| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq-Jordan |
| BATTLE LESSONS - What the generals don't know. |
| 2005-01-10 |
| Long article, just a tidbit, EFL, GRTWT: In 2000, the new Army Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, was determined to shake up the Army and suspected that about half of a soldier's training was meaningless and "non-essential." The job of figuring out which half went to Lieutenant Colonel Leonard Wong (retired), a research professor of military strategy at the Army War College. At forty-five, Wong is handsome and voluble, with the air of a man who makes his living prodding the comfortable. Wong found that the problem was not "bogus" training exercises but worthwhile training being handled in such a way as to stifle fresh thinking. The Army had so loaded training schedules with doctrinaire requirements and standardized procedures that unit commanders had no time—or need—to think for themselves. The service was encouraging "reactive instead of proactive thought, compliance instead of creativity, and adherence instead of audacity," Wong wrote in his report. As one captain put it to him, "They're giving me the egg and telling me how to suck it." ----------------------------------------- Wong flew to Baghdad last April, a year after the supposed cessation of "major combat operations," to find out how the "reactive" and "compliant" junior officers the Army had trained were performing amid the insurgency. He and an active-duty officer flew to bases all over Iraq, interviewing lieutenants, who lead platoons of about thirty soldiers, and captains, who command companies of one to two hundred. These officers, scrambling to bring order to Mosul, Fallujah, and Baghdad, had been trained and equipped to fight against numbered, mechanized regiments in open-maneuver warfare. They had been taught to avoid fighting in cities at all costs. Few had received pre-deployment training in improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.s, the insurgents' signature weapon. None had received any but the most rudimentary instruction in the Arabic language or in Iraqi culture. They were perhaps the most isolated occupation force in history; there are no bars or brothels in Baghdad where Americans can relax, no place off the base for Americans to remove their body armor in the presence of locals. Every encounter was potentially hostile. The chronic shortage of troops and shifting phases of fighting and reconstruction forced soldiers into jobs for which they weren't prepared; Wong found field artillerymen, tankers, and engineers serving as infantrymen, while infantrymen were building sewer systems and running town councils. All were working with what Wong calls "a surprising lack of detailed guidance from higher headquarters." In short, the Iraq that Wong found is precisely the kind of unpredictable environment in which a cohort of hidebound and inflexible officers would prove disastrous. Yet he found the opposite. Platoon and company commanders were exercising their initiative to the point of occasional genius. Whatever else the Iraq war is doing to American power and prestige, it is producing the creative and flexible junior officers that the Army's training could not. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #18 The image that came to me when reading this article was (don't laugh too hard) the Butterball Turkey hotline. At Thanksgiving, Butterball has a free hotline people can call for advice on cooking a good roast turkey & meal. If Butterball can give phone-in advice why couldn't the military? Have experts of all kinds standing by to answer questions. Have a badly wounded soldier and no medic? Call in on a cell phone and talk to a trauma nurse or doctor. Your vehicle broke down in the middle of nowhere and you don't have any one who knows how to fix it? Call in and get advice from a top mechanic. Could use older or retired folks with tons of experience to do it. |
| Posted by: SC88 2005-01-10 10:56:03 PM |
| #17 TW..my e-mail shows I ordered the barrel-o-tumeric yesterday, but now I can't remember why :-) |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-01-10 10:30:16 PM |
| #16 Seafarious, you flatter me beyond all deserving. And I love it! 2b, I'm going to order the barrel-o-tumeric tomorrow. It just occurred to me that TD and her classmates are going to be able to vote in the next presidential election. The questions asked at that MTV "Meet the Candidates" show are going to be highly amusing... at least for us Rantburger types.... |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-01-10 5:40:24 PM |
| #15 Article: They had been taught to avoid fighting in cities at all costs. This principle is several thousand years old. It doesn't mean don't fight - it means, if possible, fight the enemy in an open area. They were certainly trained for urban operations, which is why their casualties are relatively low. But the principle still stands - urban operations are inevitably high-casualty, unless we adopt rather more draconian tactics - of the kind used during WWII, when perhaps hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed during the liberation of Europe. Article: None had received any but the most rudimentary instruction in the Arabic language or in Iraqi culture. How stupid can these reporters get? Rudimentary instruction is how this works. These guys are soldiers, not linguists. Learning anything but the rudiments is a full-time job. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-01-10 4:09:39 PM |
