How War Taught Me to Write
I wrote every day during the war. I wrote MIRC messages, spot reports, emails, and an ungodly amount of PowerPoint slides. I wrote about the deaths of Soldiers and the deaths of Taliban. I wrote over maps and on pictures. I even wrote on the plastic walls of port-o-shitters. During my two deployments in eastern Afghanistan, I also read every day, not only the drivel (INTSUM, OPSUM, GRINTSUMs) produced as a combat arms unit but blogs, books, and numerous articles. I read Ghost Wars while staring at the Pakistani border where much of the action takes place. There were plenty of pieces written by disgruntled officers on why they were leaving the service mostly in Best Defense.
When I re-deployed early in May 2011, several of my peers encouraged me to write because I had plenty to say late at night hanging around a hobo fire barrel we built on our base. Even though I wrote plenty evaluating and analyzing the current conflict and state of the Army, I didn’t know how or who to say it to. The process and the approach were daunting, instead I focused on getting hired in my first civilian job and fearing that I would do more harm than good, I dropped the idea of writing. Early on as a young Army officer, I participated and gleaned as much knowledge as possible from early forums such as Platoon Leader, Executive Officer, and Company Command. These drove me to read at Small Wars Journal and several other crowd sourced platforms. Last year, exposure to a dispersed network of military writers would bring me full circle to writing in Company Command.
Enter Twitter and my current Mentors: Twitter exploded on to the public scene while 107mm rockets and RPGs exploded around my small base in Kunar province. When I returned home in June 2009, I remember thinking, “WTF is Twitter” during my first week back. As I started trying to network in the civilian world on LinkedIn and other platforms, I noticed how many references there were to the Military and NATSEC community on Twitter. So I launched my account and started experimenting.
Over the course of the next six months in 2012, I was exposed to a great deal of very smart and committed folks throughout military, government, and academia. I started participating in micro-discussions which started to spark ideas and the creative spark long suppressed by the numbing realities of military life. Through a twitter connection, I initially started writing for a blog, Red Team Journal, which needed some contributing editors. I happened to be at Army flight school at the time and had some free time before my family joined me after the holidays. Through following and then participating in the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum Community, and Read to Lead (thanks to Joe Byerly and Nate Finney), I started conversations and a connection with a growing audience of like-minded individuals (a community) and found a group of mentors and advocates that I never had before. The connectivity of our community means you can be developed and mentored without ever meeting face to face.
Leave your Ego at the Door: I used to be a cocky son of a bitch. Maybe it was civilization after entering the reserve component or the humbling adventure learning to fly helicopters, but as a writer you have to leave your ego at the door. My first couple drafts for The Strategy Bridge and the book chapter I’m working on for the #Professions project were covered in red ink, comments, and corrections. The editorial process is the pain that makes weakness leave the body. I have terrible grammar (thanks progressive public schools focusing on creativity) and had to Google many of the terms used such as “misplaced modifier”. Even the most brilliant of statements (in your mind) may be rife with errors logically and grammatically. Get over yourself and take the comments at face value. Normally a glass of whiskey with your laptop after putting the kids to sleep does the trick.
The best advice I got as a military reader came from an officer I’ve still yet to meet, Major Joe Byerly, patron of From the Greenbook suggests that leaders read about it, think about it, and write about it. Contributing your thoughts via writing is a classic way to share our knowledge with the current and next generation. I love to read old doctrine and tactics manuals from Vietnam, Korea, and WWII which give sage advice to the current combat professional. As a writer and leader in the community, you never know when one day a nugget of insight from one of your creative endeavors might save someone’s life on a future battlefield.
Mike Denny is an Army National Guard aviation officer and company commander. Formerly, he served as a Field Artillery officer while on active duty. As a civilian, he is an executive management professional and occasional contributor to Task and Purpose, The Bridge, and Red Team Journal. The views expressed in this article do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
