Goodbye Blogger

See how the blog that shattered readship records began. When you are done reading about JoNova and want to know how this blog began, check out my very first post.

For 2015, My Public Affairs has moved to the Medium platform. Same great content. Slick new interface. Always free. 

It's the best value on the web, and I look forward to your patronage in the years to come!

How the Grass Grows at Gettysburg

There was surprisingly little mention of the famed bayonet charge at the Gettysburg National Historic Park. I know because we took a unit morale trip there last week, where Whit Houston snapped some amazing photos.

The new visitors' center-- complete with a museum and film-- is great. It's much bigger than the old one across the street from the Soldiers' National Cemetery. But neither the film nor any of the static displays mentioned the feat of the 20th Maine. I visited the spot, which deserves some explanation.

From Nine Weeks:

The epitome of a close combat weapon is the bayonet. 

“What is the spirit of the bayonet?” 

“To kill! Kill! Kill without mercy!” 

The entire battery was formed on the PT field adjacent to our starship. We had been issued bayonets, which were essentially knives to affix to the end of our rifles. Otherwise, they hung in a holster from our pistol belts, and we only attached them once for practice.

“What makes the green grass grow?” 

“Blood! Blood! Bright red blood!”

Drill Sergeant Martinez followed a script throughout the training, which highlighted the time-honored offensive thrusting, jabbing, and slashing maneuvers with the bayonet. It also contained Army legend about Lawrence Chamberlain, the Union commander of the 20th Maine, who led a bayonet charge on the second day at the battle of Gettysburg in July, 1863.

LTC Chamberlain, who was also a professor, was tasked with holding the high ground on the far left flank of the Union forces that day. His unit, posted at the base of a hill called Little Round Top, was as important as it was tenuous. Manifesting the value of the hill as the stepping stone to the higher hill to its south, Confederate troops fired on Chamberlain’s position relentlessly hoping to gain the high ground where they could place cannon to fire down the Union line with impunity.

As his men ran out of ammunition, Chamberlain made the decision to attack with that most elemental of weapons: the blade. Sounding the order, “Fix, BAYONETS!” he led the charge that successfully drove off the attackers. His heroism, tenacity, and courage could very well have saved the Union that day, for the federal troops held the high ground and forced The Southern generals to make the ill-fated charge at the center of the line that next day, where they met stiff resistance. Gettysburg was the confederate high tide. After the summer of 1863, the Union victories began to mount, and the Confederates’ resources dwindled in the face of continued federal strength. Chamberlain has rightly been lifted to hero-status, and his bayonet charge central to his legacy.

“What is the spirit of the bayonet?”

“To kill! Kill! Kill without mercy!”

Two-hundred of us stood in our positions on the field, in extended lines a dozen rows deep, plunging and swiping our rifles in unison—a perfectly choreographed display of deathly obedience.

“What makes the green grass grow?”

“Blood! Blood! Bright red blood!”

If the spirit of the bayonet was the kill without mercy, I had to ask the question, “Did I have what it took to kill?” Could I abandon all mercy if the moment required? The Army didn’t seem interested in employing men who make moral judgments in the middle of a fight. Rather, it needed soldiers who would destroy the enemies against whom the Army is sworn to defend America—at any cost.

I have plenty to say about making moral judgments, in the case of Operation Enduring Freedom just as much as the U.S. Civil War, but that's for a later time.

Right now, I'm only a little disappointed that the park has almost stricken Chamberlain, who was awarded the Medal of Honor, from its narrative.

Chamberlain went on to become a brigadier general and governor of Maine. But his greatest claim to glory was that he was a teacher who volunteered for service in a time of war.

(Photo by Staff Sgt. Whitney Houston)

Here I Go Again

Post number three of deployment number two.

I am heading with my unit to a little place called Afghanistan. We're looking good, if I do say so myself. New uniforms in hand, equipment ready, and nearly trained up. Fort Dix-- ahem... Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst-- isn't a bad place. The chow hall seems to be getting worse, but we're near enough to other options to make that tolerable.

Many of you have asked what our mission over there will be. Can't say, exactly. Public Affairs generally does reporting on what American forces are doing. We're hearing that a high priority for us will be to produce propaganda news packages about the cooperation between the US/NATO and Afghan forces.

