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The Angry Staff Officer

angrystaffofficer.com

An Army blogger, engaging in a snark-filled dialogue on leadership, history, and Star Wars, not necessarily in that order.

HistorySociety / politics / economyEssays / personal

’15’20’25
Posts
360 from 17 Nov 2013 to 9 Oct 2026
Posting
monthly (9 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
Feed
https://angrystaffofficer.com/feed/

2026 6

  1. Stop looking for the next Marshall and Eisenhower
  2. What Became of The Army Strategy?
  3. The U.S. Army’s Dangerous Obsession with WWII Europe
  4. What a 98-Year Old Children’s Book Teaches Us About AI
  5. Service does not Require Silence
  6. Citizen-Soldiers – not “Warriors”

2025 15

  1. Don’t bother improving your chess
  2. Uncomfortable with the First Thanksgiving Narrative? Good News, it’s Actually a Civil War Holiday
  3. “After me, the flood:” recovering the Army’s accountability
  4. The General Who Defied a President
  5. A Badly Belated June Reading List
  6. Viewers Like Us: A Love Letter to PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
  7. Thoughts While Visiting the U.S. National World War I Memorial
  8. All I Really Need to Know about Leadership I Learned from Spaceballs
  9. What are the Obligations of Leadership?
  10. April Showers Bring May Books
  11. April is the Cruelest Month, but not for my Reading List
  12. Failure Mechanisms in Democratic Regimes – an Army’s Role
  13. Diversity: The U.S. Military’s Not-So-Secret Weapon
  14. Did You Mean It?
  15. The Dynamics of Regime-Supporting Irregular Paramilitary Forces

2024 11

  1. Reflections on the Conclusion of a Military Career
  2. “Get it Done”: Adjusting to Transitions in Leadership Aboard the USS Enterprise
  3. Neither Sense nor Sensibility: A Weekend Safety Brief from Jane Austen
  4. Missed Opportunity: The Ram’s Head and Military Mountaineering
  5. Understanding the Revolutionary Era: Recommended Reading List
  6. “One Does Not Simply Screen, Guard, and Cover:” The Failure of Security Operations in Fantasy Warfare
  7. What Barbie Teaches Us About Tactics versus Strategy
  8. Doctrine, Droids, & Dragons: An Impassioned Plea for Unconventional Professional Development
  9. Harry Potter and the Magic of Raiding
  10. Military Intelligence in a Galaxy Far, Far Away
  11. Copycats: The American Civil War Lions of Lucerne

2023 8

  1. A Tale of Two Christmas Carols
  2. Water is Wet: “solving” the military recruiting crisis.
  3. Grand Admiral Thrawn: Strategist, Coach, and Mentor
  4. Guest Post: Dear Senior Leaders, It’s Not Us, It’s You
  5. Are We Hearing What We Want to Hear?
  6. Why the American Experience in World War I Matters Today
  7. The Army, Recruiting, and Bad Faith “Woke” Criticism
  8. On Command: A Confession

2022 6

  1. The GWOT Theme Park Experience
  2. The Problem of Remembrance
  3. NATO Operations and the Unifying Power of a Common Language
  4. The Army Post-GWOT: A Reckoning Ignored
  5. What’s in a Name: The Problem with “Warfighter”
  6. American War and American Memory

2021 25

  1. Gratitude: A Leader’s Duty
  2. The Day After Kabul
  3. So, About that Next Wave: Planning for the Next War
  4. Afghanistan Isn’t 1975 South Vietnam, It’s 1948 China
  5. How the Baron Harkonnen Failed at Grand Strategy
  6. Finding Space – Chapter Twenty
  7. The Distress Cycle of American Military Conflicts
  8. “We believe in making treason odious:” U.S. Veterans of the Civil War Attack the Lost Cause
  9. Is Saw Gerrera a Terrorist?
  10. Row Your Boat Ashore for a Break: A Case for The Military Order of St. Jude
  11. Francois de Fleury: the Most Badass Engineer of the American Revolution:
  12. #NextWar: A Fictional Cautionary Tale
  13. Can You Hear Me Now: What Happens When Battlefield Communications Don’t Communicate
  14. Playing Patience: Hills to Die On. Or Not.
  15. Paper Tiger: The Myth of Physical Conflict with China and Implications for Land Warfare in the Pacific
  16. Tips for Task Force Engineers
  17. Finding Space – Chapter Nineteen
  18. Operational Lessons from Legend of Korra
  19. The Army is Not for Everyone
  20. Finding Space – Chapter Eighteen
  21. Taking Ownership: The Problem of Command Teams and the SHARP Program
  22. Message to Garcia: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly
  23. Masked
  24. Good Intentions Do Not a Good Commander Make
  25. America, Get your S**t Together

