In 1995, Robert Craven was a teenage high school dropout with a baby on the way. Looking for options to improve his life, he turned to the Army and embraced its “be all you can be” motto as his own. Years later, as the senior platoon sergeant in a HIMARS battery deployed to Afghanistan, Craven found himself having to replace the rotating first sergeant while simultaneously addressing a command climate in another platoon that risked mission success. Now the command sergeant major for the United States Corps of Cadets at West Point, Craven shares his hard-earned wisdom and reflects on what it means to lead with love.
In the spring of 2003, Lt. Col. Dave Rittgers commanded a Special Forces team deploying to Afghanistan. As soon as the team arrived in...
Few books have had the impact on generations of young soldiers as Jim McDonough’s Platoon Leader: A Memoir of Command in Combat. First published...
In 2004, Tim Strabbing was a lieutenant and platoon commander in the Marine Corps, deployed to an area just outside Fallujah in Iraq's restive...