash carts do not contain supplies specific to penetrating trauma situations, and so we deliberated on how to address that shortfall. Collaboration with our local Fire and Rescue led to their suggestion that we add tourniquets, QuickClot, and pressure dressings to our backpack-style “go bags,” which previously only contained breaching tools, flex cuffs, flashlights, and extra ammunition.

-Law enforcement responders, though they move rapidly to the sound of gunfire, may conduct a very methodical and time-consuming search, either to find the shooter or to look for other threats once the known shooter is down. Based on that factor, we began to create, in our drills, a “warm zone” after the shooter was stopped so that medical response teams could enter the area to triage victims, move victims to a casualty collection point, or evacuate victims to the ER or to another hospital’s ER. The goal is to compress the timeline between injury and care in order to save lives.

-Hospital dispatchers or telephone operators will quickly get inundated with calls, so it is best if they have a format from which to operate. We revised our template after almost every drill, so dispatchers had scripted messaging to use for calling 911, sending traffic via radio, and making overhead announcements. We also included a physical description template, so dispatchers could use questions to obtain useful information a caller might not think to provide. Our templates are provided at the end of this article.

We conducted many more drills, about one per quarter, with 30 – 40 participants per drill, until February 2016, when we were no longer able to use the vacant hospital. After that, we employed different settings outside normal hours, such as the employee health clinic and the senior center, to continue the training. By having community partners serve as observers for these drills, we were able to brainstorm and develop resiliency and coordination with our local Emergency Management Agency, Department of Public Health, Fire Rescue, and law enforcement. Sustaining, continuing, and improving these learning and training opportunities is our challenge now.

For our business occupancy hospital departments that are not on our main campus, we have been conducting smaller-scale active shooter drills. As a Joint Commission-accredited hospital, we had been conducting disaster drills — usually bomb or tornado drills — at these locations. As non-hospital staff also showed interest in receiving training, we decided to incorporate active shooter scenarios into our drills at our business occupancy locations. Since we had to start somewhere, we began by identifying “safe rooms” and evacuation routes, allowing staff to develop “muscle memory” for their immediate actions. Each business occupancy location is different, with some featuring overhead intercoms, others having multiple rooms with lockable doors, and others offering multiple evacuation routes. The staff gained awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of their particular location and benefited from thinking and walking through the “what ifs.”

One of our business occupancy locations contains hyperbaric chambers for wound treatment. We have conducted two active shooter drills at this location, and our most recent drill included the city’s tactical team. Through the ALERRT training program, we met the tactical team sergeant, who was very interested in having his team respond to and clear a building they had never been in. This scenario was full of challenges, from having numerous patients with mobility issues to having responders unfamiliar with the setting, which created several complex decision-making points for participants. The law enforcement responders gained greater awareness of their external approach route to the building, the challenges posed by the floor plan at this site, and the added complication of having patients in hyperbaric chambers from which rapid egress is not possible. The clinical staff gained a better appreciation of the need for quick response according to a pre-existing plan, since there is virtually no time to devise a plan once the drill starts.

Not enough can be said about the valuable contributions area law enforcement has made to our plans and training. The police department’s precinct commander periodically sends his patrol officers to conduct walk-throughs of the hospital with our security staff to become familiar with the building. The ALERRT instructors spent many hours training hospital security staff and brainstorming possible scenarios we could encounter. Observers from the Sheriff’s Department, US Marshal Service, State Troopers, and area police departments gave informative critiques of our plan and immediate actions. In addition to the numerous benefits of working with area law enforcement, the region in which we are located benefits from a university with a center devoted to disaster preparedness. In Mobile, AL, the University of South Alabama hosted the Advanced Regional Response Training Course in its Center for Disaster Healthcare Preparedness. Various disaster topics were covered during this two-day course, including the topic of active shooters. Part of the session included having students watch the video “Shots Fired in Healthcare,” which is a superb training aid created by the Center for Personal Protection and Safety (which our healthcare system showed during New Employee Orientation). Representatives from hospitals across Alabama attended this course and developed awareness and community resilience through collaboration with their counterparts at other healthcare facilities.

Through these active shooter drills, our healthcare system developed greater resiliency and benefited from collaboration with our community partners. We learned and gained greater awareness that in rapidly developing violent situations, no one can do everything, but everyone can do something.

And that ties in with my initial questions of how a retired infantryman can contribute in the civilian sector. I remembered the various acronyms about planning and communicating plans, from BAMCIS (being planning, arrange recon, make recon, complete the plan, issue the order, supervise) and SMEAC (the format for issuing an order: Situation, Mission, Execution, Admin/Logistics, Communication), and drew on those throughout the process of setting up these training evolutions. Service members sometimes don’t realize all that they have learned by being on a demanding team. By continuing to be adaptable, they can contribute in areas they may not have considered.

The Stand Alone Edition is for long form writing (2000+ words) or video longer than 5 minutes. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis.

Send your piece to lethalmindsjournal.submissions@gmail.com.

Dedicated to those who serve, those who have served, and those who paid the final price for their country.

——————————

This ends One Retired Marine’s Experience with Active Shooter Training(14JAN2026)

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-Russell Worth Parker, Editor in Chief, Lethal Minds Journal

1. Who are you, what is your military service background, what is/are your businesses, and why/how did it come to be?

My name is Joe Apkarian, I am a 2004 graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and have served as a Marine Combat Engineer, Embassy Security, and Special Operations Officer-Raider. During my time in the Marine Corps, I have deployed to the Philippines, Thailand, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other nations throughout the Near East and South Asian region.

I am currently in the hospitality industry and own two bars and a restaurant: The Pour House, The Eagle’s Dare, and TacoBaby in Wilmington, NC.

2. What did you know about business generally, and yours specifically, before beginning this? And why did you choose the path you’ve chosen?

Prior to entering the hospitality industry, my experience was waiting tables in high school and drinking in bars. So, nothing. I joke that I slipped and fell into the hospitality industry. My first bar, The Pour House, was the one my MARSOC ITC class all drank at when we had any time off during our training pipeline. Fast forward a handful of years, and the owner of the bar approached me about buying it. That coincided with my exit from the Marine Corps, and the rest is history.

3. Like military service, entrepreneurship requires commitment. You’re arguably building a local empire. When did you know this was something you were going all in on?

I think COVID was the driver behind my desire to expand out of The Pour House. We were shut down for over a year, and I was working a security contract, and I realized how one-dimensional I was in just owning a basement dive bar. If I was going to be “all in,” I needed to not only expand in number but also the type of hospitality offering.

4. Did you use any means of gaining training, education, and/or experience in the field, or did you just recon by fire?

OJT. I bartended, I worked the door, I worked the dish pit, I was a food runner, I spoke to others in the industry and tried to learn as much as I could as fast as I could. I’m still learning today.

5. What has been your biggest challenge thus far?

Just like operating in a battlefield environment…the challenges change daily. One day it’s personnel issues, the next it’s logistics, then it’s executing and overseeing an event (operation)… there’s always something new.

6. What have you learned about yourself in the process of building your business?

That the buck stops with me, if I don’t care about something, then neither will my staff. If I’m not setting the tone and pace, then things will fall away. Even when times are hard, I need to be a positive presence for others to “hopefully” emulate.

