Photo by Joshua Worth – January 15th, 2019
As Army Logisticians, we’ve all heard the horror stories: A tactical pause in Desert Storm to allow logistics to catch up to the maneuver force, or the 101stholding the line at Bastogne with no winter coats. But what does a failure of logistics look like in the War on Terror? Thanks to the post-WWII Bretton Woods System, the U.S. has absolute control of its logistics tail. Given enough priority we can project an unlimited amount of wartime supplies anywhere in the world at any time. I argue that in the current environment the only real failure is a failure to synchronize. There is almost always enough of the commodity the ground force needs; the problem is getting them to a specific place at a specific time to achieve the desired end state – synchronization. The failure to synchronize, specifically matching logistics to the tactical plan, is the most important lesson we can teach young logisticians. As a junior officer, I often believed that if I knew how to get the supplies from the operational level to the end user, I knew all I needed to know. That was far from the truth.
Rangers conduct close quarters combat skills training (U.S. Army photo)
The Gift – A Lesson in Failure
A few years ago, I observed a platoon of Rangers conduct squad-level, multiple-room clearance operations (Battle Drill #6a) on a hot Georgia summer night. As a young fire support officer, the skill and efficiency of each squad appeared exceptional, but the First Sergeant wasn’t impressed. “Tonight’s going to be a long one,” he said after the first squad finished. As I stood on the catwalk, I watched three squads of various skill navigate the scenario during the blank iteration and not one achieved the First Sergeant’s benchmark for excellence.
Troopers from the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment hold their position during the final battle across the Western Corridor, National Training Center, against assaulting elements of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, from Fort Riley, Kan., September 9, 2018. (U.S. Army photo by Capt. Jeff Caslen)
Although now retired, I did 11 rotations as an armor officer in the rotational unit (BLUFOR) at the various dirt Combat Training Centers: National Training Center (NTC) at Fort Irwin, Calif., Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Fort Polk, La., and Hohenfels, Germany (then CMTC; now JMRC). More often than not, at a CTC as BLUFOR (aka the “good guys”) you lose most of your battles. Often that includes finishing the fight sitting on top of your tank alongside a blinking yellow light signaling you were “killed” using the laser training simulation. I hate that blinking yellow light because it means that in that operation I failed.
This article is specifically for field grade officers who are currently serving, or will be potentially assigned, at echelons above corps (EAC) and particularly in joint, interagency, intergovernmental, and multinational (JIIM) environments. The military focuses field grade officership primarily on the “key and developmental” staff assignments held by “iron majors” or command at the battalion or equivalent level in each of the services. Most field grade officers spend the majority of their careers serving in battalions, brigades, groups, regiments, squadrons, and wings, or their higher-level tactical headquarters, such as a division or corps in the Army. These units provide readiness and lethality to the United States military. Many of the hard-earned skills developed to this point in an officer’s career are transferable. However, these higher-level formations introduce new dynamics, particularly in the JIIM environment. The following discusses the expectations and unique requirements for success as Joint Staff J5 desk officers, theater army or air force planners, and other such assignments.
U.S. Army Photo
I’ve noticed many organizations have shown ambitions for leader development but struggled to implement it in any meaningful way. Professional development programs are commonplace among Army units – whether we refer to them as “officer professional development,” “noncommissioned officer professional development,” or rank-immaterial “leader professional development” (OPD, NCOPD, or LPD respectively; I acknowledge there are different intended audiences but for the sake of brevity, I will simply use “LPD” throughout this article). I submit two fundamental flaws with this traditional design: first, when you reduce professional development to a formal “program” to be resourced and scheduled and block-checked, you’ve already failed; second, what most units consider “professional development” is actually just a risk mitigation strategy.
March 14, 2018. U.S. Air Force Photo by Tech. Sgt. Gregory Brook
Congratulations! You have been selected to attend the resident Command and General Staff Officer’s Course (CGSOC) at the US Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC). This summer, you and a selected cohort of your peers will come to Fort Leavenworth to prepare for field grade officership. The time spent at the CGSC will be valuable and rewarding for most officers. They will seize the opportunity to prepare themselves for the challenges which lie ahead.
U.S. Army photo by Spc. Zoe Garbarino. Nov. 7, 2018
“An officer who understands mission command and commander’s intent is worth 10 officers who don’t. When you are given a legal and lawful order, execute and stay within your limits. When a commander decides on a course of action, it is not your place to second guess. We advise and make recommendations, commanders make decisions and assume the risks.”
Do you want to be indispensable to your unit? Master the skill of adapting plans to reality while achieving the commander’s desired end state and intent. The primary purpose of staff sections and the officers who lead them is to operationalize the commander’s intent. The same can be said for subordinate units (platoons in a company, companies in a battalion, etcetera). Unless you are one of the fortunate few born with the requisite intuition, learning the proper time and place for disagreement takes years of learning by trial and error. This essay shares some lessons learned to assist new leaders in navigating this difficult landscape.
The Military Leader by Andrew Steadman
As a leader, you know that developing leaders is crucial to your team’s success. You also know that when life gets busy, meaningful leader development activities take a back seat to the swarm of everyday tasks. Who has time to discuss—let alone research and refine—quality content that will make a real difference? Andrew Steadman has lived this frustration and wrote The Military Leader to give leaders straightforward, highly relevant, inspirational leader development insight they can use to grow themselves and their teams. The Military Leader is your leader development program when you don’t have time for one.
On Tactics by B.A. Friedman
In this work, B.A. Friedman provides rich context and insight for tactical practitioners of any rank. The book “unpacks” the tactical principles and tenets many of memorized as lieutenants (tempo, surprise, mass, etc), going beyond the wave tops of doctrine with both historic and contemporary battlefield examples. This work would be an excellent centerpiece for a Battalion or Brigade Leader Professional Development program.
Think of all the activities and actions needed to plan a family vacation: parents making a budget, making reservations, researching activities to do with the kids, travel plans, determining who is going, and who will pay for what. The Army conducts similar actions when creating a new unit, relocates a unit to another installation, or makes changes to structure or equipment in an existing unit. The Army process to manage the numerous aspects of these changes is called Force Integration which is the synchronized, resource-constrained, systematic management of approved change and consideration of the potential implications of decisions and actions taken within the execution process.
The Department of the Army approves numerous large and small changes every year. However, many of these changes will not be completed for several years. So how does the Army manage all of these changes and why do these changes take so long? This article will address both of these questions by explaining, in broad terms, Force Integration in the hopes of educating the force about some aspects of change that are considered, the interconnectedness of many factors, and some complications that may affect planning and execution.