2020 42

  1. Finding Space – Chapter Seventeen
  2. A Child’s Christmas in Ohio
  3. The Legend of Korra – An Insurgency Masterclass
  4. Army Organizational Issues that Prevent Talent Management
  5. When the Words Stopped
  6. Thanksgiving Operations Order
  7. Pantheon Book Review: Or, How I Lost a Bet
  8. A Veterans Day Carol: Being a Ghost Story of Veterans Day
  9. Finding Space – Chapter Sixteen
  10. Finding Space – Chapter Fifteen
  11. Forget Love in the Time of Cholera, How About Assessment in the Time of COVID-19?
  12. Star Wars is Bullsh*t! – Lies Science Fiction Taught Me About Strategic Planning
  13. Mental Health in the Military: A Parable
  14. 5 Ways the Military is an Absurdist Organization
  15. Finding Space – Chapter Fourteen
  16. A Tarnished Legacy: Confederate Battle Honors and the Army National Guard
  17. How “Scrubs” Characters are Basically Your Military Unit
  18. Put Down Clausewitz, Pick Up Pratchett
  19. An Ongoing American Revolution
  20. The Issue with the Army’s SHARP Program: How Army Culture Dismisses its Female Service Members
  21. Stormtrooper Safety Brief
  22. Finding Peace for the Army Mind
  23. Finding Space – Chapter Thirteen
  24. Leader, Know Thyself
  25. Beans under a Carolina-Blue Sky: Remembering my Father
  26. Russian Military to Occupy Baltics to Prevent COVID-19 Infections
  27. Yes, #MilTwitter is Still Worthwhile
  28. Incongruous
  29. Why doesn’t it
  30. Mean Hegemons
  31. FOB Couch: COVID Isolation, Deployments, and Coping Tips
  32. Assuming Command: A Guide for Incoming Company Commanders
  33. Readiness in the Time of Coronavirus
  34. Take a Knee and Drink Water: Mental Health in the Army
  35. The Wait
  36. Channeling Anger into Action
  37. Finding Space – Chapter Twelve
  38. Stop Calling Armed Mobs the “Militia”
  39. Army Unit Numerical Designations: Where do they come from?
  40. The Case Against Starbuck: Why Talent is Not Enough
  41. The Real Failure at Winterfell
  42. The Importance of Being a Self-Aware Leader

2019 37

  1. A Fantastical Council of War
  2. Want to build a combat focused culture in your unit? Start with your language
  3. Finding Space – Chapter Eleven
  4. Fixing Veterans Day
  5. What is Our Service?
  6. On Service: A Veterans Day Introspective
  7. Warfighter: Helm’s Deep
  8. Pandora’s Inbox: The Army and Social Media
  9. Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory on Wakanda
  10. Finding Space – Chapter Ten
  11. Finding Space – Chapter Nine
  12. Finding Space – Chapter Eight
  13. Finding Space – Chapter Seven
  14. On Rendering Honor
  15. Getting the Elephant in the Room to the Front Lines: Engineer Sustainment at JRTC
  16. Finding Space – Chapter Six
  17. If the U.S. Army had Elephants at Gettysburg
  18. Finding Space – Chapter Five
  19. Finding Space – Chapter Four
  20. Taylor Swift Songs as U.S. International Relations
  21. Thaddeus Kosciusko: The Polish Engineer You Never Heard of who Saved America
  22. Finding Space – Chapter Three
  23. Finding Space – Chapter Two
  24. Marvel-ling at the Pentagon: Force Design in the MCU
  25. Finding Space – Chapter One
  26. Thursday Thoughts: Warfare in 5G
  27. The Wakandan Civil War: A Profile in State Reconstruction
  28. Friday Fuming: WWII and Expectation Management
  29. Debunking the Myth of Southern Hegemony: Southerners who Stayed Loyal to the US in the Civil War
  30. Military Lessons Learned from the Battle of Wakanda
  31. Thursday Thoughts: Developmental Counseling
  32. Never Tell Me the Odds: Prospect Theory, Risk Acceptance and Asteroid Fields
  33. Recruiting the Next Generation of National Guard Soldiers
  34. 5 Time-Saving Tips for National Guard Company Commanders
  35. Are Active Duty Army Systems and Procedures Harming Reserve Component Readiness?
  36. What Going Back to Tech School Taught Me About Being an NCO
  37. Learning from Bad Examples: When Poor Leadership Can Be Valuable

