On 17 October 2022, the Honorable Elena Kagan, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, delivered the thirty-ninth Charles L. Decker Lecture in Administrative and Civil Law at The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School (TJAGLCS). Students of the 71st Graduate Course and 218th Officer Basic Course were in attendance, along with TJAGLCS and University of Virginia (UVA) School of Law faculty, staff, and students.

In his book, The Killer Angels,¹ author Michael Shaara describesthe critical decision of Union General John Buford, Jr., to take and hold the high ground on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Upon surveying the terrain around the small town of Gettysburg as he entered with the lead elements of his troops, General Buford immediately recognized the high ground’s location and tactical importance. His small cavalry force faced a numerically superior Confederate army.

News & Notes 2022 Issue 3 

Rim of the Pacific 2022 (RIMPAC22), the world’s largest international maritime exercise, concluded on 4 August 2022. It included over a month of realistic combined operations training in and around the Hawaiian Islands and Southern California.²

Military service is a privilege that sometimes requires sacrifice. While I have found this oft-repeated adage to be true (particularly during permanent change of station season), fortunately, this phrase also includes “sometimes.” When I transitioned to the civilian sector after eight years on active duty, I chose to continue serving in the Reserves. I did so because I deeply value both my military service and the opportunity to continue serving alongside the amazing people in our Corps.

Many nations have sent their military attorneys to The Judge Advocate General’s School and The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School (TJAGLCS) over the years. Military lawyers from more than twenty-five countries have studied alongside their American colleagues. To name a few: Afghanistan, Australia, Canada, Colombia, Egypt, Ghana, Iraq, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Mongolia, Morocco, Netherlands, Nigeria, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, and Ukraine.

Prior to World War I, there were no enlisted men in the Judge Advocate General’s Department (JAGD), as the Corps was then known. Given the small size of the JAGD—there were a total of seventeen uniformed lawyers in the Army in 1916—the War Department no doubt felt that any necessary clerical work could be done by civilian employees and that enlisted soldiers should be utilized elsewhere.

As the U.S. Army reorients towards strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China (China) and the Russian Federation (Russia), there is an increasingly urgent and pressing need for the development of leaders with “regional focus and cultural fluency” in the Indo-Pacific theater both in the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps and the Army, writ large.

In a historic move, President Trump vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in 2020, claiming that it failed to include certain critical national security measures and contradicted efforts to put America first in national security and foreign policy actions. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle spoke out against the President’s veto and his accompanying demands for changes to the legislation.

Although the U.S. Army Audit Agency (AAA) conducts approximately one hundred audits each fiscal year, many organizations below Headquarters, Department of the Army or the headquarters of an Army command (ACOM)/Army service component command (ASCC)/direct reporting unit (DRU) do not have regular contact with AAA auditors.