It was a sweltering summer afternoon at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the kind that made your t-shirt stick to your back and the creases in your battle dress uniform melt away like ice cream on hot pavement. I’d made my way to the Officers Club after a professional development session, the kind of learning mandatory experience that typically marked one Friday each month, when the battalion commander would regale us with tales of his exploits as a AH-1 Cobra pilot in Vietnam. Like every other Friday, a rank blue haze hung over the club’s bar as cigar smoke combined with the musky scent of body odor and filtered into the air.
As a duty-bound second lieutenant, I bought a beer at the bar, filled a plate with finger food, and found the table where my battalion commander was holding court over a group of seemingly enthusiastic young officers. He looked up and waved me over to him… I looked around, hoping to find another seat, but he continued to gesture to me. Reluctantly, I moved over to sit near—but not next—to him. He scowled at me: “Goddammit, sit over here!” and pointed to the seat next to him.
As I slid into the chair next to him, he leaned over and said, “We need to talk.” Oh, God, I don’t want to talk to you. “Do you know, you’re the most caustic son of a bitch I’ve ever known?” Somebody save me. “And that’s why I like you.” What? “You remind me of me at your age.” He’s clearly hammered.
We began this awkward dance early in my first year in the 101st Airborne Division. He would offer backhanded compliments over drinks and cigars at the club, and I, in turn, would slowly begin to understand what it meant to be a true leader. He was experienced, charismatic, bigger than life. I was inexperienced, a general wiseass, and struggling to fit in. He took risks, made up his own rules, and led by example. I operated from the seat of my pants, didn’t know the rules, and led with my heart, trying to do what I thought was right. And he was my first mentor.
For most of that first year, I thought he hated me. No, I was sure he hated me. There were times when I thought he wanted to choke the life out of me (he probably did), and there were times when he thought I had my head firmly planted up my ass (I probably did). But through it all, he managed to point me in the right direction and arm me with the lessons that would guide me through over two decades of service. And none of it would have been possible if not for his Friday professional development session and the obligatory after party at the Officers Club.
Four years later, when I departed Fort Campbell, I had been mentored by three battalion commanders over scotch and cigars. That mentoring did much to shape my perspective on life and leadership, and convinced me to commit to a career in uniform. Each of them developed me in a different way, but together their influence helped to create the leader I had become, and the man I would become in the years that followed.
I returned to Kentucky years later, and found that something had changed. Maybe it was the operational tempo, maybe it was the pace of life in general. Maybe it was a different generation of leader, or a different generation of follower. Or maybe it was the fact that the club system had fallen on hard times. But one thing was certain: the scotch and cigars were gone, and along with them much of the mentoring that was so common years before.
At first, I didn’t give it much thought. We soon found ourselves embroiled in the events of 9/11 and not long after that involved in wars that would continue into the next decade. Yet, at some point, I stopped to think about what was missing, and the impact it would have on the generation of leaders around me. That mentoring shaped me as a leader, as a husband, and as a father. It made me a better officer, a better commander, and a better human being. It made me who I am today.
The collapse of an institution didn’t put mentoring in a choke hold. Our lack of imagination did. Good leaders continued to find other ways to mentor (“Cigar Night” or “Poker Night” during deployments provided ample opportunities), while poor leaders did what poor leaders always do (nothing). Informal mentoring, peer mentoring, and even reverse mentoring have filled some of the gap left behind, but there are still countless leaders across the force looking for counseling, coaching, and mentoring. I know because I hear from them every day, I see their comments in discussion threads, and catch their voices in the hallways. They need you, they need us.
They need scotch and cigars.
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