{"product_id":"connected-soldiers-life-leadership-and-social-connections-in-modern-war-9781640125124","title":"Connected Soldiers: Life, Leadership, and Social Connections in Modern War","description":"2023 Gold Medal in Biography\/Memoir from the Military Writers Society of America \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e John Spencer was a new second lieutenant in 2003 when he parachuted into Iraq leading a platoon of infantry soldiers into battle. During that combat tour he learned how important unit cohesion was to surviving a war, both physically and mentally. He observed that this cohesion developed as the soldiers experienced the horrors of combat as a group, spending their downtime together and processing their shared experiences. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e When Spencer returned to Iraq five years later to take command of a troubled company, he found that his lessons on how to build unit cohesion were no longer as applicable. Rather than bonding and processing trauma as a group, soldiers now spent their downtime separately, on computers communicating with family back home. Spencer came to see the internet as a threat to unit cohesion, but when he returned home and his wife was deployed, the internet connected him and his children to his wife on a daily basis. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In \u003ci\u003eConnected Soldiers \u003c\/i\u003eSpencer delivers lessons learned about effective methods for building teams in a way that overcomes the distractions of home and the outside world, without reducing the benefits gained from connections to family.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJohn Spencer\u003c\/b\u003e is the chair of Urban Warfare Studies with the Modern War Institute, United States Military Academy. He also serves as a colonel in the California State Guard with assignment to the 40th Infantry Division, California Army National Guard, as the director of Urban Warfare Training. He served twenty-five years on active duty in the U.S. Army as an infantry soldier and is a highly decorated combat veteran.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Potomac Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50554193641746,"sku":"9781640125124","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_4218a212-a4b0-4582-b493-fa0bf9344ef7.jpg?v=1731709639","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/connected-soldiers-life-leadership-and-social-connections-in-modern-war-9781640125124","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}