Colonel Russell Lemler ’01, who arrived at West Point last fall to serve a third tour in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership (BS&L), has a thorough grasp of the Academy’s mission. This understanding comes after a 23-year career as a Field Artillery officer, most recently as the commander of 2nd Battalion, 15th Field Artillery Regiment at Fort Drum, New York.

Lemler commissioned into the Field Artillery in 2001 and began his career as a battery fire direction officer and company fire support officer in the 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. He served as a battery executive officer and battalion assistant operations officer for 3rd Battalion, 7th Field Artillery Regiment in Afghanistan. Following the Captain’s Career Course, he commanded Alpha Battery, 1st Battalion, 19th Field Artillery Regiment at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He then earned a Ph.D. in management from Columbia Business School and served as an assistant professor in BS&L. After attending the Command and General Staff College, he deployed as the U.S. Central Command Forward-Jordan chief of fires and executive officer to the commanding general, U.S. Armed Forces Jordan. Lemler redeployed to the 3rd Brigade, 1st Armored Division at Fort Bliss, Texas as the brigade fire support officer and lead planner for U.S. Africa Command multinational exercises in Gabon and the Netherlands, after which he served as the executive officer of 2nd Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment. He then led the Army’s ROTC program for northern New Jersey at Seton Hall University and completed a second stint with BS&L, this time as the Military Leadership Program Director. He took command of 2nd Battalion, 15th Field Artillery Regiment and deployed with the 10th Mountain Division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team to Iraq and Syria in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, where he also commanded Al Asad Airbase, Iraq.

Lemler says, “I look forward to bringing the lessons I learned serving in the Field Artillery to the classroom, as well as showing cadets that what they are learning now will be relevant to them as future Army officers.”

Some of these lessons include family life in the Army. Lemler married Carlys Romano ’01, his classmate, and notes that the two of them only had a handful of months together after four years of marriage. “Carlys deployed to the Iraq-Kuwait border as a Patriot missile platoon leader a week after we were married, and I deployed to Afghanistan in 2004 a few months after our daughter, Ellie, was born,” Lemler says. Despite the difficulty of their early years, Lemler says that Army life has been a great experience for his family: “Building a family in the Army was more rewarding than we expected as we raised our kids in strong communities and made lifelong friends.” Lemler says Ellie is now “thriving” as a West Point cadet, Class of 2026, and their son, Grant, entered Harvard University last fall as an Army ROTC cadet.

Lemler also learned lessons from his various deployments, which total 33 months of combat and seven training missions that have taken him to Australia, Europe, Asia, and Africa. “Each one was a powerful life experience,” he says. Whether it was an attempted bribe when he was a battery executive officer in Ghazni, Afghanistan (“It was an exact scenario we had discussed in then-Captain Pete Kilner’s philosophy class”), or experiencing a lack of infrastructure and direction from African officers in Gabon when teaching them brigade-level operations (“It reminded me of that first day of duties when a room of sweaty plebes stare at a mountain of laundry bundles”), Lemler himself has learned how important the West Point lessons his instructors tried to impart to him can be to a successful Army career.

So, what does Lemler hope his cadets and the junior faculty he’s now mentoring in BS&L learn from him? “I encourage cadets and young officers to focus on becoming the most capable leaders possible and to be open to anything, recognizing that life will deviate from their expectations,” he says. “Lieutenants and captains tend to put their heads down and focus exclusively on their immediate jobs, which is admirable, but it’s important to be aware of what’s out there and pursue it.” Lemler also says that commanders do not have enough time in the day to dictate to all their lieutenants the things they need to do. “We need junior officers with creativity and drive to make the organization better,” he says. This is where West Point’s integration across its pillars is most effective. “All the pillars are vital to getting our cadets to where they need to be,” he says. “Time has proven the process is effective, and USMA leaders are regularly updating the curriculum and training path for the better.”

Photo 1: Then-LTC Russell Lemler ’01, in Al Asad, Iraq, celebrates with the command teams from Norway, Spain, and Poland after the March 18, 2024 change of command ceremony for Task Force Viking (Norway), a task force that was under consistent attack from Iranian-aligned militias in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. Photo 2: As the commander of Al Asad Airbase in Iraq’s Anbar Province, then-LTC Lemler (seventh from left) led a team of over 3,100 people, including soldiers and airmen from the U.S. Army, U.S. Air Force, France, Norway, Poland, Germany, and Spain. Photo 3: The Lemler family supports CDT Ellie Lemler ’26, a Rabble Rouser, at the 2022 Army-Navy Game pep rally before Army’s thrilling 20-17 victory in double overtime.

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This article was originally published in the Winter 2025 edition of West Point magazine. View the archive of past issues here.