SAMS graduates ready for complex problems

By Jennifer Walleman, Fort Leavenworth LampMay 29, 2014

SAMS graduates ready for complex problems
1 / 4 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Lt. Gen. Stephen Lanza, commanding general of I Corps and Joint Base Lewis-McChord and School of Advanced Military Studies graduate, congratulates Advanced Strategic Leadership Studies Program graduating student Col. James MacGregor on having his mon... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
SAMS graduates ready for complex problems
2 / 4 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Lt. Gen. Stephen Lanza, commanding general of I Corps and Joint Base Lewis-McChord and School of Advanced Military Studies graduate, gestures toward cheering members of the audience as he congratulates Advanced Military Studies Program graduating stu... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
SAMS graduates ready for complex problems
3 / 4 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Advanced Military Studies Program graduate Maj. James Stultz is recognized by guest speaker Lt. Gen. Stephen Lanza, commanding general of I Corps and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, for receiving the School of Advanced Military Studies Iron Planner Award f... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
SAMS graduates ready for complex problems
4 / 4 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Command and General Staff College Dean of Academics Dr. Wendell C. King and School of Advanced Military Studies Director Col. Hank Arnold hood Anthony Volino, recipient of the Simons Center Interagency Writing Award for his monograph "Leveraging the ... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (May 29, 2014) -- After months of reading, researching and studying, the 132 officers attending the School of Advanced Military Studies class 2014-01 graduated in a ceremony May 22 at Eisenhower Auditorium at the Lewis and Clark Center.

The graduates, including 12 international students from eight different countries, received master of military art and science degrees after completing either the Advanced Military Studies Program or the Advanced Strategic Leadership Studies Program.

Lt. Gen. Stephen Lanza, commanding general of I Corps and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., was the guest speaker. Lanza said he graduated from SAMS 21 years ago but still remembered the long days and nights of reading. He told the graduates he was proud of them and that graduating from SAMS brings them a unique credibility.

"What SAMS gets you is the ability to understand complex problems," Lanza said. "It gets you the ability to communicate a plan. The world is complex. There is a lot of ambiguity. ... As you dial into this in your future, the lessons you have learned here are really going to help you lead our Army into the future."

Lanza gave the graduates three points he thought were key to personal and professional success: never underestimate the effect of humility, to continue to develop themselves, and be ready and resilient leaders.

"Don't forget why the Army chose you for this prestigious education," Lanza said. "Your actions reflect on the program for years and years. Share the knowledge you have gained."

Students earn their MMAS degrees after successfully completing the SAMS curriculum, passing an oral comprehensive exam, and completing a research-based monograph.

Army Col. James MacGregor's monograph, "In Pursuit of the Grand Idea," was named best monograph in the ASLSP. He received an engraved cavalry saber. His monograph was a historical study of the Harry S. Truman, George H. W. Bush, and William J. Clinton administrations and how they developed national security policy. For his research, MacGregor took advantage of the close proximity of the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Independence, Mo.

"Everybody talks about containment as the thing that got us all the way through the Cold War," MacGregor said. "We haven't had one idea like that to kind of unify everybody since that, so I looked at how did the Truman administration did it, and what was different with Bush and Clinton."

Maj. Rene van den Berg, from the Netherlands, was awarded best monograph in the AMSP for his monograph titled, "Unchained Interests: American-British-Dutch-Australian Command 1942." He received an engraved cavalry saber as well.

His 90-page monograph was an in-depth analysis of why the first coalition command, established in 1942 to maintain control of the East Indies Barrier, failed after only six weeks. Van den Berg said his research revealed it failed because of divergent political agendas.

Van den Berg said winning this award was meaningful for him because he had a "strong emotional bond with the project." His father-in-law is from Indonesia and told him many stories on the subject, but to bring a balance to his monograph, he wanted to use Dutch sources.

"I took a major risk, since I had to use Dutch sources for this," van den Berg said. "I wasn't aware if I would have access to those sources since the majority of the Dutch national archives had been bombed during the Second World War by Allied forces. A lot of records aren't electronic records, and I needed physical copies, so I needed friends back home to contribute to the project."

The Simons Center Interagency Writing Award was presented to Anthony L. Volino for his monograph, "Leveraging the Trinity: A 'Clausewitzian' Framework for Genocide Prevention." His 65-page monograph focused on what the military can do for genocide prevention by leveraging existing research done by Carl von Clausewitz. Volino, who is a Department of Defense employee with U.S. Army North, the service component command for USNORTHCOM and standing joint forces land component command in Fort Sam Houston, Texas, received a $500 cash reward and plaque.

Army Maj. James Stultz was awarded the Iron Planner Award for earning the highest overall Army Physical Fitness Test score.

The Col. Thomas Felts Leadership Award was presented to Army Maj. Todd Tompkins. This award is given to the student who best exemplifies all of the desired attributes of a SAMS graduate and is named in honor of Felts, a 1998 SAMS graduate killed in action in Iraq on Nov. 14, 2006, while serving as an adviser to the Iraqi Army. Before deploying, Felts was a senior service fellow of the Advanced Operational Arts Studies Fellowship at SAMS.

"It was very humbling to get the award," Tompkins said. "I never thought I would get that. What it means to me is a guy or gal who is a team player, is competent in his craft, specifically in our realm here as a staff planner, and also physically and mentally fit and balance between that aspect and family on the side and just kind of being able to master all those different areas."

Tompkins said SAMS has really expanded his way of thinking.

"When I first came here, really I had only worked at the tactical level," Tompkins said. "I had a very narrow lens and I really only looked at things in black and white, and I didn't really understand what was going on around me. I didn't understand why decisions were being made higher, (and) didn't really care. As I'm leaving here now, just from the curriculum and from the interaction with my classmates and with the instructors, just all the different theoretical lenses and ways to approach problems and different ways of planning, has just really expanded my lens and how I look at the problems and how I view things now. It's been extraordinary."