One of the things that I want to do better is keeping in touch with past coworkers and commanders. It’s so easy to lose contact due to the optempo of our daily lives. The ones that I have kept in contact with have been great for getting candid advice, a longer perspective, and even networking for future assignments. It’s also nice to just catch up. I recently had to ask a favor of a former battalion commander that I hadn’t kept in contact with well enough, and I hated the transactional feel of it all. I’m committed to avoiding this mistake in the future. On the flipside, as a former company commander I get to field questions from my old PLs now that they are in command. I don’t begrudge them for calling after a long period of radio silence either. We are all busy! There is really no greater joy than being able to help former subordinates advance in their Army careers. As a current instructor at USMA, I’ve started giving out my personal email to former students so that they can get letters of recommendation from me in the future. More importantly, they’ll know I am available should they need advice.