The Army has launched a new way for soldiers at any level to glean valuable lessons from the combat-tested, seasoned enlisted leaders in its ranks.
The “Muddy Boots” initiative recently launched as a dedicated section of the NCO Journal, with the backing of Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Weimer.
The section seeks to capture the insights of nominative command sergeants major across the force.
“We believe that experience gained and not shared is experience lost,” Weimer told Army Times. “The most valuable lessons come from the mud, from the field, and from the boots that have been on the ground.”
Weimer and other senior leaders want soldiers of all ranks to take note of what their comrades can teach them, but also to offer their own experiences as a guide.
The writing project seeks input, writing and discussion on key Army topics in the service’s journals and online platforms.
The contributing sergeants major bring with them upwards of thirty years’ worth of experience, Weimer noted. That “experience is a gift that should be shared, not hoarded,” Weimer said.
The effort aligns with the Army’s broader Harding Project and a series of efforts to rekindle professional military reading, writing and feedback from troops. The Harding Project, which launched last year, selected a group of fellows for journalism training and assignment at their respective branch journals, such as “Infantry” and “Armor” magazines.
Weimer, along with Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George and Training and Doctrine Command head Gen. Gary Brito, co-authored an article published on the Modern War Institute website when they unveiled the Harding Project, noting the Army needs diverse dialogue in the historic interwar period it currently faces.
The interwar period references the namesake of the project, Maj. Edwin “Forrest” Harding, who assumed the helm of the Infantry Journal in the interwar period leading up to World War II.
Harding doubled the magazine’s circulation in four years by pushing “critical debates over changing tactics and technology before America joined World War II,” Zachary Griffiths and Theo Lipsky wrote in an article on the Modern War Institute website.
While the Harding fellowships are reserved for captains, master sergeants and senior warrant officers focused on branch-specific or operational matters, Muddy Boots seeks to share the lived wisdom from senior noncommissioned officers.
The NCO Journal has long featured career guidance from soldiers. For example, current articles exhort NCOs to analyze their own critical thinking when leading soldiers, monitor behavioral health among troops as a function of readiness and explain the revised enlisted promotion process.
A featured article published by the journal in May even explained why NCOs should write in the first place.
The “Regaining Relevance Through Effective Writing” article by Sgt. Maj. David Cyr encourages budding military writers to start by answering the professional journals’ call for submissions on a specific topic. He then advises soldiers to work with a battle buddy on their topic and drafting of the article.
Above all, and maybe the most difficult, Cyr tells soldiers to “risk rejection.” Not all submissions will be published. But he wants them to keep at it, regardless.
“Remember, failure is not measured by the number of rejections but by when you give up,” Cyr wrote.
Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.
