Warhol's "15 Minutes"

Someone tipped me to this blurb published at AFCENT's website (the post title is all about SN1 getting a lil bit of his fame allocation, and nothing else):

Leadership lessons linger

Lincoln with military officers at Antietam.

Commentary by Capt. Kristen D. Duncan
451st Air Expeditionary Wing Chief of Public Affairs

12/7/2009 - KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan -- It doesn't take much to find leadership in a deployed setting, whether on the battlefield, in a maintenance back shop, or among the seasoned SNCO's and officers of our Wing. I stumbled upon a meeting of the minds however, true leaders studying to become better. Better officers, better Airmen - all thanks to lessons from former President Abraham Lincoln.

The 451st Expeditionary Maintenance Group officers met Saturday, non-alcoholic beer and cigars included, to discuss the humble genius in honest ol' Abe. Led by one of the youngest ranking in the group, 1st Lt. Christopher Anderson, HH-60 HMU officer in charge, kept the briefing to only four main slides, to foster discussion and discourse.

[...]

Communication
Master the art of public speaking. Influence people through conversation, and preach a vision and continually reaffirm it.

"At my first assignment as a two-striper, we never had a doubt of the priorities," said Maj. Buck Pennington, 451st EAXMS maintenance operations officer. "It was preached over and over and when something came up, we looked at how it met each of those priorities."

Colonel Hopkins shared his vision for the Maintenance Group: people, planes and processes focused on aircraft availability and munitions support. To him, keeping a level balance between the three equals success.

To me, bringing his officers together to talk about becoming better leaders is one sure way to achieve that vision.

Next book: "Cigars, Whiskey & Winning" by Al Kaltman - Leadership lessons from Ulysses S. Grant

Heh.  As I told the "someone"... the FIRST lesson to be learned from ol' Ulysses S. would be REVOKE GENERAL ORDER NUMBER ONE!  (Sorry.  Didn't mean to shout.)  I dunno if this misguided directive is a result of Lessons Learned in Vietnam... a war that ran on booze, and lots of it... or is simply a carry-over of Gen. Schwarzkopf's GO1 from Desert Shield/Storm.  I strongly suspect it's the latter and although Stormin' Norman is/was undoubtedly correct in the universal sense I doubt the impact on morale is worth the politically correct sop to Muslim culture.  While GO1 might be entirely appropriate in Saudi Arabia, it looks pretty damned stupid when one reads of Iraqi entrepeneurs opening up booze boutiques.  The tide may be turning in Iraq, but leave us not digress.  The Wiki tells us alcohol is still banned in The Af... except for foreigners.  And I read that some military folks... most notably the Germans... could have it until recently.  Gen. McChrystal put the kibosh on that.

Oh, well.  Enough of this.  "Not Your Father's Air Force," yet again.  And it most certainly ain't Your Grandfather's Air Force, either.  All that said... it's a great good thing that "the management" can get together and discuss the finer points of leadership over a few (non-alcoholic) beers and cigars.  I'm all for that. 

(note: photo not included with original AFCENT release... embellishment by YrHmblScrb and obtained from Iconic Photos.)