Making Sense of It All: A Modern Soldiers’ Post-War Reflections

A Guest Post by Captain Christopher C. Little

War is a visceral byproduct of failed diplomacy and does not discriminate against either side. War is a strategic entity, one that begs for existence in the tactical realm. This article will examine a former Army infantryman’s perspective while operating at the tactical level during the conflict in Iraq. The book includes leadership lessons learned through deep self-reflection of the author’s own performance in the less than ideal conditions of intense combat.

For veterans, war is a tactical endeavor that results in more questions than answers. It is personal, yet impersonal. Some warriors lose close friends or their own mental stability, and yet others gain life-changing relationships they will keep forever (many times this can happen simultaneously). Experiences in war vary significantly by individual. It is often challenging for these experiences to be translated into words, yet they need to be told to be heard and understood. Continually examining lessons learned, journaling, and sharing experiences are what helped former Army infantryman, Paul Endris better understand his experiences during combat.  Paul is a veteran of the war in Iraq, and recent author of Operation Retrospect: A Soldier’s Journal in a Veteran’s Reunion.

The book is about a group of veterans coming together for a reunion of the 506th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division a decade after their year-long deployment. During his deployment in 2005, Paul, meticulously journaled his experiences along with the experiences of his unit. Paul captured his own perspective, along with the experiences of the Soldiers in his regiment to include late-night firefights, After Action Reports (AARs) and leadership lessons. The book eloquently captures the chaos that he and his unit operated and how he applied the lessons learned to who he is today. Paul’s journal helped him and his fellow Soldiers, ten years later, find solace in a time when some of his fellow Soldiers were having trouble dealing with their experiences during their time in combat.

Signing up to wear a uniform is an honorable and voluntary endeavor. Why put yourself through the hardships of service? It is a question that is hard to answer for many. Is it leadership skills, a steady job, serving something greater than yourself, or simply the camaraderie? The answer will be different for all who decide to serve. For Paul, during his tour in Iraq, he sought solace in journaling his experiences for the duration of his deployment. His journaling enabled him and his fellow Soldiers to reunite and bond over ten years after their “Rendezvous With Destiny”.

Paul had to learn life lessons quicker and in a more abhorrent manner than his family back home. He had to learn to trust his team and rely on them for his life and sanity while he was deployed. His platoon and company leadership was the gatekeeper for setting the example “to do more than what was asked, and to give nothing less than their all” because other people’s lives depended on it. It is a feeling you cannot find, except during the trying times one experiences during combat. 

As a leader, it is imperative to set the tone for how the organization will function and operate.  A leader must set the bar high and not accept mediocrity. Simply put, leaders set the standard for their troops. This is especially true when people’s lives are at stake. While Paul was deployed he was not a leader by rank. He drew from those around him to get through the tough times and became a leader by action and virtue. This was accomplished through his pen and documenting his experiences. Though unknown to him at the time, he would later help his leadership from the deployment make sense of their time in Iraq, ten years after leaving combat.

He conducted daily self-reflection to help document the facts, as well as his own perspective of the war. In addition to this, early on in his deployment, Paul learned the power of the AAR. This helped him in multiple ways, first was the ability to find context for future application. Second, the AAR’s and journaling helped him “…remove the moral ambiguity…and seek personal lessons learned to process our deployment apart from any geopolitical context.” Paul used this technique to process what the war meant for him and those in his team. Using an AAR is a technique that can be used by leaders in any situation.  The AAR enables leaders and organizations to reflect and capture lessons learned for future application in an attempt to improve performance.

Paul and his fellow Soldiers did their part in order to accomplish the mission and get each other home. He left an impact on the war’s history during his time in Iraq no matter how large or small. An impact is an impact, even as much as a butterfly flapping its wings, you never know the result of those actions until time passes. Ultimately, rank has no boundaries in wartime and this was an unprecedented time in history for the tactical level of warfare 

“Never in the history of warfare have decisions at the lowest level been so consequential…[their actions] depended on each interaction with citizens of the host nation and enormous discretion foreign to young Soldiers. When the last ounce of your soul compels you to shoot, sometimes courage means not taking the shot.” 

Paul and his fellow Soldiers relied extensively on the personal and organizational trust they built to accomplish their mission and make sound decisions during their deployment.

Leaders, whether in a combat or garrison environment, need to empower their subordinates and hold them accountable for their actions. But they must accomplish building trust and maintaining a high level of accountability while seeking ways to avoid micromanaging. Trust is an essential factor in empowering those below you. Without trust, leadership is just management and leaders in the military cannot afford to simply manage. Paul and his platoon got through their deployment because of their trust in each other. No individual can go through what they went through alone. Only a team that has developed a deep sense of trust can accomplish the mission and get home safe.

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Captain Christopher Little is an RQ-4 Global Hawk Pilot and Chief of Weapons and Tactics at Beale AFB, CA. He has attended Squadron Officer School at Maxwell AFB, AL. He has 7 years of service in the USAF and has been a Flight Commander at the Captain level in the Commander’s Action Group (CAG) and an Executive Officer. He commissioned from Officer Training School in 2012 with a Bachelor’s of Science in International Studies and is one class away from a Masters in Political Science from the University of Nebraska at Omaha.