But that's boring. What you all care about is the dessert options in the dining facilities, right? Well, there's more to this deployment than goodies. So here are a few things faithful readers of this blog, Loyal Cynics, as they have been called in the past, should know:

One: My Public Affairs has a new author. Lyndsey Prax is a decorated Staff Sergeant in the United States Army. She usually decorates herself with charm bracelets and war paint. But I'll let her introduce herself in a couple of days. Next post is hers, and so readers will get a different, and perhaps even a funny, perspective on things Army.

Two: I'll be adding a new feature: satire. If you need convincing that not everything else in this blog is satirical, then you should read more official Army propaganda public affairs material. The line is very thin sometimes.

Three: We're adding a new "Physical Fitness" label to include a hopefully sizable number of posts on our unit's fitness plan. Basically, our eight-soldier detachment is going to rock the Army Physical Fitness Test. By the end of our deployment, we'll have a documentary ready to go about how this little public affairs unit embarrassed a bunch of high speed soldiers with amazing fitness scores.

In a nutshell, this is the relaunch of a blog that will change your life. If you doubt me, take my little test. Read weekly and comment regularly. The change will be even more pronounced if you share all of our content with your friends.

If at the end of our deployment "not to exceed 400 days," you are not satisfied, I'll probably just stop writing.

(Photo by Lt. Col. Hank McIntire)

Celebrate My PA's 100th Post!

I just wrapped up COMM 5610 at the University of Utah. What a ride. I can't tell you too much about the class without violating OpSec (and student privacy), but I can render an overall verdict of...GUILTY! Or innocent. Whichever one means the class was great.

But what does that have to do with "a teacher's education in the Army?" you ask. You can't hold me to that title forever, I say. But in this case, it actually relates.

One of the themes of this blog has been teaching and learning, both in the civilian classroom and in Army training programs, particularly where the two overlap. But if you have read even three Teaching and Learning posts, you'll know that most of my stuff has to do with high school, not college learners. This is a whole new rodeo for me.

So I'm going to be giving it some good thought. But one that can't escape me is the need for clear objectives. When we're talking politics, war, or any subject offered at this fine university, it's imperative to be clear on objectives. What is the intended outcome? I'm sure my students will agree that I need to work on that part.

A few highlights:

• We had a  major general visit the class. There aren't many of those around, so we were pretty fortunate. 
• We also had a retired major and an active major teleconference in. I need to get other branches. 
• My students are writing about some really cool topics for their final papers, including network-centric war, SDI, drones, social media use during conflict, and the greening of the US Navy. More on those topics later. 

So this is the hardest post I have written. I feel a little like Tim Brown at his 99th touchdown reception. Waiting for the Hall of Game guaranteeing 100th must have been nerve racking. Now I know exactly how it feels to finally get there.

Shoveling it Down: An Ode to Food

I haven't reduced my holiday calorie intake. I think by mid-April I might return to normal levels.

Whether it's huge helpings, the need for dessert nightly, or taking advantage of endless choices for dining out, I am just plain eating way too much.

By the way, I love suburban restaurant chains-- their value and variety are part of my own little American dream. (I'll include McDonalds in that dream, too, though whether the fast food king belongs in the suburban category is a matter for another time.)

Recently I shoveled down good American dream-type food at the Texas Roadhouse. My family got together there because, as the rumor went, the ribs just fall off the bone. When it came time to order our waitress confirmed that "the ribs just fall off the bone."

I got the ribs. But that was after bread and sweet butter to die for, jalapeno poppers, and a deep fried onion appetizer. I also dug into my sweet potato with all the fixings before I went after the ribs. Sure enough, the meat just fell off the one.

It all reminded me-- in a very roundabout way-- of Army food.

OK, you're back on your chair? Check for bruises before you continue reading.

In Nine Weeks I describe Army food (chow) in very glowing terms: "delectable" and "fantastic" are two words you'll see in the chapter about chow. Here's another:

Breakfast in the chow hall was All-American. Nearly every morning one had a choice among eggs, sausage, bacon, waffles, pancakes, an entire array of fruits, yogurts, breakfast pastries, cereals, and a variety of milks and juices. It was a veritable smorgasbord of breakfast bounty, one for which I would cheerfully go out to PT each morning knowing that I was that much closer to a feast.