7. What lessons you learned in service have helped you as a business owner?

All of it. My training as a Marine is all I brought with me into the civilian sector. How to plan, organize, and execute the businesses is the same as running a platoon or Marine Special Operations Team downrange, just not as many swear words.

8. What advice do you have for aspiring Vetrepreneurs?

Know what you are getting into. If you are getting out so you can spend more time with the family, then owning and operating a business may not be for you. Time management is key, like any job, but unlike the military or some corporate job…end of the day, it’s all on you. So when the internet goes out, the kitchen printer is not printing, when something happens at 2am and your phone rings…it’s all on you and the team you’ve put together.

9. How can people find you?

If you are in downtown Wilmington and yell my name loud enough, I’ll probably hear you. My personal IG handle is: @joe_apcarryon

10. What have I not asked that I should have?

I get asked a lot about what life is like in hospitality, and I always say, It’s way more broken chairs and vomit than strippers and parties. Just like the military, it’s hours and hours of planning and paperwork for ten minutes of fun.

Joe Apkarian is the first and only guy you need to call for retirements, military ceremonies, wetting downs, or just good times in Wilmington, NC. We appreciate him taking the time to talk to Lethal Minds Journal and look forward to the next round of birria tacos.

Jeff Mellinger was drafted on April 18, 1972.

After Airborne school, his first assignment was in the Federal Republic of Germany as a unit clerk before assignment to the 2d Battalion (Ranger), 75th Infantry, Fort Lewis, Washington, again as a unit clerk, then personnel staff NCO. Somewhere in that process, he got an itch to be an infantryman.

At 2/75, the clerk became a machine gun squad leader, rifle squad leader, rifle platoon sergeant, and weapons platoon leader. He then performed drill sergeant duty at Fort Gordon, Georgia, before returning to 2/75, again as a Ranger platoon sergeant. Mellinger’s career saw him serve as a Military Freefall Instructor; the senior team leader in the 75th Ranger Regimental Reconnaissance Detachment; on ROTC duty; as an Airborne Infantry Company First Sergeant; and as the Senior Enlisted Advisor for the Oregon National Guard’s 41st Separate Infantry Brigade before appointment as a Command Sergeant Major. Thereafter, Mellinger served as the Command Sergeant Major at 3rd Battalion, 10th Infantry; 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment; U.S Army Japan and 9th Theater Support Command; First U.S. Army; and Multi-National Force–Iraq from August 2004 to May 2007, with almost 36 of those months spent in combat.

Mellinger is an Airborne Ranger, both by qualification and extensive service in the 75th Ranger Regiment, of which he is a Distinguished Member. He has a list of distinguished graduate certificates, badges, and medals for performance and valor far too long to list here. But most of all, CSM Jeff Mellinger is a professional, the paragon of what a soldier is and should be. He spent almost 40 years as a soldier, becoming a man with an unbending moral compass that demands he do the right thing over the easy thing, every time.

After I asked Mellinger what he had learned as the US Army’s longest serving draftee, he offered me a list of thoughts accumulated over the years, presented in no particular order. Like Jeff, they are succinct and purposeful. Though targeted towards Command Sergeants Major, they should be read by anyone, of any rank, who considers themself a military professional. They follow my interview with him.

- Worth Parker, Editor in Chief, Lethal Minds Journal and Lieutenant Colonel, US Marine Corps (Ret)

Having Words with the Man

Lethal Minds Journal: Tell us about your upbringing before the US Army.

Jeff Mellinger: Well, it was kind of scattered. I've got a very poor memory of the first few years. My dad was a Marine during the Korean War. My mom lived with her family and then his family and then back to her family, and then we, me and brother and a sister, grew up in Southern California before our stepdad moved us to Oregon. That's where I spent probably more years as a kid than anywhere else. Then I got drafted and spent a considerable amount of time in the Army, going from place to place and country to country.

LMJ: And you were in the Army for almost 40 years, right? And if I'm right, you were the longest serving draftee?

JM: Yeah, a little over three months shy of 40, I don't know [about longevity]. Something in that neighborhood. I was certainly the last enlisted draftee still serving on active duty.

LMJ: So a guy who spent as many years in as you did and served and continues to serve as passionately as you do. How do you come to be a draftee? Had you ever thought about being a soldier?

JM: Well, I had actually gone down to the recruiting office and tried to join the Marines, but I had a little juvenile delinquency and believe it or not, even with a war going on, uh, they turned me down. So the Gunnery Sergeant that was there said, “Well, let's try an appeal. I think you can do it.” So we wrote this appeal, and it got all the way up to whoever the, I think it was like the Deputy Commandant for Manpower or something like that, whatever that part of the Marine Corps was, basically patted me on the head and said, you know, we appreciate your interest, but, you know, the war is going just fine. Thank you very much.

So I said, well, okay, and kept hanging drywall for another year or so and then I got a draft notice. So I took it down to the draft board and said, “Look, when I tried to join you guys didn't want me. I got a pretty good-paying job now, so I don't need this, so you know, call somebody else.” And they said, “Look, you just don't get it, you're in whether you want to be or not.” So, uh, okay, that was the beginning of 39 years and eight and a half months of active duty service.

LMJ: And your brother is a Marine Sergeant Major. How long did he serve?

JM: He did 30 years.

LMJ: You know, I've told you before, he, yelled at Lieutenant Parker very effectively when I was a Second Lieutenant and he was our Regimental Sergeant Major. I was passing a formation of Marines and I was driving faster than he thought I should, so he physically ran me down, climbed into my truckbed, and explained things to me. I honestly look back on it now, and I always think, one, it was a super lesson for me. Two, it was a great leadership lesson, because, I mean, he could have barked at me and left that, but those Marines saw him sprint the length of that formation to catch me and climb into the bed of my truck to “talk” to me through the rear window. It was awesome.

JM: You know, there's a lot of soldiers and Marines and sailors and airmen that got the attention of a senior NCO or officer somewhere along the line. I think we all did one way or another. And, you know, the first question I always ask is, What were you doing? Believe it or not, we don't get up in the morning looking to see who we can chew out; that's not how it works. I mean, there's probably somebody that does that, but if you're charged with enforcing standards and discipline, you don't get to pick and choose which ones. I visited him once. I don't remember whether he was at 3rd Marine Regiment or at Marine Barracks Pearl or whether he was the MARFORPAC Sergeant Major, but we were on Kaneohe with his family going somewhere on base. And he saw a couple of Marines doing something they shouldn't have been doing. And it was a Saturday, you know, he told his wife, “Stop the van.” He got out and went across the street and, you know, whatever was said, was said. And his oldest daughter looked at me, and she said, “Uncle Jeff, do you do that too?”

“Why, yes, I do.”

LMJ: You had a relatively uncommon story that starts with getting drafted after being told “No thanks,” and then when you went into the Army you were classed as an admin clerk, but you ended up an infantryman and a Distinguished Member of the 75th Ranger Regiment.

