This issue of The Army Lawyer recalls a few important lessons learned at the September 2018 Worldwide Continuing Legal Education (WWCLE) event at our regimental home in Charlottesville. This year’s event brought together senior JAG Corps leaders from around the globe, representing all Army components.

By now you’ve probably heard about the Army’s new physical fitness test: the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT). The ACFT is currently being fielded as a gender and age neutral test promised to better measure the overall fitness of each Soldier. The ACFT isn’t an idea merely being thrown out for feedback; it will be the tool that the Army will use to assess the physical readiness of Soldiers. The JAG Corps needs to be ready for the ACFT.

In the aftermath of World War II, the theft of gold, silver, and jewels belonging to the German aristocratic House of Hesse triggered an intensive criminal investigation and resulted in three high-profile courts-martial. When it was all over, Colonel (COL) Jack W. Durant, Major (MAJ) David Watson, and Captain (CPT) Kathleen Burke Nash were all in jail.1

Two prominent African-American attorneys, both of whom who served in our Corps in the late 1960s and 1970s, recently passed away. By a strange coincidence, they were both born in the same year, only months apart, and died within days of each other. Both attended the same Judge Advocate Officer Basic Class in 1969, and both went on to have extraordinarily successful careers in law and in government.

In the age of Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat, it is essential for us to focus on both how we communicate and what we communicate. So, what does that mean? Since the advent of social media, people firmly believe others want or need to see their every move; but not everything is best shared. People forget that sometimes it’s better to communicate face-to-face, like the good ol’ days. Additionally, we are so quick to get information out there that we fail to think through or proofread the potential post—and we should proofread everything. Remember that what you post on social media might be someone’s first impression of you; you want to make sure it is a positive impression. Below are ten things to think about before you post on social media. The bottom line is this: think before you post.

Over the past five years the military has seen a significant increase in both the media’s and general public’s interest in criminal prosecutions taking place within the military. In the Army alone, the prosecutions of Brigadier General Jeffrey Sinclair, Private First Class Bradley Manning, and Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl are just three examples of courts-martial generating such interest. While Rule for Courts-Martial (R.C.M.) 806 gives members of the military and the civilian public the ability to access courts-martial proceedings, it also gives military judges wide latitude to control who is present in the courtroom and to decide whether the proceedings will be open or closed.

On 22 December 2017, the president signed into law P.L. 115-97 (the “Act”).1 The Act represents the largest overhaul of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code since the Tax Reform Act of 1986.2 Specifically, the Act lowers individual tax rates and increases the standard deductions, while modifying or repealing a number of other previously available deductions, generally effective 1 January 2018. Absent further Congressional action, since the Act was passed under the Senate “budget reconciliation” rules, most of the individual provisions are scheduled to sunset after 2025. This article summarizes the most important changes affecting service members.

At the 2018 Worldwide CLE, the National Security Law Department at TJAGLCS talked about some of the rules that apply to lethal autonomous weapon systems. We would like to share them here for everyone to think about and discuss.1 Though these weapons are too new for us to provide a comprehensive discussion of each and every rule that could apply, there are three more modest goals that we can accomplish: We can identify what autonomous weapon systems are; we can describe what we already know about the rules governing autonomous weapon systems; and we can identify—cautiously—some of the future legal problems that must be solved in order to get autonomous weapon systems right.

Undersecretary of the Army Hon. Ryan D. McCarthy stressed the need for judge advocates to provide stability to the Army as it begins a period of renaissance, during a speech he gave at the WWCLE in September 2018.

On 19 September 2018, Lieutenant General (LTG) Eric J. Wesley—dual hatted as the Deputy Commanding General, Army Futures Command (AFC), and the Director, Army Capabilities Integration Center (ARCIC), U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command—briefed LTG Charles N. Pede and his senior leaders on building the future Army.1 Lieutenant General Wesley’s message was clear—the paradigms of war are rapidly changing, now our Army must too.