Now since Basic, I have tempered my enthusiasm of Army food, only because I have been to some really bad chow halls. But I stand by my assessment of the food at Fort Sill.

The problem was, we never really had time to enjoy it.

"Shovel it down! You can taste it later!"

Four years into the Soldiering thing, and I am still shoveling it down, much to my wife's chagrin.

Maybe that's why I am eating too much.

A Well Regulated Militia

The video from (part of) my presentation at CSU East Bay:

Also, check out the Prezi that I created and showed at the lecture. I must warn you, this is very cool, and if I may diverge from the point of this post, I would like to say, a very effective presentation tool.



I’ll give credit where it is due: several of my students at the University of San Francisco simultaneously tuned me in to this medium. Granted it was I who spent the seven hours building the darn thing, but I am nevertheless grateful for the tip.

Nine Weeks Kindle Edition

The winner of this year's "Anti Climax" award goes to... this post!

Applause, everyone, applause.

The book has been available on Kindle for several months, but this nifty new app allows you to read the first chapter for free. Please, enjoy, then buy. Then pass an endorsement to everyone in your contacts list to do the same.

Hooters Girls and Harry Potter

The life of a National Guardsman is NEVER limited to only one weekend a month. My unit NCOIC frequently emails me with tasks that need to get done before upcoming drills.

It's usually pretty important stuff, so yesterday, you can imagine my alarm when the following appeared in my inbox:

I’ll hire Hooters girls to direct traffic. This signing might get ugly like Harry Potter books or Twilight so get there early. I’m going to camp out with some homeless vets.

To my relief, it was only to inform me of the most stupendous event of the summer (besides the opening of Twilight 3: Eclipse):

The California State Military Museum will be hosting a lecture and book signing by Mr. Rich Stowell, author of Nine Weeks: A Teacher's Education in Army Basic Training. This event will be held at 7:00 pm, 23 June 2010 in the museum's Sgt. Maj. Doris Drennan Multi-Purpose Room.

This will be my first bona fide author event, so I am preparing diligently to make it informative and entertaining.

You must attend.

Just Thought You'd Like to Know

Finalist in the Military, Non-fiction category of the 2010 National Indie Excellence Awards.

Happy Belated Birthday, My Public Affairs

It has been 428 days since this modest blog went live.

For those of you who went to California public schools, that's more than one year.

OK, so that's not very nice. But it is modest, since I teach math in a California public school.

On this belated anniversary post I reflect on what it means to blog about Army issues.

A virtual acquaintance of mine, whom I shall not name, but whom I hope is reading this blog, once expressed his concern that my command would shut me down.

I have to admit, I was pretty apprehensive at first about making some of this stuff public, but I threw caution to the wind and started making my feelings known about "the pros and cons of the modern American military."

It was only after a few weeks of writing boldly that I realized I had very little risk of somebody important reading it. In fact, it seemed I had to beg people to read.

I also realized, deployed as I was at the time, that my freedom of speech was just as precious to me while in uniform as it was to anybody not serving. The Bill of Rights was going to trump any command policy.

And I have to admit that nobody in a position of military authority over me has ever expressed concern with what I write.

That either speaks to the realization by all Soldiers of just how important individual expression is, or the size of the reading audience. Hmmmm...

It is still therapeutic to me, and I think I offer a valuable perspective in the greatest army. So as this 428th day of My Public Affairs comes to a close, I'd like to thank you for reading. Here's looking to the next 428 days.

Five Posts in Five Days

This blog has seen more active days.

I suppose that-- as its subtitle indicates-- it is a chronicle of a learning experience.

As a teacher I have learned that time and sleep are more precious than I ever realized as a full-time Soldier. There you have it...my excuse for skipping weeks.

When I began this blog as a regular cathartic exercise for venting my frustrations with the Army, I was pretty faithfully posting once weekly. After the deployment I proudly professed, "The Blog Will Go On!"

My fidelity to that promise has waned, but I am getting back on track.