2018 44

  1. A Letter Home from the Civil War on Christmas
  2. Ethics: the Leader’s Struggle
  3. Christmas: Not Always the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
  4. Eight Times the National Guard Saved the Day
  5. Are Systems Access Restrictions Marginalizing Reservists and Guardsmen?
  6. Rebel Safety Brief on Hoth
  7. Army Branch Songs: Where Did They Come From?
  8. Thanksgiving Safety Brief
  9. National Guard Bureau Reveals that “Guard 4.0” was Result of Drunken Night
  10. Armistice and After: The Legacy of the WWI Generation in the U.S.
  11. The Killing of Major Taylor
  12. Wait, Whose Intent? The Role of Commander’s Intent in Army Order Writing
  13. If Military Commissioning Sources were Hogwarts Houses
  14. When the Force is Not With You: Mentorship and Star Wars
  15. Rebel Insurgency: Without Hope or Method
  16. Reading List for the U.S. in World War I
  17. If the Hoth Crash was an Air Force Investigation
  18. Mentorship: Cross-Component Leader Development
  19. Being a Rebel Leader: Disciplined Disobedience in the Army
  20. Training for Defeat
  21. Cake and Perfidy: the 1968 Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia
  22. The Military “Give a S**t” Spectrum
  23. Carte Blanche Foreign Policy: the Curse of the All-Volunteer Force
  24. “Are the Shields Up?:” Decision Making in “Return of the Jedi”
  25. The Perils of Command
  26. In an American Cemetery in France: Thoughts on Memorial Day
  27. We Were There Too: the US Army at Belleau Wood
  28. An Angry Staff Officer Exclusive – a sneak peak at new Star Wars characters!
  29. Warfighter: Battle of Endor
  30. “What About Second Breakfast?” How “The Lord of the Rings” Mirrors Army Culture
  31. What Makes Us Forget Wars?
  32. Guest Post: Hashtags are not Enough
  33. A Soldier and His Dog: Review of “Sgt Stubby: An American Hero”
  34. The Iraq War, 15 Years On
  35. Army Hair Throughout the Ages
  36. Thoughts While Reading World War I Rosters
  37. Guest Post: The Growing Emptiness of Service
  38. 7 Characteristics of Highly Successful Non-Commissioned Officers
  39. A Murky Heritage: the U.S. Army, the Civil War, and Memory
  40. Gin: the Military Spirit
  41. Why Do We Write?
  42. Day in the life of a Rebel Alliance Tower Guard on Yavin 4
  43. Tommy and the Road to Stanley: A Bedtime Story of the Falklands Conflict
  44. World War I Stands as a Lesson Against a “Bloody Nose” Strike on North Korea