JM: Yeah, that's right. So unbeknownst to me, and I didn't find out till many years later, because you kind of have this mental picture that if you're going to be drafted, you're going into infantry, and at that time, if you're going in the infantry, you’re going to Vietnam. I was totally shocked at the end of basic training when the night before we graduated, the drill sergeant told us to go check the bulletin board for a notice to tell us where we were going to our advanced individual training. We had to check it before we went to bed because after the graduation in the morning, we had to get on the right bus to go wherever it was we were going. Not one guy in my entire company - which was 70% draftees - went to the infantry. Almost all of us went either into being clerks or cooks or mechanics or drivers, or other kinds of support specialties. And I thought, well, that's weird. It took me about five years to finally get my MOS changed to infantry. I had picked up a secondary MOS of 11 Bravo through on-the-job training in 2nd Ranger Battalion up at Fort Lewis and got switched over to be an infantryman. None of us went into the infantry and Vietnam; most of us went across the continental US. I and about a half dozen other guys went to the Federal Republic of Germany, at that time West Germany, because the wall was still up, and it took me several years to get my MOS changed to something that I really wanted to be.

But, you know, that first five years really helped me through the rest of my career because it taught me how to read regulations to help soldiers get things done; to get promotions, to get paid, to get assignments, to get compassionate reassignments. All of the administrative things that go along with being a soldier are contained in regulations, and if you learn how to read them, you can really help people. So as much as I was disappointed initially, that carried me through the rest of my career because I knew how to go find the regulation that applied to that situation.

LMJ: I was kind of having that conversation with a Marine Raider the other day, a young Gunny, and he was just kind of bemoaning the whole whole up or out thing and you know the the end of the wars and he's like, “There's nothing going on and I just want to stay in the game and instead I have to go do some sort of training or admin or whatever.” And I said, “Look, buddy, if you want to be a pro, you have to learn all that stuff.”

JM: Absolutely. I went kicking and screaming to be a Drill Sergeant. I had no desire whatsoever, but that two years taught me how to train soldiers. It was invaluable, and it carried me through the rest of my career, all the different ways to train soldiers.

LMJ: What was your favorite assignment in all that time?

JM: You know, I'd have a hard time answering that. I can tell you I never had a bad assignment. I believe that you can you can make any assignment as good or as bad as you want it. I hear people complaining about being assigned here, they got assigned there, and there are some pretty lonely and desolate spots. But you know, it's not the assignment, it's always the people. I've said that my entire career. It's always about the people you serve with, the ones you serve around, the ones you work with. I spent a couple of years in Japan as the U.S. Army Japan Sergeant Major and had a really great time there. Professionally, I'd have to say it was my assignments with the Rangers. But I loved raising lieutenants as an ROTC instructor and teaching young soldiers how to be NCOs as Commandant of an NCO academy. I mean, I could go on and on about the fantastic opportunities I had to serve, but to pick one and say, “That was the best,” would be really hard.

LMJ: I think that brings up a leadership question that I think about a fair bit. I feel like you are genuinely and generally very positive in your approach to whatever you're doing. Is that fair? And if so, is that intentional or just natural?

JM: I try to see the good in stuff. Sometimes that's not possible. Sometimes it's hard. I try to do the same thing with soldiers. I've had soldiers that others would say were not worth the effort, but I always considered it a personal failure when that soldier didn't turn out because that meant that whatever I was doing didn't work. So, yeah, I try, but not always possible. I always say.

LMJ: What was a personal high point, just like a moment when you were in the service, doesn't even have to be like an award or a huge event, but a moment. when you're like, “I just really love what I'm doing?”

JM: I can think of a number of times where I thought I was sitting on top of the world, and it was almost always because of the soldiers that were in my charge. My first time, I was a machine gun squad leader in the 2nd Ranger Battalion, and those guys could make those M60s talk. They were excited about their work, they were proud of what they were doing, they worked hard at it, and it was fun to be with them. When we were doing the things we were doing, the things we were doing weren't always fun. Slogging along through the rain and the cold and the mud and whatnot, that will break your fun meter pretty quick. But you know, even in all of that misery and agony, you look around at one of them that's over there grinning, sitting behind his machine gun, waiting for the word to fire, you know, or, you know, being a First Sergeant of a company full of paratroopers up in Fort Wainwright, Alaska that were absolutely the most proficient guys in that environment that I think I ever ran across. And, you know, I think throughout my career, there were times where those assignments and opportunities really made me feel good about what I was doing. And that was because of the, again, the people.

LMJ: I think you just answered the question I was about to ask, which is, to what do you owe your longevity of service?

JM: I think because I was having fun and I enjoyed what I was doing. You know, there were times where it got pretty tough, and I said to myself on more than one occasion, “Anybody can have a bad day. If you have two of them in a row, you gotta think about what you're doing. If you have three in a row, it's time to go find something new to do. Fortunately, I never had that third one in a row. I had more than one bad day, and some of that was my fault. You know, I've made a bad decision, or I did not do the best I could have done. You find yourself in situations where it just seems like you're just being overwhelmed by things and you don't know that you're going to be able to find your way through them and then you do and you're able to look back and say, “Okay, well, I can do that again and I can do it better and I can do it faster and so forth.”

LMJ: Have you got an example of one of those times where you're like, “I don't think I did that as well as I could have.”

JM: Yeah, sure. I mean, there's probably lots of those if you look back on them. You know, how you handle the challenge from a soldier. I learned over time that, you know, sometimes it's better to just nip it in the bud right now and then bring them back in later and say, “Okay, what was that all about?”

You know, you take those challenges on in public and pretty soon everybody's looking to see what you're doing, and you probably aren't doing it right because your voice is getting louder and so forth. I told you I got drafted to be a Drill Sergeant, too. I went kicking and screaming. I did not want to go. And I got assigned to Fort Gordon, Georgia, home of the Signal Corps. And I thought it was a mistake. Surely they were going to send me to Fort Benning, Georgia, home of the infantry, but that's not where I went. I found out later, Training and Doctrine Command, TRADOC, had a rule that 20% of the drill sergeants at every base had to be from the combat arms. I was not looked on very favorably from the beginning because I was not a signal soldier. I was coming in as an Airborne Ranger to a signal training environment. My company commander was an MP, the First Sergeant was a signal guy who had had issues with Special Forces, Rangers, whatever in Vietnam, and he just didn't like them. So he automatically didn't like me, and when I got to the company, he said, “Give the Ranger the female platoon.” And I was crushed. All of the things I've been doing in my career, you're going to assign me to the female platoon? 64 women. I had nine cycles of 64 women in each. And I thought, what in the world have they done? They're trying to ruin my career.

I didn't understand the mission, and I didn't know how to be a Drill Sergeant. I started out screaming and hollering like all the other Drill Sergeants, and by day three, here's this big Airborne Ranger who can't even make a word come out. All I could do was squeak, because I had driven myself hoarse. That was a defining moment for me, because I thought, “What in the world am I doing? You know, all I'm doing is screaming and hollering. They're not moving any faster. They don't understand what I'm trying to get them to do because I'm screaming and hollering.” So I spent my recovery time the next three or four days whispering, which caused them all to lean forward a little bit to hear what I was saying. And I thought, “Well, that's interesting. I don't have to yell to get their attention. They really want to hear what I said, because they didn't want to suffer the consequences.” They didn't understand it or didn't do it right, you know, the push-ups and so forth. But I really took that on then as a challenge, to, okay, you want me to train female soldiers? I'm going to produce the best-trained female soldiers there are. So I spent the rest of those two years doing everything I could to make them as good as I could before they graduated. And happy to say that of the nine cycles that I trained females for basic training, I had the honor platoon seven of those nine cycles; the high end of cycle test scores, the high basic rifle marksmanship, the marching, the, you know, company inspections, all those things rolled up.

