My First Writing Mentor: Clint Swift

The Army made me a  writer.  In several blog posts, especially this one, I have written about how the combination of inspiration and free time of soldiers in the field gave the chance to learn how to write.
A movie of my life would have me start writing, a twinkle would show in my eye as I looked to the future, and within a minute I would be transformed from Grunt to Gogol!

As you can tell from my current writing, I am still a grunt who wishes he was Nikolai Gogol, but when the Army gave me my first journalism job in 1978, the guy who helped me the most was a civilian reporter for the Stars and Stripes newspaper, named Clint Swift.  I met Clint when I visited the Stars and Stripes office in Darmstadt, (West) Germany.  I told him what I was doing and he took an interest in me and my unit.

He also gave me a copy of The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White.  I read and reread the book several times over the next year.  Clint told me how news stories worked, explained the difference between news and feature stories, and helped me to learn the craft of journalism.  I am currently re-reading The Elements of Style.  I could not even guess how many times I have re-read it.
I looked on line to see if I could find Clint.  No luck so far.  I hope he is proud that I made writing my career.  I am sure he would be amused I am back in the Army.

Army Mentorship Training at Defense Information School

Yet another post about Army life at DINFOS.

Each Thursday at DINFOS the Army received mentorship training.  This program adds a full hour of dull PowerPoint presentations to a day that started at 0400.  Like every other program here, we are supposed to be awake and attentive.  Yet nearly all the information  in mentorship is for active duty Army. 

A colonel who spoke to us said 35 minutes into  a presentation that ran ten minutes overtime that guard and reserve should go to sleep, this info is for active Army.  Yet all MOS-Ts are required to be there to listen to information that does not apply to them when they could be studying, eating or resting.

In fairness, the mentorship program would not be as painfully bad as it is if it were not combined with the 0400 PT Program.  But it is.  Mentorship is the 13^th hour in a day that is already too long.

Whoever dreamed up this program probably thought it was a good thing.  But that is how every failed product launch happens in the business world.  Someone inside the company dreams up a new product or service then decides to sell it without asking real customers.

The real customers in this case want to do their homework, sleep, or just about anything rather than sit through another hour of PowerPoint.

If you need specifics, I wrote at length about mentorship training here, I wrote about it last month.

The post is below.

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Another Reason the Air Force Laughs at us: Thursday Mentorship Training

Among the many ill-conceived programs we endure at school, the Thursday mentorship program for Army soldiers is one of the dumbest.

Each Thursday at 4:30 p.m. we gather in a conference room of the main school building and listen to a one-hour lecture about what our job will be like out in the field.  At least, that is how the lecture is billed.

In reality, exactly one of the lectures had any real connection to our immediate future in Army Public Affairs.  But these lectures do have an effect on our school experience.

They are one more ill-conceived and unnecessary aggravation. 

We get up at 4 a.m. each morning to do PT (Physical Training) and have eight hours of classes each day finishing at 4 p.m.   Adding a lecture that will not be graded at the end of a 12-hour day would be nasty if it were interesting.  But these lectures are farther off topic than cold-weather survival training in Mogadishu, Somalia.

With one exception, these lectures are far above our pay grade, and focused on active-duty Army.  The majority of the soldiers in these classes are enlisted and junior NCOs in the National Guard and Reserve.

Four weeks ago, a Sergeant First Class talked to us for 73 minutes about the distribution of Public Affairs leadership slots in the active Army.  His focus was on officers and senior NCOs.  And he droned on 13 minutes over his hour in front of people who had already spent a whole day in class.

Two weeks ago, a Master Sergeant spoke for his entire hour about creating PowerPoint slides for command briefings.  He is a perfect example of the kind of speaker that drives speechwriters crazy:  he thinks he is funny, and he is not.  Worse still, he thinks he is funny when he is just being himself.  He said toward the end of the hour, “I know this stuff is dry, but at least I am entertaining right?”

He got a mildly affirmative answer, but what else could he get.  He has power over his audience and was using it to make himself feel good. 

To be fair, there was one useful mentoring hour.  It lasted just 45 minutes.  A Staff Sergeant who works on the Army’s social media program talked to us about how the Army is currently using social media and where the program is headed.

That talk was useful.  We got one ungraded day in our entire three-month school program about social media, and most of us will return to units who have or need Facebook page administrators. 

By the end of school we will have had 12 hours of mentorship, 12 hours mostly spent trying to stay awake listening to irrelevant information. 

Army Strong! 

Another Reason the Air Force Laughs at us: Thursday Mentorship Training

Among the many ill-conceived programs we endure at school, the Thursday mentorship program for Army soldiers is one of the dumbest.

Each Thursday at 4:30 p.m. we gather in a conference room of the main school building and listen to a one-hour lecture about what our job will be like out in the field.  At least, that is how the lecture is billed.

In reality, exactly one of the lectures had any real connection to our immediate future in Army Public Affairs.  But these lectures do have an effect on our school experience.

They are one more ill-conceived and unnecessary aggravation. 

We get up at 4 a.m. each morning to do PT (Physical Training) and have eight hours of classes each day finishing at 4 p.m.   Adding a lecture that will not be graded at the end of a 12-hour day would be nasty if it were interesting.  But these lectures are farther off topic than cold-weather survival training in Mogadishu, Somalia.

With one exception, these lectures are far above our pay grade, and focused on active-duty Army.  The majority of the soldiers in these classes are enlisted and junior NCOs in the National Guard and Reserve.

Four weeks ago, a Sergeant First Class talked to us for 73 minutes about the distribution of Public Affairs leadership slots in the active Army.  His focus was on officers and senior NCOs.  And he droned on 13 minutes over his hour in front of people who had already spent a whole day in class.

Two weeks ago, a Master Sergeant spoke for his entire hour about creating PowerPoint slides for command briefings.  He is a perfect example of the kind of speaker that drives speechwriters crazy:  he thinks he is funny, and he is not.  Worse still, he thinks he is funny when he is just being himself.  He said toward the end of the hour, “I know this stuff is dry, but at least I am entertaining right?” 

He got a mildly affirmative answer, but what else could he get.  He has power over his audience and was using it to make himself feel good. 

To be fair, there was one useful mentoring hour.  It lasted just 45 minutes.  A Staff Sergeant who works on the Army’s social media program talked to us about how the Army is currently using social media and where the program is headed.

That talk was useful.  We got one ungraded day in our entire three-month school program about social media, and most of us will return to units who have or need Facebook page administrators.  

By the end of school we will have had 12 hours of mentorship, 12 hours mostly spent trying to stay awake listening to irrelevant information.  

Army Strong!