Story
I grew up on the island of Guam. I ended up in Mariupol. Everyone just calls me TJ.
This is the short version of how military service, simulations, Ukraine, and self-taught AI work became NextGen Wargame.
How I got here
After 20 years in the U.S. Army, I retired and joined Northrop Grumman as a simulations specialist at the Command and General Staff College. From there I moved to West Point as a Department of the Army civilian, serving nearly seven years as deputy for the simulations center.
I trained Afghan uniformed police in Khowst, then relocated to Odesa, Ukraine to develop NATO curriculum at the Ground Forces Academy.
When Russia annexed Crimea, I stayed. I joined the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission Ukraine and spent seven years in-country, first leading patrols out of the Mariupol Hub, then serving as a Monitor and Operations Officer with the Odessa Monitoring Team.
Today I’m at the Joint Multinational Simulations Center, Mission Training Command-Graf, Germany, planning brigade and below exercises for U.S. Army units and supporting the Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine.
Everything I know about AI, I taught myself. No courses, no certifications, just real problems that needed solving. This site is a product of that: built in collaboration with several AI models to tackle concrete challenges in military training and exercise planning.
Self-taught doesn’t mean surface-level. It means I learned by doing, and the work proves it.
Service and simulations
Twenty years in the U.S. Army, then simulation work at CGSC and West Point.
Ukraine and field operations
Training, curriculum, patrol leadership, monitoring, and operations work in Khowst, Odesa, and Mariupol.
AI learned by doing
Self-taught AI work aimed at concrete military training and exercise-planning problems.
See what the story leads to
The About page explains why the site exists. Methods and projects show how this background turns into usable training products.