That was a really steep learning curve for me because I didn't know what that challenge was going to look like. All I had heard were the horror stories about guys being around female soldiers, and, of course, I came to realize that that was on me, not on them. So I took the challenge to train them, and here we are.

LMJ: Would you say that last bit about the realization that it was on you is the biggest lesson you took from that?

JM: Yeah. I was the one that got sent there to teach them how to be shoulders and you know they signed up for all the same reasons everybody else signed up; they needed the money, or they wanted the money for school, or their uncle or grandpa or dad was in service or, you know, they wanted to learn a trade so they could get back out, patriotism, whatever it was, they were there, and it really was incumbent on me to help them on that journey or say, “I'm sorry, but you just aren't tall enough to ride this ride, time for you to go home.”

LMJ: Did you ever give thought to another career?

JM: No. I did not. I didn't think I was going to have a career. I mean, I never had any vision that I was going to be a Platoon Sergeant or a First Sergeant or a Sergeant Major. I just wanted to be better tomorrow than I was today. My first enlistment happened in West Germany, and I had a company commander who had spent months trying to convince me to re-enlist. And all I could see was the drug and race problems that the Army had. And, you know, the Army was not alone in that in those days.

The early 70s was...was pretty horrid. In fact, I remember a quote from a Commmandant of the Marine Corps to the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps that, “We're going to clean the Corps up if it's just you and me left at the end.” Every service was going through the same gyrations, and you know, as reflections of society, we were suffering from the same things that society was. I was determined to get out. That wasn't the Army that I had this vision of being in; that wasn't the Army that I heard about from the World War II and Korea vets.

But the company commander just kept working on me, and he finally convinced me to re-enlist. There was a new unit being formed by the Army, the Rangers. So I re-enlisted to go to the Rangers and continued on until it got to another decision point, which was, I was going to get out again. And, the Battalion Commander and Sergeant Major said, “No, no, you can't get out. You're a great soldier.” I said, “Yeah, but I don't want to be stuck in the orderly room while all the other Rangers are going to do the cool stuff. You know, I've got a secondary MOS. I want to change to my primary, and if we can't do that, I'm gonna get out.”

Be careful what you wish for, because about a month later, I ran into the Battalion Commander, and he looked at me and he said, “Mellinger, you're out of uniform.” I didn't know what he was talking about. I was a Specialist Five at the time. He says, “You're supposed to be wearing sergeant stripes, and you've been promoted to staff sergeant.” Unbeknownst to me, they had gotten the paperwork approved to not only reclassify me, but then I got promoted. So I went from being a spec five one minute to a staff sergeant the next. The next day, I took over a machine gun squad in one of the companies. So that kept me around until the end. And every reenlistment was, “Do I stay? Do I go?” But once you get to about the ten-year mark, you start thinking, “Well, I’m halfway to being able to retire.” It's not until you do the math later that you realize that that's kind of a misnomer.

I think I was probably, you know, in the ten to fourteen year range before I said, “Okay, I'm gonna stick it out, I'm gonna do twenty, and then I'll go do something else.” That didn't turn out either, because I just kept going from one great assignment to another and ended up testing the Army's sense of humor until they said, “Okay, that's enough.”

All branches of service have retention control points, mandatory retirement dates, and so forth. You can only stay so long at a certain rank. For the Army, that number has changed many times over the years, but it used to be hard and fast 30 years, period. They changed the policy to if you were a Command Sergeant Major working for a three-star or a four-star, you could stay for 35 years. And then they changed that to anybody working for a general officer. So they included operating sergeant majors and others like that. They could say the 33, you know, various numbers. And when I came out of Iraq, I was at about 35 years. So, based on retention control points at that time, that should have been my last assignment. And then I was offered an opportunity to take another assignment and stayed for almost four more years.

LMJ: You were in Iraq for...three years, is that right?

JM: A little over 33 months. I was there from August 2004 through early May 2007.

LMJ: Obviously, I've done it, you've done it. There's a lot of balancing family in that time. How do you balance a 33-month deployment?

JM: It was much harder for the family than it was for me, honestly. When that position was announced for Multi-National Force-Iraq, it said a few years. When I was doing an interview, General Casey asked me how long it was for. I said 18 to 24 months, and it may not be that long. I didn't know what the future was going to hold, and not knowing how long I was going to be there, all I knew was I was going to get one R&R to come back home at government expense, like they did in those days.

Somewhere at about the 10-11 month mark the Secretary of Defense came over and spent a couple days and as he was leaving he looked over at my boss and says you know I'm going to have to keep you here for another year, and he said, “Well is that a year from now or a year from when I was supposed to leave?” and he said, “I'll let you know.” After the SecDef left, I said, "I'll call the wife."

I called her and said, "Hey, we just got extended for a year.” She said, “A year from now or a year from when you were supposed to come home? I said, “Well, we don't know.” So, we got extended three times over there, or I did. So it was, for me, a little pain and guilt, but here I am, and I left my place, and everybody's back home, but we got honest work, so, “Alright, where's the next patrol to? What are we doing tomorrow? And you're back on the clock.” Same thing with casualties. You don't have time to stop and dwell on it; you have to pick up and move to the next objective. I can't imagine the stress and strain that caused back at home, the not knowing.

And, you know, it happened to units. Units that were supposed to be over there for 12 months were extended to 15. And one of the more famous ones, the 172nd Brigade out of Alaska, had already redeployed one company back to Alaska. And we had had to extend them, to move them from Mosul down to Baghdad for another three months. And to their credit and to the man, every single soldier that had returned to Alaska from Iraq came back to stay with their buddies for those last three months.

So I get my mid-tour leave, I said well, I'm going to take it at 15 months. I wasn't very good company because I kept looking at my phone, kept looking at my watch, you know, because I knew I had another 6, 8, 10 months over there, and there were a lot of things happening.

LMJ: What's your single best piece of advice for a young service member?

JM: I would say become an expert at your craft, whatever it is. If you're a cook, you should get to where everybody comes through the line. You know, whatever it is, if you're a mechanic, you should be disappointed if you see a drop of oil underneath your vehicle because that isn't the standard we're trying to achieve. You know, if you fly, if you drive, if you shoot, whatever it is, become an expert at it and then learn somebody else's duties and responsibilities as well so that you're value-added. You're not just another guy that's going to flow down or another driver that can do other things. You can help. You can help with the generator. You can help the medic. You can help the supply sergeant. You know, you can help the fire support officer. Whatever it is, you know, what you are charged with, but also learn some of their skills that make you a more contributing member of that team.

LMJ: Was there ever a soldier along the way who was particularly inspiring to you in that vein? You were around... a million soldiers and in a leadership position from which to observe them. I just wonder if there's one that sticks out for you.

JM: I had a truck driver. When I first got notified that I had been selected for that MNF-I position, I told him, “Start forming your team.” I knew that I was going to spend the vast majority of my time on the road. You can't get good feedback if you're not seeing anything first-hand. And I knew that I wanted guys who were experienced in this vehicle and behind the wheel of those vehicles, so that they were properly maintained and operated properly and so forth.

The first two people that I hired to be on my team were 88 Mikes, truck guys. Both of them came out of Ft. Irwin, California, and both of them had just redeployed from being in Iraq. They were back probably six months or so. So, you know, as I started putting the team together, I took these two staff sergeants. And I told them, “Look, these vehicles are your responsibility; they will always look right. They will always get us where we're going. They will always get us home. What are your questions? The responsibility is yours, and if we go down because you didn't do something last night that you should have, I'm putting that on you. Because it is your responsibility to keep me informed.”

