How Has Writing Impacted You? Our Winner!
Congratulations to MAJ Christopher Slininger for winning first place in our impact writing competition.
Please find MAJ Slininger’s submission below.
How Writing Changed My Life
On April 1st 2025, I celebrated the first anniversary of pursuing a wild and crazy idea — to empower junior officers to detect, identify, understand, develop, test, and recommend solutions to enterprise-level problems. Thus, the Army Junior Officer Counsel (AJOC) was born.
The AJOC inaugural summit with BG Johnson. Photo courtesy of MAJ Christopher Slininger.
But how did we get here, to the one-year mark? Well, it’s a story of writing, trust, and mentorship. Today, I want to focus on the writing aspect of how AJOC came to be.
The impetus began after reading the article, “We Hear You” by LTG Beagle, LTC Michael Soyka, Dr. Lasherdo M. Harris, and CPT Robishaw, a response to concerns raised by departing Army captains. While I appreciated the attempt to address these concerns, I felt the article missed the mark because as a captain, I knew our careers had ups and downs, the only problem was, I had yet to experience a lull in my OPTEMPO. Driven to articulate a different perspective, I wrote a rebuttal.
My wife wisely advised me to rewrite it; my initial draft was, understandably, heated. I rewrote it several times, focusing on identifying what the common catalyst was in the initial articles, where the mark was missed, and proposing three ways to mitigate the root cause. A root cause I identified is the Army's current system fosters codependence and retention issues, leading to mental and physical health problems among its members. To recruit and retain future generations, the Army must reduce the excessive time and energy demands on its personnel.
Finally, I had an article I was proud of and ready to publish.
I faced initial rejections – one for length, another with no response at all. Finally, I submitted it to Military Review Online from Army University Press, despite feeling unsure if my work was suitable for an Army journal. To my surprise, they accepted it!
My article, "A Call to Modernize the Army Experience,” was published in December 2023. Initially, it garnered little attention, but then I received a LinkedIn message from an Army colonel who wanted to discuss the AJOC concept, one of three suggestions in the article, and explore its implementation within her unit.
At the time, I was transitioning out of the Army via a Skillbridge program, with an ETS of April 1, 2024. The timeline to potentially remain active duty and build this idea was incredibly tight. On March 19th, 2024, I received an offer to revoke my release and pursue AJOC. We had just 13 days to make it happen, and thanks to the support of my gaining and losing units, HRC confirmed the packet was pulled on March 28th – I was staying in the Army.
So, on April 1st, 2024, I began building AJOC. One year later, we have three pilot brigades with several more potential sites in the pipeline. We’re currently conducting a lessons-learned rebuild and preparing for a leadership transition as I’m no longer a junior officer. AJOC has already facilitated change at the pilot locations—from improvements to cyclic inventory control to proposing a non-mil spouse stabilization policy. Junior officers are identifying issues, developing solutions, and driving change across the Army.
Professional writing in the Army has quite literally changed my life. Writing is powerful, but writing coupled with action is where we see real change. Programs like the LTG (Retired) James Dubik Writing Fellowship and the Harding Project are vital, but true stewardship requires acting on what we read and working to make a difference.
Let’s get to work!
Chris Slininger is a Major in the Adjutant General Corps, the current director of the Army Junior Officer Counsel, and a LTG (Retired) James Dubik Writing Fellow. Outside of the Army, Chris runs the eMMissary mentorship training program through Military Mentors, writes a weekly newsletter on mentorship and takes every opportunity to play chess with his wife after taking their pup for a walk.
 | A guest post by
|
Congrats, well deserved!