Category Archives: PME

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A Letter to My CGSOC Peers

A Guest Post by MAJ George Fust

“You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”

-Donald Rumsfeld, 21st Secretary of Defense

To my fellow Command and General Staff Officer Course (CGSOC) peers, this course is an opportunity to understand our current Army and we can help shape it for the future fight. This is our Army. This is our moment to be stewards of the profession that we have invested a decade or more in. The Army most of us plan to be a part of for the next decade. Our life choices have led us here. Now is the time to stay switched on. While completing CGSOC, I propose three broad areas to focus on and think about. These include organizational leadership skills, stewardship of the profession, and personal goals. The Army gifted us an entire year for personal development and to contribute to our organization. If not us, then who? If not now, then when?

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Part 2: Got Shock? How to Train your Brigade for Lethality and Winning in Large Scale Combat Operations

A Guest Post By COL Michael Schoenfeldt (@IRONHORSE6_) and MAJ Patrick Stallings (@DustyStetson95)

This is Part 2 of an 8 Part Series. The full and unredacted article with all enclosures is available on Milsuite at https://www.milsuite.mil/book/groups/abct-training

Operationalized Multi-Echelon Training

Time is a finite resource and units cannot simply add requirements to training calendars that are already overloaded. Increasing lethality and the ability of ABCTs to synchronize all WfFs requires multi-echelon training with clearly defined objectives and outcomes. During a properly designed company live-fire certification, an infantry company—the primary training audience— will train on all of its assigned METs. Additionally, that training event provides an opportunity for the parent battalion to establish its own Main Command Post (CP), Tactical Command Post (TAC), Combat Trains Command Post (CTCP), and Field Trains Command Post (FTCP) while validating current operations functions at each node. The company has an opportunity to deploy its CP and company trains. By evaluating the infantry company on its performance while receiving a Logistics Package (LOGPAC) at a Logistics Release Point (LRP) during a service station resupply, the distribution platoon and Forward Support Company (FSC) for the battalion can demonstrate proper tactics and validate their SOPs. The brigade trains the Brigade Aviation Element (BAE) and Fire Support Element (FSE) on managing airspace and de-conflicting fires by incorporating lift aviation, attack aviation, artillery, mortars, Shadow Unmanned Aerial System (UAS), and Raven UAS into the company live fire. Sappers from the Brigade Engineer Battalion (BEB) participate and integrate into the company by conducting a combined arms breach. By executing all of these events at the same time, the ABCT builds readiness and lethality across multiple echelons in one training event.

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Reflections on the Command General Staff College

CGSC

The purpose of this article is to provide an examination and evaluation of the Command and General Staff College (CGSC) 2020 academic year. Three officers, from three different sections, evaluated virtually all aspects of the academic year.  We chose to use three perspectives to provide a more expansive insight into a year at CGSC.  Often one person’s perspective can be dismissed as anecdotal and this was our attempt to offer legitimacy to the evaluation. This evaluation includes our assessment of the day-to-day classroom instruction, administrative elements of CGSC, and garrison activities of Fort Leavenworth. Our examination does not include an evaluation of all aspects of CGSC. For example, none of us participated in the Masters of Military Arts and Sciences (MMAS) degree program, and all three of us lived on Fort Leavenworth.  Each section will show the average grade based on all three of our evaluations and then provide our assessments and comments. For our evaluation, we based the format on that of MAJ Jamie Schwandt, USAR, used for an article he wrote for the Task and Purpose in 2018.