So one of them really took on a leadership role of the other soldiers, and it was fun to watch because he wasn't the patrol leader. I had a sergeant first class for that, and I had a medic who was charged to be the medic, and I put somebody in charge of communications, somebody else in charge of weapons, and the counter-IED systems. Everybody had a very specific responsibility inside that patrol. I spent probably seven out of every ten days on the road in Iraq. I hit every ASR, MSR, every combat outpost, marine outpost, camp, and border checkpoint in that country. And we drove everywhere we went. So, all of that was critical.

I had this big, young specialist who took on a leadership role. That was really fun to watch. He was not in charge, but exuded so much positive energy that people naturally gravitated to him and listened to what he said. But, you know, he was so good at it, at the end of his tour, it was time to go home, and he asked if he could stay for another year, and I said, “No, you've got to go home. You've got wife and kids back there.”

He said, “Well, you're staying.”

I said, “Yeah, well, that's a little different. “ He came back in the next morning and said he should stay. “You know, I'm the guy who helps you get your stuff done here. You know, I have to understand what it is you're trying to do, and I absolutely understand it. I appreciate it.” Okay, you get six months, and then you go on home.

LMJ: Well, so that's a great segue to my next question, which is, how do you preserve a marriage during a service career that's that demanding? The absence and the intensity that exists within a service career that sees you in combat, there's nothing else that replicates it. I've lived it. I know it. It was my second year of marriage. But what do you do? What's the advice for service members who are trying to walk that line?

JM: We have to make our own way, obviously, and every relationship is different. It's built on different things. You know, if you have a relationship that's built on faith, then you've got to double down on faith. If you have a relationship built on trust, you can never violate it. And sometimes you do the best you can do, and it doesn't work. And that's unfortunate. But we were in Georgia when I got selected, and I think, for me, especially during that most difficult 33-plus months…. I wanted her to stay in quarters there because she had friends, she had the unit I had been selected from, but she decided she wanted to go to our home up in Alaska instead. I said, “Okay, if you're going to be comfortable.” I had a lot of friends up in Alaska that I could lean on if she needed help with something, so I said, “Okay, go ahead.” And, you know, it turned out that was an absolutely brilliant decision on her part. I couldn't see it at the time, but I supported it and you know I learned some things again. I got a frantic email from her one day that was basically, “Hey, I haven't heard from you in two weeks. Are you okay?”And it hadn't occurred to me that I needed to be better at communications because I was so busy doing what I was doing, going from here to there to there to there, that I didn't stop to think that I had other responsibilities. So I got a lot better at my own communications and, you know, I had sent her something actually I had sent her an Iraq map where I had put dozens of locations you know Tal Afar, Baghdad, Mosul and whatnot, but I had given them different names. It was a handwritten map, so there was no trail, where I had given a different name to each of those places. So I could tell her, “Hey, I'm going to Disneyland tomorrow.” And she would know that that was somewhere else. So I got pretty good at sending her notes saying I was going here or there or the other place and, you know, I'll be gone for two or three days.

I should have remembered that from being a young soldier, because I had six or seven months after which, and I got called into my company commander's office, and he said, “I got a Red Cross message here.” And I thought, uh-oh, because in those days, you only got a Red Cross message if somebody you knew had died. I'm trying to think who this could be. And he says, “When's the last time you wrote home?” And I said, “Oh, gee, I don't know, Sir.” And he says, “You're going to sit down right now and write a letter to your mother so I don't have to answer any more questions from the brigade commander.”

Apparently, my mother had gone to the American Red Cross and said, “I haven't heard from my son in six months. Is he OK?” Which turned into some sort of internal army thing. So, yeah, I got really good at writing letters home to mom. But I forgot it over the years, so I had to be reminded.

Back to your question, how do you do that?

Well, you know, I had the opportunity to take that R&R. Everything I tried to do was focused on family. I said I kept my phone. I did. I wasn't very good with that. But, you know, you want to go do something? Let's go. You want to go eat something? Let's go. And the responsibilities that were taken over, managing the budget? Writing the checks? Making decisions about all the things that go on at home? When I got done with that tour, I naturally wanted to drift back into, all right, where have you got the checkbook and where do you have that other thing? And then I got to thinking, “You know what, she's had it all this time, I will probably mess it up.”

And back to one of my leadership beliefs, which is “Only do those things that only you can do.” To this day, I don't touch the checkbook. I don't touch the budget. I don't touch the other things because she's got a method that has worked now for twenty-something years, and I'm not going to mess it up.

I think you have to remember that the family has paid a bill for your service, and we're the ones that then owe them the courtesy of listening to what it is they want to do and where they want to go, and not say, “Okay, I'm back, here's what I want to go do.” I think people make that mistake, and you just have to work your way through all of it. It's easy to get mad and walk your different ways, but it's harder, and it's right to try and figure out, “Okay, where are we talking past each other and how do we get this straight?”

LMJ: You said when you were a kid, you had a little bit of juvenile delinquency stuff. Did you ever have a time as a soldier that you had a moment you needed to come back from? And do you have advice for other soldiers trying to kind of maybe remedy a mistake or two?

JM: Oh, sure, I got an Article 15, which, for those that don't know, is non-judicial punishment. It's beyond a slap on the wrist. It means you caught somebody's attention in the discipline department. I was in Germany experiencing my first Fasching, which is a big celebration over there, akin to Mardi Gras. And you go to these beer fests and wine fests, and you have all kinds of fun until they shut the tents down, and you go back to the barracks and take a quick nap in the shower and get up and go do your thing. And I did really well for the first four or five nights of that celebration. And then... all of that staying out and hooting and hollering took its toll, and about mid-morning one day, I heard his pounding on the door of my barracks room, and it was the First Sergeant wanting to know if I was coming to work today. I just felt really, really bad. And I felt even worse when he called me in and said, the Company Commander is going to give you an Article 15 for failure to report, which is basically not being where you're supposed to be when you're supposed to be there. I had visions of going to jail and losing a stripe and all kinds of other things. The company commander gave me a break and said, “You've been a good soldier, you've worked really hard, you're not one of the troublemakers, but I can't let people do what you did and not hold them accountable. He gave me a $25 fine suspended for 30 days and a reduction from E2 to E1, also suspended for 30 days. At the end of that time, if I was on good behavior again, he would destroy the Article 15. And it was a real wake-up call for me that I had responsibilities to people other than myself. I wasn't an irresponsible guy, but that week I was. I never did that again or anything close to it.

LMJ: So what's the takeaway for the Spec 4 who's maybe jammed up a little bit but wants to be right?

JM: You've got to get back to doing the right thing, and you've got to do it now. And you have to decide, is it all your buddies or is it being a good soldier? You know, sometimes all your buddies can have a lot of fun, and you're the one who pays the bill. You just have to decide what's important to you and get back to being a good soldier or being a good Marine or airman or whatever it is, and do it quickly. That means focusing on your craft again and becoming disciplined and doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do, and avoiding those situations that you know are destined for nothing good.

LMJ: Can you give me an example of a leader who really inspired you over 39 years?