In order to atone for my dereliction, I am offering:

FIVE POSTS in FIVE DAYS.

Look for exciting expositions on topics that you've come to expect from your humble Loyal Cynic, such as yesterday's (which is not included in the five-- it's like a bonus).

Read on.

Drill Sergeants Don’t Have Anything on Teachers

Somebody asked me to autograph a copy of Nine Weeks for them today and I tried to think of a spiffy phrase to include with my signature. As I suspect might be the case with many writers, in my moment of need my mind drew a blank.

I wanted a phrase that encapsulated the main point of Nine Weeks; that the folk in charge at Basic Training often did a substandard job at teaching.

Make no mistake about it—Army drill sergeants do a fantastic job at many things: commanding respect, maintaining order, and yelling. But I have found that teachers on the civilian side are more effective at getting their pupils to really learn.

So what I would have written along with my autograph in that copy of Nine Weeks is, “Drill sergeants don’t have anything on teachers.”

A good teacher has a constantly full plate, cramped with unit & lesson development, assessment creation and grading, professional development and a host of administrative tasks. That’s all before students even come through the door.

A typical high school teacher has around a hundred students. The equivalent number of Soldiers would have four to six drill sergeants who never really have to do any of the above tasks. Drill sergeants don’t even have to develop the curricula.

Most teachers would think they have died and gone to schooling heaven if they could team teach, with a handful of colleagues, a fully-developed curriculum.

Civilian teachers must deal with a host of behavior issues that rarely manifest themselves in a Basic Training setting, and they can’t go near some of the remedies that NCOs take for granted. If I even hinted that I wanted a student to drop and give me twenty in my math class, I’d be laughed out of school by students, administrators, and parents.

So drill sergeants, NCOs, and Soldiers in general often acquire laudable skills. But, as I wrote in the title, in the department of meaningful learning, they don’t have anything on teachers.

From Cynics to Marketing Consultants

My wife is a marketing genius.

Nevertheless, I would like your help. Criticism and approbation are fine, but suggestions are better.

As you know, my book Nine Weeks: a teacher's education in Army Basic Training, has been on the market for almost three months. We are making progress towards our sales goals, but I need a second wind. Below is a flyer that will accompany the book in local stores and coffeehouses.

This way, potential fans-- who likely happen to be Bay-area die hard blue-blooded liberals-- won't be completely repulsed by the ACU on the cover. What's that saying, "you can't judge a book...?

Though I wrote the book for me, I want to share my story and what I've learned with others. We have realized recently that Nine Weeks is really a book for teachers. Though Soldiers and military families will enjoy the insight into Army Training, the real value and depth is in its portrayal of how a person (me) trained and committed to learning, responded to a program in which learning was imperative, but fell well short of how effective it could have been.

It's also an examination of how fundamentally different two worlds are. An excerpt from the book:

"Not a month earlier I was standing in a high school classroom in the Bay Area, teaching math to at-risk teens. I had done an abrupt ideological about face, going from such an anti-military mindset to one that took a statement declaring our alacrity to destroy our country’s enemies as a given. Needless to say, it was a culture shock—one that I thought I was ready for.

One would think that these two worlds have much in common: on one hand the world of teaching (expand your mind, be anything you want) is meant to prepare learners to be contributing, thoughtful, and productive citizens of this great Republic. On the other, military indoctrination (be all you can be) is designed to supply the Republic with Soldiers to protect it.  

I could go on, but it's all in the book. For now, a call to arms, if you please.

1. Comment on the flyer.

2. Share what other messages from the book stand out. (If you haven't already, this would be a good time to buy the book and read it.)

3. Forward this post to anyone you know who has marketing experience, interest in design, or just a good eye for catchiness.

After all, many geniuses are better than one.

To the Loyal Cynics

We recently tidied up the blog, and among some nice changes you'll find a new masthead to reflect the slight redirection in themes, labels on all posts for easier searching of the archives, and some new identifiers for blog elements.

One of my favorites is that "followers" are respectfully re-designated as "Loyal Cynics."

What is a cynic? Well, in ancient Greece they were philosophers who bathed fairly infrequently. By no means do I mean to asperse my readers. Instead, I point to a more modern connotation of the word.

