Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Leadership”
Speech given by John K. Marshall, The DrillMaster, at the 2026 US Air Force Honor Guard Leadership Summit in Orlando, FL. The complete prepared speech and supporting documentation. The version delivered at the Summit was condensed to meet the allotted 30-minute speaking time.
Recently, a senior ROTC cadet reached out with a familiar situation. He was told that facing movements cannot be executed in a color guard.
Over the years, I’ve had the same conversation with cadets again and again. It usually starts with a simple question
I have a story for you. It’s a true story that has a little embellishment with fictional names. The quote comes from the father of a cadet.
It’s important to clarify the distinction of the Melophori (Mēlophoroi), or Apple Bearers, from the larger body of the Persian “Immortals” as historical sources have revealed.
Military drill and ceremonies are often dismissed today as outdated, overly formal, or “just tradition.” Yet long before drill manuals, long before modern armies, the greatest civilizations of the ancient world understood something profound: disciplined movement shapes disciplined minds. The way a person stands, walks, trains, and carries himself is inseparable from their character. The ancients believed this so deeply …
Three powerful concepts—Building Cohesion, Competition Simulation, and Peer Leadership—will build a truly dominant and strong drill team and color guard.
The first three installments established the analytical imperative (Cipolla), the ethical guardrails (Scripture/Stoicism), and the strategic mandate (Negentropy). This final article completes the foundation, demonstrating that the need to guard standards and warn against irrationality is not new—it is a central, continuous theme across military, philosophical, and wisdom traditions spanning millennia.
I asked AI and we created a further explanation in this series. I posited the question, “Does entropy have a role in Cipolla’s model?” The answer was: While there is no recognized physical or statistical quantity called “social entropy,” the concept of entropy provides a near-perfect metaphor for the destructive, corrosive force that Carlo M. Cipolla assigned to “stupid people.” …
The first installment established that the greatest threat to success is the stupid action—behavior that causes pure, uncompensated net loss to a system. It also laid the analytical groundwork (Cipolla’s Laws) and the ethical foundation (Scripture’s warning against contempt). This second installment is the call to action. We now translate theory into practice, detailing how to deploy a unified, three-part …