JM: There have been several. I had a near-fatal parachute accident, and I was told, they couldn't save my leg and I would never walk again. I thought back to a guy whom I had met in the early days of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, Staff Sergeant Dale Aberle, who had been a LRRP team leader in Vietnam. Coming back in the wire one day, a thermite grenade, which he carried on his pistol belt, you know, per SOP, he carried on the back of his pistol belt as he stepped through the wire, the pull ring caught on the concertina wire, and it tripped that thermite grenade, which burned him with third degree burns from his waist to his heels. I mean, if you know what thermite is, you know you use it to burn through engines and other material because it's it burns so hot. Staff Sergeant Aberle was burned so badly that they thought they were going to have to amputate his legs, because the scar tissue literally pulled his heels up to his buttocks, and that's how his legs started healing, and they had to cut his lower leg away from his upper leg. If you understand burns, you know the trauma that he went through. He was told he would never walk again.

Several years later, Staff Sergeant Averley became a member of the All-Army Orienteering Team, when they had such things, but, you know, I looked at this guy, I saw the burns on his legs, and I asked him, “Hey, Sarn’t, what happened to you?” And he told me, and this guy could run like the wind. And I stuck that in the back of my brain.

A number of years later, in a different company in the Rangers, we were doing some special operations training, and my company commander walked out the back of an aircraft at 60 feet off the ground at 60 knots speed and landed face-first on the asphalt of the runway up at Fort Lewis. We were told he was going to die. In fact, we went up to visit him in the hospital that night, and the doctor told us to say goodbye because he wasn't going to make it through to the morning. And he grabbed the First Sergeant and told him, "Hey, don't worry about it. I'm going to run a marathon in a year." And you can imagine injuries he had from that fall.

It wasn't a year later, but he did run a marathon, so I had those two guys to kind of inspire me as I went through my own multiple surgeries and “We’re gonna have to take your leg” and “You will never walk again.” I've also run seven marathons since then and gone on to serve another twenty-something years in the army to include as a Sergeant Major of a Ranger Battalion. For physical courage, those are two guys that I look to often when I get feeling sorry for myself because of something hurting. I just look back at them, and others that I know that have had horrific injuries, and all you see is they're grinning. They're out there doing it.

LMJ: And you think that's kind of the essence of what sets you apart in the military? The physical courage?

JM: No. I think, you know, that physical courage has helped me personally. Because, you know, there were innumerable times where I could have just said quit. This is too much; it hurts too badly. I don't want to do it anymore. I've got a set of wind chimes that hang in my living room now. But they used to hang in my office, and what it is, is the plates and the screws they took out of my leg after one of my last surgeries. They're all tied together with fishing line, and at the bottom of it, it says, “No whining.” It used to hang in my office when I was a battalion sergeant major and everywhere since. It hung in my office in Iraq, and now it hangs in my living room as a daily reminder to keep going. Just keep going.

LMJ: I'm sure that somewhere out there, there's a young soldier who saw it and was inspired by it.

JM: I know that a number of them recount it. “Man, I still remember that wind chime in your office.” It was there as kind of a message; “I understand you're hurt. You've got to decide what you're going to do about it. I am telling you, doctors don't always know what you can do.

LMJ: So you're almost a... decade and a half past retirement, have you got any advice for service members on life after the service?

JM: Yes, absolutely! Find something to continue to serve with. I recommend volunteer opportunities. You know, give the people who need the help, the help. Look around locally. None of us lives in a place that doesn't have somebody who needs some kind of help with something. You can go serve meals at a homeless shelter. I've been involved now for, geez, probably fourteen years with a local nonprofit that makes repairs to qualified veteran and first responders' homes. We go in and do everything from replacing toilets and fixing floors, and making minor repairs to roofs and building wheelchair ramps, and replacing windows and doors. We clean debris out of yards and whatnot. I'm an adult literacy instructor. I just got done with eight weeks of reading to pre-K kids. What a blast! But go find something to do that helps you continue to give. Because you can't stop.

You know, if you just stop giving and you're satisfied with what you've done, I think you're going to feel you're missing out pretty often. Go teach kids how to fish. I don't care what it is, find something to do to give and continue to serve because it makes you feel good. You know that you're contributing to somebody and helping them on their way. Go walk dogs at your local animal shelter, you know, something. I think that's fantastic.

LMJ: I've experienced the same thing. I went to the local Literacy Center here to volunteer for adult literacy, but I honestly didn't have the three hours a week they needed. So instead, I'm helping as a conversation partner for English as a Second Language folks and getting them ready for their citizenship interviews.

JM: Very cool. I started as an adult literacy instructor a couple of decades ago. I'll never forget my first student. I was so excited. He was 56, older than me. He couldn't recognize his own name on a piece of paper. He was an air-conditioning guy, heating and air-conditioning. He built ducts. He had been their best guy for years, but they went from paper blueprints to CAD computer, and that's when they discovered he couldn't read. And they basically gave him an ultimatum. You learn to read, or we're going to have to fire you, because he started making mistakes that he wouldn't have made with paper blueprints. I was doing my little interview with him, and I said, so, what's your goal here? And he looked at me, and he said, I want to read a Dr. Seuss book to my granddaughter. And we got him to that point.

LMJ: What have I not asked you that I should have?

JM: Wow. You know, I think this started with that list that is shared below this interview, called A CSM's Thoughts, and really, I generated that because a friend of mine, whom I had known for years, had been selected for a nominative position, and I was in a nominative position. He called me panicking.

We all think we're ready for the next job until we get it, and then we realize how ill-prepared we are. I don't care what it is. When I was a squad leader, I just knew I was the best squad leader in the Army. If you didn't believe me, ask me. And I kept looking at my Platoon Sergeant, thinking, “What an idiot. How did he get that job?” And then I got to be a Platoon Sergeant, and I realized, “I'm the idiot. I don't know what I'm doing here”. And, you know, after a while, I got pretty good at being a Platoon Sergeant, and I started looking at the First Sergeant. You know, “Who am I? How did you get that job?” all the way up to being a Sergeant Major, and then you realize you never were as good as you thought you were, that all you can do is keep getting better.

I think all of us, wherever we are, have to stop and look and think about what we're doing that's contributing and what we're doing that's not contributing and how we can get to be a better contributor than we are. It's kind of like that saying, you know, if you're the smartest guy in the room, you're probably in the wrong room. Or if you think you're the smartest person in the room, you're probably in the wrong room.

If I could go back and do it all over again, I would hope that I would see earlier the value of continuing my civilian education, because it was always easy to get better at being a soldier, but I never associated that with getting better as a person with civilian education. It took me 18 years to get my degree because I had no motivation to get it done.

There's a lot of emphasis in the military now, especially in some units, but yeah, you've got to get that civilian education, not so you’ve got a piece of paper necessarily, but because it exposes you to things to help you be a better soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, and leader.

LMJ: I remember years ago when I was in Iraq, the reconnaissance community policy guys came out to Iraq to kind of brief all the recon marines on what was happening in the career field. And they had developed a whole career path as recon was becoming a primary MOS, which it had not been. And one of the things they were really emphatic about was that “No college required! It's all man stuff, all tough guy stuff. You know, none of this college boy stuff.” And the average Marine in my platoon had three and a half years of college. And every one of them, when the HQs guys left, was like, “Who were those guys?” They were irate, like, “If those are the guys I'm supposed to be, I think I'll look elsewhere.”

