ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

What makes a good leader? Countless articles, books, videos, blogs and doctrinal publications attempt to answer this question, and they are all probably correct to some degree.

However, upon reflection, it occurred to us that as young soldiers, we often developed strong feelings about our leaders and their ability to lead. These feelings were not based on some formal application of leadership style or doctrine, but rather, on the quality of time they spent with us.

In early assessments of our leaders, squad leaders were the most frequent targets of our judgment. Our mental leadership...

The purpose of briefing is to convey information in a manner the audience can best receive the information. This could be for support, funding, information, a decision or general knowledge. Regardless, your responsibility is to present the information in a way that sticks in the boss’ mind. The briefing is not about what you know, how the slides look or about what you say. It is always about how your boss receives the information.

Following are some tips to help you prepare better briefings to help your boss. These tips go beyond the administrative considerations of posture, speaking voice...

What makes a good leader? Countless articles, books, videos, blogs and doctrinal publications attempt to answer this question, and they are all probably correct to some degree.

However, upon reflection, it occurred to us that as young soldiers, we often developed strong feelings about our leaders and their ability to lead. These feelings were not based on some formal application of leadership style or doctrine, but rather, on the quality of time they spent with us.

In early assessments of our leaders, squad leaders were the most frequent targets of our judgment. Our mental leadership...

The simple request came in an email, asking me to provide some thoughts about the importance of mentorship. A story about someone who helped me become a better leader.

Thinking back over two careers—my long time in the Army and a shorter time in the health care industry—hundreds of faces appeared in my memory’s eye. General officers like Fred Franks, Eric Shinseki, Larry Jordan and Herbert Lloyd delivered phenomenal guidance and helped me grow, as did command sergeants major like Roger Blackwood, Thomas Capel and David Davenport. Several drill sergeants and even a few privates and young...

What follows is a tale, a true one, not a tall one. It is the legacy message of a unit in which leadership, teamwork and esprit de corps flourished. Beyond that, it also is the story of a game and the special role it played in helping prepare the officers, NCOs and soldiers of that unit to fight and win on other fields on other days.

I arrived at my new unit, the 1st Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, in January 1984 and was there only 24 hours when I first heard of the game that dominated the unit’s casual conversation throughout the year.

On the surface, the Panzer Bowl was a flag...

The word “infantry” is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “soldiers trained, armed, and equipped to fight on foot.” This is a modest definition for soldiers who, since time immemorial, have fought as the vanguard of the military power of their respective national entities.

In his landmark 1997 book, The World Within War: America’s Combat Experience in World War II, author Gerald Linderman notes that in numerous theaters, Army infantrymen and Marine riflemen constituted 14% of American troops overseas while suffering 70% of the casualties.

Since World War II, 4% of the total...

The first time I met him, Col. Walter Ballard Clark scared the hell out of me. He wasn’t a big man. In fact, he stood well under 6 feet tall. Yet he was crew cut and ramrod straight. A wiry, intense guy, he had eyes that could burn holes in you like two laser beams, and he was blessed with a classic command voice. He was the commandant of cadets at The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina in Charleston. Although the college featured a dignified, distant, three-star general as its president, for some 2,000 cadets, Clark, of The Citadel’s Class of 1951, embodied the rod of iron...

My first Army assignment was with the 187th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. I was a 17-year-old paratrooper, a private first class, and the NCOs in my unit were, for all intents and purposes, my adoptive parents.

I listened closely to what they had to say and watched everything they did. They were for me what “right looks like.”

The father figure of my new Army family was Sgt. 1st Class Zop. Zop was my first role model and mentor. We didn’t know his first name, because we were not authorized to know. As far as we were concerned, his first name...

The Department of Defense and the Army fail to incentivize and compensate sergeants major at the senior commander level, as demonstrated by increasing authority and responsibility without comparable pay and retirement benefits. Given a focus on people first and being a personnel-based service, the Army needs to initiate a campaign with DoD to petition Congress for the establishment of an E-10 pay grade.

The failure to incentivize and compensate sergeants major at the senior commander level becomes apparent when comparing the pay grade progression of commissioned officers and sergeants major...

For more than 55 years, former Capt. Larry Taylor has thought about one night in June 1968.

On that moonless night, Taylor repeatedly flew his AH-1 Cobra gunship under heavy enemy fire to save the lives of four fellow soldiers trapped on the ground in Vietnam, surrounded by nearly 100 enemy fighters.

“I’ve thought long and hard about that night, over and over,” Taylor said. “I don’t know what we could’ve done to make it any better, but we didn’t lose a man. Everybody we came with went home with us.”

On Sept. 5, Taylor finally received the honor he was due for his actions on that night...

Warrior Pays Heavy Price in Mogadishu

With My Shield: An Army Ranger in Somali. James Lechner. Osprey Publishing (An AUSA Title). 288 pages. $32

By Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, U.S. Army retired

With My Shield: An Army Ranger in Somalia is a riveting first-person account of the Battle of Mogadishu, Somalia. But it is more than that. It is also the origin story of an American warrior, James Lechner, who marched to the sound of America’s guns as often as he could and paid a heavy price for his courage.

Many of us are familiar with the story of Black Hawk Down from the hit movie, if...

Your Association of the U.S. Army has come a long way since its founding in 1950 as a nonpartisan, educational nonprofit dedicated to professional development, advancing national security and promoting greater recognition of the Army’s vital role in American life.

The handful of infantry and field artillery officers who attended the association’s first meeting in a small Pentagon office wanted the Army’s professional association to grow. They couldn’t have imagined that, in 2023, AUSA would have more than 1.3 million members committed to a strong national defense and to supporting the Total...

Today’s Army is “on the right path,” says Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, but that path will be “steep and rocky” for the next couple of years.

“I think we are facing the most dangerous security environment I’ve seen in my professional career,” she said in an interview. At the same time, the Army faces “constrained” resources and a budgetary top line that has been “largely flat,” she said, and a “very, very politicized environment” that makes it difficult to talk through challenges and make decisions.

The biggest hill for the Army to climb is recruiting. The Army is still falling short...

This article was updated after Gen. Randy George was confirmed by the Senate and sworn in as the 41st Army chief of staff on Sept. 21.

Facing quickly evolving and ever-deepening threats, the Army must focus on warfighting and being ready for any mission it’s called upon to perform, said Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George.

“The Army faces many challenges today at home and abroad, and there will be more in the years ahead, but this is not new. … Facing down challenges both known and unknown is what our Army is built to do,” George said Aug. 4 at outgoing Army Chief of Staff Gen. James...

Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Weimer has spent most of his career in some of the Army’s most elite special operations units, training for and fighting America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now, as the Army’s senior enlisted soldier and one of the service’s most visible leaders, Weimer’s focus has not changed.

“We’ve got some tough, tough times ahead of us with decision-making and resource allocation and how we shape the Army to be able to be ready, like really ready,” Weimer said. “So, where am I going to focus? It starts with warfighting. It goes to being able to project ready forces...