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Cristel Gutschenritter Orrand
Cristel Gutschenritter Orrand

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May 23

Was it Music or the Wind?

A Third Culture Carpet Ride through the Jordanian Desert with Jackson Browne* *his albums, not his person, although if he’s willing, I’m game for a road trip. My spouse knows me better than anyone, and still there are a handful of things that mystify him about me, but only a handful. Why a vegetarian pacifist knows so much about weapons and war…

Travel

5 min read

Was it Music or the Wind?
Was it Music or the Wind?

May 9

The Foster Garden

When my neighbor, an environmental engineer, moved in six years ago, she meticulously planned her garden in excel sheets. She mapped the plots, which plants, how many of each, and even used a measuring tape to space them. She’d ask me about a certain plant I had growing, or what…

Life Lessons

4 min read

The Foster Garden
The Foster Garden

May 1

Keeping the Watch

Foreword: I awoke to a treasure chest on my porch. My father didn’t call, didn’t knock; he just made a five-hour round trip drive to leave a box of treasure (with typed letters for provenance) on my porch. …

Nonfiction

5 min read

Keeping the Watch
Keeping the Watch

Apr 23

Restoration

Forward: The object below may appear to be a secretary desk that was commissioned for my grandmother, by my grandfather, on their fifth anniversary in 1962. I inherited it, along with his Army medals, thirty-two pots and pans, two Turkish rugs, seven dolls (only one of which is creepy), and bolts…

History

6 min read

Restoration
Restoration

Apr 13

The Case Against the Case Against Expanding NATO & Realpolitik Skis

This piece is a response to Charles A. Kupchan’s “Putin’s War in Ukraine Is a Watershed. Time for America to Get Real” in the New York Times, April 11. Dr. Kupchan is a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He…

Russia

6 min read

The Case Against the Case Against Expanding NATO & Realpolitik Skis
The Case Against the Case Against Expanding NATO & Realpolitik Skis

Mar 5

Did We Just Flatten the Hierarchy or Recreate Feudalism?

Middle management layers have been decreasing for decades, but a few years ago, consultants gave COOs the idea we could really “flatten” the organization by going a step further in creating fewer roles as well as levels. We could reduce costs and delays, while making happier, more motivated employees! It’s…

Organizational Culture

4 min read


Feb 26

Still There: Desert Fatigues & the Waiting War

Driving six miles down a gravel road near Fort Riley, Kansas, the perpetual dust of hog farms and the crushed stalks of corn and alfalfa scratched at our eyes. The gravel lane was too long and narrow to turn the bus around so it dropped us at the end of…

War

3 min read


Feb 21

Gatekeepers

A Short Story, South Carolina, February 1868. — Opal liked the names of brown and Black people’s places, places that sounded like songs, places like Yemassee, where the Pedee and Kewaunee Indians once lived. The Indians had been chased away by the French and Spanish, who were long gone now, too. The names all sounded curt and English…

Short Story

16 min read

Gatekeepers
Gatekeepers

Sep 11, 2021

Hard Candy & Soft Tissue: 9/11 Twenty Years Later

It was another great American exceptionalism that foreign terrorism had never struck such a soft target on US soil before, at least not in the way we thought of terrorism then. Trains and markets were bombed and wars were fought elsewhere, but not here. Two years before, I had been…

9 11 Attacks

4 min read


Oct 25, 2020

After Action: Horror & Healing through Story

A little over a year ago, I read Jake Tapper’s book The Outpost. It is one that will stay with me for life, whether or not I can bring myself to read it again. It’s haunting. It’s heroic. It’s tragic. And it’s as epic as anything Tolkien ever wrote. It…

War

7 min read

After Action: Horror & Healing through Story
After Action: Horror & Healing through Story
Cristel Gutschenritter Orrand

Cristel Gutschenritter Orrand

Writer, Principal Consultant at NOVATUM Consulting, Historian, Researcher, Pugilist, Politico https://www.facebook.com/groups/585714198294643/

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