JM: But you've got to contrast that. We had a Sergeant Major of the Army at one point who emphasized getting your civilian education. And there were squad leaders, platoon sergeants, and first sergeants that neglected their responsibilities as leaders because, “Hey, I've got to take off – I have to go to college class this afternoon. Sorry, I can't go to the field.” So find the happy medium, all things in moderation. But yeah, you've got to continue to work on that civilian education, even if you came in with a degree, you’ve got to continue to get better at what you do, get smarter at what you do, and there’s nothing wrong with getting some extra credits and extra points and doing it in your career field. It's wonderful, but continue to learn, continue to grow.

This interview stemmed from a discussion about the following thoughts by Jeff Mellinger. Read and take heed.

A Command Sergeant Major’s Thoughts

Many years ago, a good friend of mine, about to become a nominative-level command sergeant major, asked me for some thoughts on what it took to serve as a CSM at the general officer level. I thought for some time about what a command sergeant major should be, know, and do at the nominative level, and I sent him some thoughts. I have made a number of revisions and additions to that original one-pager, and this document is the result.

Shortly after penning that first version, I began sending these thoughts to newly-selected nominative CSMs along with a congratulatory note. Along the way, it occurred to me that every senior leader has similar responsibilities, so please feel free to share these thoughts with other leaders. This list is not prioritized, ordered, or all-inclusive, and I welcome all suggestions and feedback.

Good luck, and remember – the higher you climb the flagpole, the more your rear shows.

• Never, ever, embarrass or place your commander in a spot. There are many ways to avoid this, but the easiest is to always do the right thing. Don’t do anything that may have the appearance of impropriety. If it appears so, Soldiers will believe it so.

• Be the commander’s eyes and ears, and say what needs saying. You should not have to ask to see your commander on enlisted or command matters – you are part of the command team and should have unimpeded access. Be frank and honest – your boss needs your candor.

• The position is bigger than you are. Simply put, be ever mindful that you are but a transient in the position, and you are there to serve, not be served. If ever a decision needs making that could possibly jeopardize the integrity or value of the position, you must choose keeping the position intact.

• Report every meal, gift, trinket or benefit to your legal team. There are laws, and you may break one unknowingly. “I’m sorry” won’t cut it.

• Take time every day to talk to one Soldier, civilian, or family member about something, anything. Just take the time. It will help keep your feet on the floor and your mind on the matter at hand – accomplishing the mission while caring for the troops.

• Always remember that you live in a glass house. It comes equipped with listening devices and a full complement of reporters. Periodically ask someone on the outside (a trusted agent – such as the deputy, another senior NCO, or the IG) what you and your business look like to them. It will help keep you honest and avoid negative appearances.

• Everyone notices when leaders make exceptions to the standard for their circle of friends. If the policy says one thing, and you allow your pals to do something different, you look pretty foolish when you tell someone not on your favorites list that they can’t. Think about that glass house.

• Visit every major subordinate unit at least twice a year. At the battalion or brigade level, visit your units every couple of weeks. More frequently than this may be mission impossible, and you will become a burden without trying.

• Spend quality time with each unit, but not more than two or three days. Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanac, 1736, said, “Fish and visitors smell in three days.” Don’t stay long enough to become a “fish,” but stay long enough to have a meaningful visit. As bad as those who stay too long are the ones who come only for the “bennies” (the annual BBQ, the VIP visit, the foreign wings, etc.), but depart immediately.

• Keep a pocket full of tokens (coins, gadgets, etc.) for presentation, but have someone keep a running list to eliminate the question about how you disbursed the items. I don’t like giving repeat objects, as it tends to cheapen the act. Moreover, I personally do not give coins for the sake of giving coins (glad-handing) – they are meant to recognize achievement or accomplishment and mean something (as they are regulated and intended).

• Take the time to have meaningful talks with officers, NCOs and Soldiers. See them where they work, doing what they do. Remember that these are the really important people in your outfit; the ones who make the rest of us look good. Take the time to let them know that you know what they do for all of us.

• Be loyal to those with whom you serve. Loyalty means standing up for, and behind, your Soldiers when they make mistakes or are wronged, but it doesn’t mean supporting negligence or abuse. And by all of your Soldiers, I also mean leaders, commanders, and others who need your support. You are the Soldiers’ advocate, not just the enlisted advocate! Gut check – what if you have a commissioned or warrant officer wronged by a senior NCO or officer? Will you do the right thing, or will you hide in the shadows and call it officer business?

• When you visit units, know that you will generally see what’s working. You need also to see what is not working, as your job requires you to propose fixes. Be inquisitive, but do not become an inspector. Point out what is working well, and what needs addressing.

• Remember the indicators of leadership: morale, proficiency, esprit, and discipline? When you find units or elements where the indicators of leadership are lagging, take a hard look at the leaders, not the followers. Poor unit morale is a leader’s responsibility, not the follower’s. When you find lots of indiscipline, look at what sort of leadership is present. The Aberdeen sex scandal and Abu Ghraib are directly attributable to senior leader failures, not just individual actions.

• Help commanders and their senior NCOs develop as a team. Build command teams and trust of each in the other. Watch for senior NCOs who are not supportive of the commander, and for commanders who do not utilize their NCOs to the fullest.

• Watch what you say in which forum. Remember that someone will pass your off-handed comments as new “policy,” and most of the time without your knowledge. Sergeants major don’t make policy – they enforce policy.

• Never have “sensing sessions.” They are for chaplains and IGs, not command sergeants major. Sergeants major do their sensing by routinely talking to Soldiers, civilians, and family members. NCO calls are good and can be productive, but bring something germane or pertinent to talk about. Stay abreast of current policies, procedures, and doctrine so you can speak with authority. However, if you do not know for sure, do not give an answer. When you say, “I’ll get back to you,” do it!

• Be as upbeat and optimistic as possible when speaking to groups. Avoid “woe is me” discussions and attitudes. If the discussion turns to something negative, be truthful and honest, factual and forthright, but never pessimistic. Soldiers look to you for your steadfastness and rock-solid demeanor, not for whining and crying. If there is a problem, solve it, or do the best you can with it.

• Find out what your officers, NCOs and Soldiers are concerned with. You are their representative and advocate, and you must know what concerns them in order to be most effective.

• Don’t forget about the staff. They, too, have need and want of your guidance, opinions and thoughts. Part of your job is to work with the staff to ensure sharing of information and coordination exists as appropriate.

• Talk to your Soldiers about the benefits of military life. Discussions sometimes seem to sway towards what’s wrong or not good enough. How do you measure the security you feel on post? How about the benefits we tend to take for granted (commissary, post office, exchange, health and dental, schools)? Where is there more equal opportunity, where truly your work is measured on performance and potential, not skin color, religion or sex? We are in the profession of arms, and the price for our benefits is selfless service, honor, duty and country first.

• Think Army and think Purple. Learn how each MOS interchanges with and assists the other. Learn how each component contributes to your organization and mission. Recognize how each service plays a role. Learn how to communicate the importance of all of this to your Soldiers and NCOs.

• Make a point to visit the end of every line. You have units and personnel that nobody ever visits, but without whom we could not do what we do. Find and recognize every Soldier you can. An impact handshake and a look-them-in-the-eyes-thank-you go further, and mean more, than most people realize.

• Accept that your life belongs to your Soldiers. You must be available for each when they need you – not when you want to. Your place is with your Soldiers, not in the boardroom. How can you ever tell your troops that you can’t visit training or operations because you have meetings, or that your e-mail won’t let you go?

