A Soldier walks into a bar

A soldier walks into a bar, part 1

I was seated at the bar in an Italian restaurant in Fishkill, NY, when a soldier walked in, took a seat a few places down, ordered meals to go, and a glass of wine. I told the bartender I’d like to buy his wine. He graciously said, “not necessary, but thank you.” I answered, “I would really like to. You see, I just spent four days at the US Army War College in Carlisle, PA.” He asked what I’d been doing at the USAWC…

I was attending the US Army War College’s Annual National Security Seminar (NSS) which is the final event of an intensive 10-month program of study on strategic aspects of national security for a cohort of students comprising 340 officers and senior government civilians from all branches of the US Military, as well as International Fellows (military officers) representing 74 countries around the world. The goals of NSS include helping the students better understand the society they serve through interaction and engagement with a representative group of Americans (160 guests this year from 37 states), and helping the guests learn about the military and those who serve, to help close the perception gap that often exists between civilians and the military.

This was a powerful learning experience. I met people I’d never have encountered in my “real” life, learned how the USAWC serves developing leaders and their families, and engaged in conversation with military officers, faculty, historians, and guests from a variety of places and professions.?My outcomes? I learned about the military, I learned about those who serve, and I learned about myself. ?

Some of what I learned about the Army, and by extension, the military

Having done the suggested pre-reading, I entered the program with the sense that the army faces challenges not unlike other large, complex organizations: recruiting and retaining talent, maintaining strategic and technological relevance, building readiness to perform, creating and sustaining a positive culture. Like others, they’re trying to figure out how to instill standards, behaviors, and values at scale. Scale in this case is a workforce that rotates every 18 months. On average, about 10,000 soldiers a month enter basic military training. As a student of leadership and organizational culture, this was a mind-blowing data point. I know how hard it was to build culture in an organization of 90,000 employees with 15% – 18% annualized turnover. 10,000 new employees a month? Staggering.

I learned about the importance of standards, norms, and tradition in the military. Mostly, these things are strengths. In moments of crisis and unpredictability, all that training and discipline matters. And in any strong culture, there can be unintended consequences that can serve to exclude or oppress those who are different. We had open and honest dialogue about this; I was impressed with the level of candor that characterized these discussions. No easy answers, of course. Like many organizations, they’re making progress, and they’re struggling.

I left with a rudimentary understanding of the three levels of warfare: strategic, operational and tactical. These lessons were enhanced during a Gettysburg Staff Ride, led by Professor Doug Douds. The Staff Ride was a flawlessly facilitated history lesson, deep dive into military strategy, tactics and operations, and theatrical performance I’d have happily paid to see on Broadway. Professor Douds is an incredibly well-informed historian, student of military strategy, well-spring of captivating insights, gifted orator, and performance-educator-rockstar unlike any I have ever seen. He created a you-are-there learning experience for us, and there was no non-thinking option on this ride. I wasn’t the only guest who was brought to tears (sadness, awe, inspiration) more than once.

I re-learned the criticality of leadership. Leadership matters. It matters in the military more than it does in most places. And while this was reinforced in the plenary sessions by the distinguished speakers, I got an even stronger sense of leadership by sitting with officers, soldiers and senior civilians from all over the country (and the world), and hearing their experiences and stories. To a person, they embodied leadership, regardless of rank. The experience of leadership was visceral and powerful and inescapable.

Some of what I learned about those who serve

There’s the big lesson: the officers and soldiers I met demonstrated commitment, professionalism, curiosity, energy, discipline, clarity of purpose, resilience…it was one of the most impressive groups of people with a common bond I’ve ever encountered.

And there are small lessons. The ones you learn when you talk with those who serve one on one. This is especially powerful for folks like me who don’t have family or close friends who serve: our data points tend to come from the media, and you can guess where that story leads. In the media circus, for example, I never heard about:

·??????M, who didn’t really intend to join up, but did so after taking an ROTC course to address a GPA challenge in school; he’s in his 24th year of service. As my program sponsor, he made sure I knew everything I needed to know, and that I didn’t get lost or misplaced. M answered about a million questions I could never ask before (What do the different pins on the uniforms mean? Why is that officer’s jacket different from the others? What does it mean to be commissioned and why would a soldier choose to stay as an NCO rather than commission?)

·??????D, who joined in order to be able to go to college, having come from a family that didn’t have the means to send her. She joined, did her time, left, and then returned because she missed the people, the work, the organization. She had an inner light that grabbed you by the throat; it was impossible to avoid her energy, even if you wanted to.

·??????My friend of more than 15 years, C, who nominated me for the program and is faculty at the USAWC. For the first time, I was able to see him in his element. I guess I’ve always known he was brilliant and insightful…he’s been called Yoda more than once. What I hadn’t seen before was the easiness with which he moves among the roles of teacher, mentor, coach, friend, and sage. When you see people in their own spaces, it’s a different perspective.

Beyond the personal connections, I walked away with a visceral sense of individuals with faces and lives, versus a blurry and underinformed picture of many. We all have fears. We all have hopes. We all struggle. We all rejoice. We are more alike than we are different. I will carry this forever. We are more alike than we are different.

Some of what I learned about myself

I was reminded of my data window’s propensity to close quickly. When the data window is open, and new stuff that you didn’t expect comes in, you can choose to snap the window shut…or leave it open…and work through your discomfort. I think I often approach the world with the sense that I am right. In Carlisle, I ran headlong into stereotypes and stories that have made sense to me my whole life. And most of them are wrong or under-informed. It’s easier to judge than to listen. It’s easier to know than to learn. I was challenged every day to open, open, open my thinking.

I learned enough about the military and those who serve to know that my perception gap between civilian and military worlds, indeed, did shrink. Bravo to the USAWC for creating an immersive learning experience like this.

I also was reminded that what is best about me is my ability to connect, to reach people, to feel. It happened over and over throughout the seminar. And it happened again on the way home when a soldier walked into a bar.

A soldier walks into a bar, part 2

I told the soldier at the bar, BJ, the story about where I’d been and what I’d been doing. He still serves, now in a reserve capacity. He also creates podcasts about innovation and engineering for his business. But for Memorial Day this year, he did something different and special. He created a podcast about the true meaning of Memorial Day, in which he interviewed the mother of his lifelong friend and West Point roommate, Dennis Zilinski, who was killed November 19, 2005 in Iraq. BJ loaded the link to the podcast onto my phone (Hello, Boomer…) so I could find it on my way home the next day. Few obituaries capture the full essence of who someone was; BJ’s conversation with Dennis’s mother made me feel like I’d known him. I honor her vulnerability, courage and faith in talking about her son and how her family has continued to go on after his death. One of the things that my friend C said in a presentation at the war college is “faith is a living thing.” If you need proof of that, listen to Dennis Zilinski’s mom.

I sent a note to BJ that night and told him that I hoped to write something about my experience of the NSS, and now had a possible working title: A Soldier Walks Into A Bar. What are the odds, BJ? He wrote back, Of all the gin joints in the world…

Note: the Staff Ride is widely used as an educational tool in a variety of learning environments. Here’s a video of Professor Douds explaining the educational value of staff rides. As you watch, imagine the indescribable gift of eight hours with this man.

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/videos/staff-rides