2017 57

  1. Predictions for 2018
  2. A Leadership Vacuum: “The Last Jedi” and Mission Failure
  3. What is Worth Fighting For?
  4. Guest Post: Military Scrutiny Isn’t a Bad Thing; In Fact, We Need More
  5. The Force Awakens to High Risk HUMINT
  6. The Schoolyard Bully: A Bedtime Story of the Iran-Iraq Conflict
  7. I Didn’t Know
  8. Drawn to the Battlefield
  9. Stormtrooper Goes on Veterans Day Rant
  10. The Ghost of Black Jack Pershing: the US Army and the Centennial of WWI
  11. An Army Officer’s Guide to Public Speaking
  12. The Star Wars Bomber Gap
  13. First Order Change of Command
  14. If “Firefly” Characters were in the U.S. Military
  15. Defeating Writer’s Block
  16. Guest Post: The Flag, the Military, and Patriotism
  17. Guest Post: The Warfighter’s Desire
  18. Deconstructing the Reconciliation Narrative of the Civil War
  19. Warfighter: Bunker Hill
  20. Leaning into the Belt of Obedience, or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Reflective Belt
  21. Guest Post: a Current Officer’s Thoughts on Robert E. Lee
  22. Guest Post: Celebrating the Army’s Positive Past
  23. The Different Types of Army Staff Officers by Branch
  24. Guest Post: Who is Achilles Anyways? A Millennial Fires Back
  25. “I Would’ve Served, But…”
  26. Hogwarts Houses as Army Branches
  27. Is the Army’s Professional Military Education System Broken?
  28. Warfighter: Hoth
  29. ASO’s Summer Reading List
  30. The History of the Military Knife Hand
  31. Here’s Some Memes, Go See a Star War
  32. We Need a Universal Veteran Symbol for America’s Recent Conflicts
  33. Wonder Woman & the Great War: How WWI gets the Heroine it’s Always Needed
  34. Impenetrable Terrain – Isn’t
  35. How I Lost at Patriotism – And How We All Lose
  36. Guest Post: LARPing for Leader Development
  37. How Experience in WWI brought the U.S. Army to Victory in WWII
  38. How the U.S. Military Celebrated Star Wars Day
  39. Galactic Staff Officers: Battle Staff as Star Wars Characters
  40. Imperial News Update from Scarif
  41. Hashtag 6: the Social Media Wars
  42. Why 1866 Set the Stage for Two World Wars
  43. Use of Force: 7 U.S. Military Actions You’ve Never Heard Of
  44. ” Look! Here are the Americans!” The U.S. in World War I and Popular Memory
  45. Star Wars by Other Means: Rogue One and Foreign Policy
  46. A Short History of the Militia in the United States
  47. The U.S. Military Photo Scandal: Whose Fault is It?
  48. Guest Post: It Takes A Leader: Successful Integration of Combat Arms
  49. No More Task Force Rogue Ones: A Tactical Analysis of the Raid on Scarif
  50. Warfighter: Toad Hall
  51. War as a Human Endeavor: How do we train for that?
  52. Jedi Council After Action Review
  53. Not in our Time: A Warning
  54. Imperial Maintenance Memo: Circle X’d AT-ATs
  55. When the United States Army Went to War Armed with French Weapons
  56. Guest Post: Stormtrooper Performance in Contemporary Operations
  57. Taking Care of Soldiers: What Does that Mean?

2016 65

  1. Thank You: No, Really, I Mean It
  2. Error Message: Rogue One and Realistic Military Operating Systems
  3. Galactic Email: Sustainment Issues for Director Krennic’s Shuttle
  4. Stop Calling Us Warriors
  5. Waving the Bloody Shirt: Getting Americans Ready For the Upcoming War with Iran
  6. “Mine DTS Papers are Denied:” Letter Home from an Admin Clerk in the Continental Army
  7. In Search of Monsters to Destroy: The Trump Administration and Iran
  8. Mandatory Briefings: the Imperial Edition
  9. 5 Common Things Military Servicemembers Do that Only Make Sense to Them
  10. Combined Arms Breaching: From Helm’s Deep to Mosul
  11. What can Fallout 4 Teach us About Veterans Day?
  12. Warfighter: Middle Earth
  13. Writing a Novel about Terrorism: When Fiction Becomes Reality
  14. How the Current Generation Is Dishonoring the Greatest Generation
  15. A Life Well-Lived: Memorial to my Grandfather
  16. What’s in a Name? Blogging under a Pseudonym
  17. The Army Stance: What it Says About You
  18. Dealing with a Teenage Global War on Terrorism
  19. Full Spectrum Professional Development
  20. Donald Trump’s Generals Comments, Explained
  21. The Real Army Mob: The E-4 Mafia
  22. How do I Talk to my “Boots” About Politics? Retaking the American Narrative in the Marine Corps
  23. Retaking the American Narrative: A Challenge to the U.S. Army
  24. Additional Duties? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Additional Duties! Ten Tips for Executing the Role of Executive Officer
  25. A Veteran’s Response to Allen West
  26. Winning the Civil War, Finally
  27. Top Gun 2: What Might Have Been
  28. To my Cat, on the Occasion of his Parting
  29. Skywalker on Trial: the Galactic Code of Military Justice
  30. Wherein I Come Out of Anesthesia
  31. Anatomy of a World War I Artillery Barrage
  32. Army Staff Meetings and their Corresponding Cocktails
  33. Is the Way the Army Looks at Uniforms Completely Wrong?
  34. Is DoD Contracting Out of Control?
  35. Not Understanding the Fight Against ISIS: An Open Letter to Donald Trump
  36. Mil-splaining Memorial Day: Stop it
  37. Why ISIS Will Outlast the Coalition Arrayed Against It, and Why It’s Our Own Damn Fault
  38. Galactic Lessons Never Learned
  39. The Donald Meets The Bard: If Trump were Henry V
  40. Get Out of the Way and Let Us Do Our Jobs: A NCO’s Perspective
  41. And Then? What Happens After Victory Over Daesh
  42. 18 Things I Look For in a Senior Rater
  43. Walking a World War I Battlefield
  44. Timeless Maxims of War
  45. It’s Time for Another Louisiana Maneuvers
  46. Tolkien and Combat Stress: Writing as a Release
  47. Ballad of a Young Staff Officer
  48. Guest Post: The Federal Holiday System
  49. The Gettysburg Address – the Donald Trump Version
  50. Classic Military Quotes Brought into the Modern Era
  51. What is Readiness and How Do We Get There?
  52. How “Cups” is Actually About the U.S. War in Afghanistan
  53. “Of the Highest Order:” June 16, 1918
  54. Military Graphics: What they SHOULD Mean
  55. World War III: Stop Trying to Prevent It
  56. Thrown into the Deep End: Tips for New Platoon Leaders
  57. A Combat Badge Does Not a Soldier Make
  58. Star Wars: The Hope Awakens
  59. Integrity: The Unseen Skill Badge
  60. The First Order Complains
  61. Seven Military Leadership Lessons from Calvin and Hobbes
  62. First Order After Action Review for Operations on Jakku
  63. Three Times Massachusetts Earned the Title Masshole
  64. Land Rights and the Formation of the U.S. Army
  65. The Oregon Insurrectionists and the Whiskey Rebellion