According to Webster, a cynic is one who criticizes and "believes that human conduct is motivated wholly by self interest." But the word also implies a tendency to question authority. Now I have to make it clear that, as a Soldier, I have NEVER disobeyed an order, and I am, by nature, a stickler for order. The teacher in me, though, realizes that questioning will solidify understanding and result in greater loyalty to the cause.

A good byproduct of cynicism is that authority will try to avoid it by becoming less tyrannical.

Even the ancient Greek coterie lived by the philosophy that suffering was caused by man's poor judgment, including all the trappings of society and its conventions.

No so here. We respectfully depart from our forebears in our promotion of regular and thorough hygiene practices, and we believe whole-heartedly that conventions are an indispensable aspect of a happy life.

We simply think that man is not infallible, and many of his judgments ought to be challenged. Even if that man is a commanding officer.

Criticism is good, especially when it bubbles up from the bottom. We have come a long way since the ancient Greeks, and up to this point we know that democracy, though imperfect, is the best form of government; that a more-educated, creative workforce, whatever the occupation, is a more productive workforce; and that progress, by definition, requires second-guessing and flexibility.

So thank you for your continued reading, and welcome to the ranks of the Loyal Cynics. I hope you take the title proudly. Pass this along to your friends, and we’ll grow the movement.

Now go take a shower.

The Bible of Basic Training Has Been Written

If you know me at all, then you know I have written a lot about Army Basic Training. In fact, I wrote an entire book.

It's called, Nine Weeks: a teacher's education in Army Basic Training, and it's now available on Amazon.

It was a labor of love, in more ways than one. First, it represents two things I am very proud of: being a Soldier and being a teacher. Second, it has been a joint project with my wife and has helped her to understand what I have gone through as a Soldier and helped me realize how amazing she is.

I would like to offer you an insider's view of the book, in hopes that you will want to read more.

A funny story:
During our final inspection, one unfortunate private actually fell asleep at parade rest. He crashed into the bunk facing him and disrupted whatever slim chances we had of winning that inspection. The sad part was that, after nine weeks, we were still as bored as ever, and that solemn moment when our first sergeant was determining our worthiness to go into battle, this young man said to himself, "screw it, I'm taking a nap."

An emotional experience:
To make more acute the pain of being away from my wife longer than I ever had was our first wedding anniversary, which came during my third week at Basic. Drill Sergeant Jackson took pity on me, and offered me unlimited time on our phone call on my anniversary day. When the phone call came, I monitored everyone else and went last. After 11 minutes of blathering on to my wife, I ended the call. There seemed nothing to talk about, like a final call before a death sentence. Jackson showed his compassion, however. He had been there before, and he understood that I couldn't function properly at Basic without a solid relationship with my sweetie.


A learning story:
As we paced around tents at our mock forward operating base, sleep nearly suffocated us. We had got less than six hours of sleep over the past 45, and the entire platoon marched with rifles ready in the black of the night. It was scary at the time, infuriating. In hindsight comical. But I realized at that moment that these were merely games, devious ways the drill sergeants tested us. It might have been silly, but real personal growth could take place during those times. I learned patience and forgiveness.

Something that wasn't in the book:
I had to cut a lot out. Basic Training was so much more than a series of stories, but books have limits. One thing I had to scrap was the time when Drill Sergeant Robertson ordered two Soldiers from another platoon to come and do exercises in front of us as we practiced our combatives. Then, he ordered them to drink unconscionable amounts of water until they threw up all over our floor. We felt for these guys, but our desire for vengeance against other platoons had to be quenched. And even though we all knew our drill sergeant was being abusive, we took some sort of perverted pleasure in it.

You'll have to buy the book to learn about the Code Red.

So get to know me a little bit, and check out Nine Weeks. Post a comment after you have gone to Amazon. I'm checking up on you.

Specialist Stowell, Combat Correspondent

I am a 46 Romeo.

In Army-speak, that means I am trained to gather and produce Army video news packages. We use the term "news" very loosely in the Army.

I am currently on deployment with KFOR 11, the NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo.

These are a few of my thoughts in the world of Army Public Affairs.