'Best Defense' Blog Features Pro-Tips in Haiku Form

The Thinker on the Butte de Warlencourt,
watercolor, 1917, William Orpen

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Tom Ricks, who writes the "Best Defense" blog for Foreign Policy magazine and who has been a long-time supporter of the Red Bull Rising blog, is currently running a micro-essay contest (150-word maximum) on the theme: "What should a military professional profess?"

"It isn’t as easy as it sounds," he writes. "It can’t be just 'patriotic,' because it should have application to the militaries of other countries. […] I’m asking this now because I suspect we will see some tests of military professionalism in the coming weeks and months."

Read his full pitch here.

The contest, which is likely only for professional-bragging points, will run through the end of February. Any "winners" (defined as the "best or at least most interesting") will be posted in March. In the meantime, Ricks is occasionally featuring responses he's received so far. You know, to help people get the creative juices flowing.

Those familiar with my work in the award-winnng collection "Welcome to FOB Haiku" will not be surprised that my own attempt to address Ricks' question was a series of pithy, Japanese-style poems.

One of my favorites:

Your moral compass
should be red-light readable
for work in the dark.

You can read them all here on Ricks' blog.

Send your own micro-essay entries to: ricksblogcomment AT gmail DOT com