| #14 Who the hell is Baum? |
| Posted by: Captain America 2005-01-10 4:03:55 PM |
| #13 I just finished reading General Tommy Franks' book "American Soldier". It is an excellant book and I highly recommend it. He touches on how the training actually does encourage non-conformative thinking. |
| Posted by: Marvin the Martian 2005-01-10 3:41:01 PM |
| #12 ...suicidal willingness to excuse those who wish to kill us all. I'm keeping that phrase. That describes the LLL's problem in a nutshell. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-01-10 2:49:38 PM |
| #11 tw...thanks! That's heartening! |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-01-10 2:49:10 PM |
| #10 2b, I really believe that Bill Clinton was the Democratic Party's high point. Although it looked ugly, GWB did win decisively. And seriously, Kerry, his Party, and their supporters in academia, world politics, and the mainstream media are working as hard as they can to demonstrate their disregard for truth and honor.... not to mention their suicidal willingness to excuse those who wish to kill us all. Trailing Daughter is in ninth grade. What I hear from her and her friends makes it clear that the idealistic kids in this country (and who isn't at that age?) see the Republican Party as the place where their aspirations for change can be realized. They are the real internet generation, and they get their news from the web. Also, TD and many of her friends moderate sites (much like our own dear Army of Steve, Seafarious, etc), and recognize/handle trollery and similar deviltry. So as they grow up they'll already be immunized against MoveOn/DU/Soros behaviours, which makes them much less likely to accept the ideas/memes/"info" being pushed. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-01-10 2:43:23 PM |
| #9 sigh..you are absolutely right, Sea. Pol Pot's killing fields, Stalin's mass graves and 60+ million dead did little to discredit the left's stupid ideas in the 60's. And we even ended up with Kerry coming waaay too close to winning the last election. I feel depressed. |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-01-10 2:15:47 PM |
| #8 But we knew that. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-01-10 2:08:51 PM |
| #7 Naw, they won't be extinct, they'll go to ground, carefully hoarding a cache of "war atrocity" stories. Us blog historians had best start chronicling the good stories now. Oh, and we have to win, and win decisively. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-01-10 2:08:11 PM |
| #6 somehow, I don't think they will be gravitating to the logic of the Michael Moore, Barbara Boxer party. But then, I suspect that will be extinct by then. |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-01-10 1:56:52 PM |
| #5 What seafarious said. Whichever party can grab the greatest number of these supremely experienced and talented young leaders will likely dominate national politics in years to come. |
| Posted by: lex 2005-01-10 1:52:46 PM |
| #4 I am interested in seeing the political class that arises from this group of junior officers in twenty years. We'll have some incredibly gifted leaders. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2005-01-10 1:49:48 PM |
| #3 Bull Poo ALERT!!! Whatever else the Iraq war is doing to American power and prestige, it is producing the creative and flexible junior officers that the Army’s training could not. And pray tell, Mr. Bozo, ...just where did these junior officers acquire the ability to think and act in a creative and flexible manner?? Oh and look how Mr. Bozo's true sympathies are exposed by this statment: Whatever else the Iraq Hey BOZO, a better conclusion would read, "despite a lack in specific training for the current conflict such as arabic, IED training etc., the army has a training program that is producing the creative and flexible junior officers who can successfully improvise in any cirucmstances. " Keep up the good work guys, and don't let this clueless bozo change a thing. Otherwise you'll be training the guys to fight with skills only applicable to the current situation (ie: the last war) and not training them to be able to improvise for ALL conflicts. why do we have to suffer such fools???? |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-01-10 1:46:17 PM |
| #2 Today's Lieutenants and Captains are Tomorrows Colonels and Generals. Take note China. How is political hackery and civil suppression training your future military leaders for the battlefield? |
| Posted by: Laurence of the Rats 2005-01-10 1:43:05 PM |
| #1 I hope the author was not surprised at the initiative and smarts of the junior officer corps. They have actually done something other than receive military training and are not robots. They are smart and they adapt. The crucible of war forces all to adapt. The smart ones just do it faster. |
| Posted by: Remoteman 2005-01-10 1:20:59 PM |