• Be compassionate, yet firm. See the issue from more than one side. Empathize, understand, ask questions, and help others come to their own solutions. Learn to give steering corrections and offer suggestions rather than give direction. Don’t shirk from taking a position on an issue. Check your facts and get input, but take a position. Make a decision. Stick by your decisions, but don’t be afraid to admit that you never intended to go to Abilene, and get the car turned around.

• Never take on public challenges. Let things pass, and save the correction for a private moment as soon as possible. Learn how to take cheap shots without visible emotion. The shooter will become small from embarrassment, and others will think more of you if you are unflappable.

• Check everything before you make a recommendation or decision. Learn how to quietly “run the wickets” or “check the traps.”

• Keep a circle of friends you can call anytime about anything, but keep the circle known only to you. The decisions and recommendations must be yours, but wise leaders always seek other opinions and viewpoints.

• Be physically fit. Do your physical fitness training with your Soldiers. Nothing worse than a senior leader who skates by without doing PT just because they can. After all, who will challenge you? Your conscience should.

• Tough challenge here. Learn to be more demure. de mure. Adj. 1. Modest and reserved in manner or behavior. 2. Affectedly shy, modest, or reserved. Speak quietly and carry a big brain. Get beyond being a battalion CSM or 1SG. Speak with authority when you speak, and speak loudly if you have to, but do most of your work quietly and steadily. But, be a command sergeant major.

• One of my great mentors often said, “... if buck sergeants used all the authority given by law and regulation, they would scare all of us ...” Know what you are charged by law and regulation with accomplishing, and get to it.

• Become more introspective, and take time to think out all the implications and downwind or second- and third-order effects of the next words out of your mouth. Think long and hard before you speak.

• What will your legacy say about you? When you leave, what will be different about your organization? How high will you reach on the wall to leave your mark? If it is said that you took care of your Soldiers and left your unit better than you found it, there is not much better. And it is always and only about the Soldiers.

• Only reserve those things to do yourself that only you can do. You have great Soldiers and civilians – let them do the job for which they trained.

• Find ways to recognize and thank someone more than you find ways to point out flaws. The recipient of recognition will work harder for you and the organization as a result.

• Enforce standards. Sounds easy, but to do this, you have to know and be able to teach correct procedures, policies, and standards. And the hardest part for many is to stop and make the correction, rather than walk on by and pretend not to see. Are you afraid to make a correction because it is uncomfortable? Get over it, because we don’t pick and choose the standards we enforce any more than we pick and choose the orders we follow. As soon as a leader picks and chooses those standards they will enforce or notice, it is a matter of time before they have few standards at all.

• Sexual harassment can go to war as easily as it can go to the main post area, but in war, the consequences are so much more debilitating. Even more so than at home, deployed Soldiers must have explicit trust and confidence in each other - sexual misconduct quickly and completely destroys that trust and confidence in each other and the unit. Leaders must remain vigilant to stop the first signs of sexual misconduct, and CSMs are in a position to easily see those signs.

• Soldiers do exactly in war as they do in training. No seatbelts in training equals death in war (and peace). No helmet in tactical vehicles equals head injuries and death. No muzzle awareness and weapon safety checks equals negligent discharge fatalities and injuries. Don’t wear eye protection in training? You will see Soldiers blinded needlessly. Abusing or roughing up opposing forces or treating role players with disrespect can easily equal crimes in war.

• Set the example. Be fit, professional, punctual, and knowledgeable. Be approachable. Read over your promotion orders, charter, and appointment certificate again, especially the part about “… trust and confidence in [your] patriotism, valor, fidelity and professional qualities and other demonstrated leadership potential…”

• Do you know how your Soldiers live? Have you been to their barracks, been by their quarters, and seen how they spend their off-duty time? They are still your Soldiers 24/7, and you must know how they live, what they worry about, and what their concerns are.

• Help officers feel comfortable talking to the CSM. You have much to offer, and mentoring officers should be on your agenda every day. Take an active role in developing officers - it is a part of your charter.

• Do not fail to investigate. Despite initial appearances or the ease with which you can summarily dismiss accusations of wrongdoing, allow every charge to run its course in the proper fashion, through the proper channels. Do not allow dirt to be swept under a rug. And when results warrant, take appropriate actions. Poor or incorrect behavior will not get better without correction, counseling, or punishment.

• Support equal opportunity, and be a beacon of justice. Sure sounds easy when you say it fast. If you routinely treat Soldiers and civilians with dignity and respect (you can be hard and fair simultaneously), you will do fine. You will surely get into trouble if you ignore, you fail to correct, or you fail to act when you become aware of unfair treatment. And think of what that uncorrected unfair treatment or action will have on your Soldiers. And what of the sexual harassment? Who will trust your leadership if you are not there for every Soldier? One of the hallmarks of military service is that we are all treated according to our demonstrated potential, not on the color of our skin, the religion we practice, or the chromosomes we inherit. You must be diligent in your part in ensuring your unit is free from harassment, discrimination, or unfair practices.

• Reflect for a moment on all the senior leaders you know who destroyed their career with malice aforethought through sexual misconduct or inappropriate relationships of some sort. Their actions are inexcusable, and the damage from those actions remains long after they are gone. And truth be told, most of those so punished didn’t start their behavior as seniors – you saw it in them when they were juniors! What will you do when you have knowledge of such an act?

• Travel when and where you must, but remember you have an obligation to taxpayers to give them a day’s work for a day’s pay. Going TDY to visit friends, see a new place, go shopping, or play a new course is not only illegal, but destroys Soldier's confidence in you. Go to or hold conferences as you must, but be careful that you can say with certainty that you used the time and money as taxpayers expect. And does your admin NCO really need to travel with you? Think about who you are serving.

• Government cellular telephones are for government calls. Don’t be lulled into thinking that the plan allows a certain number of monthly minutes, so it doesn’t matter who you call when from where. You are accountable, and legal opinions will tell you that personal calls from government cell phones are not legal.

• Learn to speak and write using the English language, and do so without profanity. Cursing is colorful, but fails to convey meaning. In addition, if you are inarticulate, others will not take you seriously or consider you competent or even intelligent. In the words of Von Steuben, on choosing NCOs, “… and none can be said to be qualified who do not read and write in a tolerable manner.”

• Be social, but do not fraternize. Attend unit and cohesion functions, but know when it’s time to leave. Be certain that you never drive after drinking, regardless of the amount. Soldier perception will be that you drink and drive. Can you imagine what the MPs at the gate will say after you drive through with a hint of alcohol on your breath? Just don’t do it.

• No matter your rank, every Soldier needs a sergeant. Who is the sergeant that you trust and allow to be your sergeant, to account for you, to train you, and even to recommend punishment for you? A good friend of mine (a senior CSM) wears a road guard vest that has his name preceded by SGT on it, as a reminder to himself and all that he is still a sergeant, even as a CSM.

As I stated in the beginning, this is not an all-inclusive or ordered list. It is just a collection of thoughts intended to cause you to think before you do something that will cost you your credibility, your career, or your future. Best wishes for continued success caring for, training, leading, and maintaining America’s sons and daughters.

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Many thanks to Jeff for the time and wisdom. Lethal Minds Journal runs on support from, and exists for support to, the active and veteran community. You can be a part of it. reach out at lethalmindsjournal.submissions@gmail.com.