Dateline: above the garage in Portsmouth RI, 15 January 2005
Nice email from an officer about the original Esquire article and PNM. I zero out all the names because I don't think that's the point here:
Subject : Officer Professional Development and Your BookSir,
While a NWC student during early-2003, you lectured a group of us who were
taking an elective in innovation and change. The basis was your celebrated
"Esquire" article.
Following graduation, I deployed to Iraq to command a combat engineer group and correlated much of what you presented with what I saw happening on the ground and in the region (though I am by no means an expert).
Redeployed, the Brigade's senior leadership (major and above) will begin
exploring your work "The Pentagon's New Map" as an Officer Professional
Development project. Any view on our approach will be helpful. FYI, our new
Corps Commander, LTG [name], supports the idea.
Just to let you know I got something out of your lecture!
VR
[name]
Colonel, US Army Engineers
Commanding
[number]th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade (Provisional)
Fort [name], [state]
It's the irony that gets me at a moment like this: this guy gets exposed at the Naval War College and takes it back to the Army, where it has real impact. Like much of my recent work, it appealed more to non-Navy audiences than Navy ones. Hence I was viewed as "not giving my best work" to the college/Navy, the prime motivator for the split. Makes me wonder in retrospect if what I should have done back in '98 was go to Carlisle or Maxwell AFB instead of Newport. But then, no Newport, no Cebrowski, no Office of Force Transformation, so clearly it was meant to be. It's just that, with a letter like this, you'd like to be able to walk away thinking you did do your job, which was to get to the truth of the matter, whether it served the Navy or not.
(Sigh!)
Just the nostalgia setting in as I packed away another couple of boxes of books from my office up above the garage . . .
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