{"id":29157,"date":"2019-05-14T02:46:21","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T02:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/uncategorized\/2019\/05\/14\/ned-stark-unveiled-colonel-who-wrote-viral-leadership-columns-has-a-challenge-for-the-air-force\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T20:52:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T20:52:07","slug":"ned-stark-unveiled-colonel-who-wrote-viral-leadership-columns-has-a-challenge-for-the-air-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/airforcetimes\/news\/your-air-force\/2019\/05\/14\/ned-stark-unveiled-colonel-who-wrote-viral-leadership-columns-has-a-challenge-for-the-air-force\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Ned Stark\u2019 unveiled: Colonel who wrote viral leadership columns has a challenge for the Air Force"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

His pseudonymous columns on problems with the Air Force\u2019s leadership development<\/a> sliced through years of ossified thinking like a Valyrian steel greatsword.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They went viral across the service, drew plaudits for their straight talk about how leaders are really chosen \u2014 and even got the attention of Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, the anonymous officer known as “Col. Ned Stark\u201d has come forward as Col. Jason Lamb, a career intelligence officer and leader at Air Education and Training Command. And he has a challenge for the Air Force: Continue the hard, overdue conversation he started \u2014 be bold and be frank, because the next generation is at stake<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think what I\u2019ve done, more than anything, is brought something that was being discussed \u2014 and demotivating people \u2014 on the periphery into a thing that we can actually talk about openly,\u201d Lamb said in a May 6 interview at Air Force Times\u2019 newsroom in Northern Virginia. \u201cMy mom once told me when I was a kid, you should always leave the party while you\u2019re still having fun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lamb said he\u2019s decided to reveal himself now \u2014 almost exactly a year after War on the Rocks<\/a> published his first column, \u201cA Call for Senior Officer Reform in the Air Force: An Insider\u2019s Perspective\u201d<\/a> \u2014 because he thinks he\u2019s said everything he can under the Ned Stark persona, and by going public, he can help guide the conversation into its next phase. Lamb\u2019s identity was first revealed on a War on the Rocks podcast<\/a> Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lamb thinks that\u2019s the only way the Air Force can move beyond small-ball, baby-stepping solutions, toward something that really changes the service for the better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Air Force really struggles with candor,\u201d Lamb said. \u201cThe entire system incentivizes risk avoidance. What we see as risk these days, really speaks to our problem with risk avoidance. When we stand up and applaud when a wing commander chooses not to abide by an Air Force Instruction because he thinks it\u2019s silly, that\u2019s seen as a huge victory.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lamb, who is now director of intelligence, analysis and innovation at Air Education and Training Command at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph in Texas, graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1995. His father was a Marine Corps non-commissioned officer who fought in the Korean War, and he thinks that\u2019s where he got his lack of tolerance for BS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although he is seriously considering retirement next year, though he hasn\u2019t made a final decision, Lamb said he has loved serving in the Air Force and, as a squadron and then group commander, tried to improve it where he could.<\/p>\n\n\n\t