2015 33

  1. Predictions for 2016
  2. Five Bad Excuses for Not Writing this Week
  3. A Day in the Life of a Rebel Alliance Logistician
  4. Star Wars Reading List
  5. A Day in the Life of an Imperial Staff Officer
  6. Xenophobia: An American Saga
  7. Ethical America and Militarization
  8. Has the U.S. begun a new Monroe Doctrine in the Middle East?
  9. Give Thanks for What?
  10. Battle Staff Made Human
  11. Center for Galactic Lessons Learned
  12. Get Your Cynical Fix On at Facebook
  13. This Veterans Day, Let’s be Americans
  14. The Veteran Transformation of November 11, 1918
  15. How Forward Operating Bases Created the Illusion of War in Iraq and Afghanistan
  16. The Life and Times of Ulysses S. Grant
  17. Lessons for the Awkward Kid
  18. The Birds of War: Twitter as a Professional Development Tool
  19. Thoughts On Beauty
  20. Closure is Hard to Find
  21. What Do the Revolutions of 1848 Tell us About Modern Politics?
  22. All Things Old are New Again The U.S. Army and the Changing Operating Environment
  23. The Fighting First Sergeant: Walter Pottle and World War II
  24. A Socratic Dialogue with a Staff Officer
  25. If U.S. Wars were Arrested Development Characters
  26. The Art of Control
  27. The Caliphate Strikes Back: Star Wars and the Islamic State
  28. What if We Had a War and No One Knew?
  29. Drunken Disaster at Harper’s Ferry
  30. Remembering Pain: 9/11 and Collective Memory
  31. History: The Overlooked Military Discipline
  32. Remembering the Civil War: Or Forgetting It
  33. Memory as an Engagement Area, and what memory tells us about ourselves

2014 9

  1. The Top 10 Reasons I’m Thankful for the Army
  2. We know Old Soldiers just fade away, but where do Young Soldiers Go?
  3. Location, Location, Location: How shared locations bond two generations of U.S. military veterans
  4. On Giving Thanks: My Perspective
  5. Tilting at Windmills: Army Officer Education versus Training
  6. Beware of Looking the Gift Horse in the Mouth: When the Horse is Actually a Weapon
  7. Hurtling Towards Mediocrity: The Army “Garrison” Initiative and the Death of Innovation
  8. Backyard Battles: Childhood, Military, and Perception
  9. On the Future of Army History: Still Lost in the Woods Looking for a Reflective Belt

2013 2

  1. Unicorns At War: Leadership in the Army
  2. Retrograde: The Least Sexy thing in the Army