U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Daniel Love

I read the article as I out-processed from Yongsan and prepared for a transpacific permanent change of station journey to Fort Leavenworth. A recent Command and General Staff College (CGSC) grad lambasted the school and faculty, declared the education was broken, and bemoaned everything wrong with the institution. That article, and others like it, formed a negative narrative before my arrival. I trust the authors intended to be advocates for improvement, but that intent was buried beneath their obvious cynicism. I can relate to frustration that arises from unmet expectations, and I experienced moments of disappointment and dissatisfaction during my year at CGSC. This essay intends to offer a more balanced narrative to the incoming class by building on a Twitter thread I recently created that gained more attention than expected. It expands on the most pertinent points, and hopes to form a more objective narrative for the incoming class and gives constructive feedback to the faculty and staff.

Relationships are key

The quality of your CGSC experience hinges on your staff group, faculty, and classroom dynamic. More than 1,100 CGSC students are organized into more than 150 staff groups that a include mix of branches, experiences, and personalities, which can cause tension and conflict as staff groups develop. The group also forms the foundation for engagement with the course – the firmer that foundation, the better. Approach your staff group with professionalism and a willingness to invest in the team from the beginning. Trust that each of you wants to get something of value from the year and work collaboratively to create that every day. I was fortunate because my staff group invested in each other and built a cohesive team. I can honestly say I respect and admire each of them, and our group dynamic was one of the highlights of the year.

Relationships are key

This is worth restating for the simple fact that instructors and guest speakers will continuously remind you that you are transitioning from a direct leader to an organizational leader. Your ability to build teams and influence people is the key to success. You have more than likely read other articles that reinforce the broader focus of a field grade officer and the necessity of influencing others. Relationship building becomes thematic at CGSC, and it applies in every direction. Your professional network will simultaneously widen and deepen over the year, and you will become a better officer for it. You do not have to be at the neighborhood firepit gatherings or even live on the post, but connecting with peers and learning the value of relationships and influence is essential.

“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything”

Eisenhower may not have had CGSC in mind when he said it, but it applies. The scenario for the Advanced Operations Course (AOC) was new for this year. It had a new geographic location, products, focus, and structure. It was at times frustrating as the faculty worked through the friction inherent in a new curricular rollout, and we were frequently reminded that they were building the airplane while trying to fly it. The structure laboriously lingered on a single phase beyond the lesson content to fill it or the attention span of instructors and students alike. The scenario lacked depth, and the order issued to guide planning was not a perfect product. We submitted requests for information to higher (our instructors), and sometimes we did not receive a conclusive answer. We resorted to making bold assumptions and continued to plan accordingly.

If the purpose of AOC is to produce perfect products or briefs, the objective was not met, but I do not think that is the case. The goal of AOC should be to experience and lead the planning process and then be able to go to a unit with an immature staff and coach others. Let me be clear – I am not an apologist for flaws in the course writing. Parts of AOC were frustrating and felt incomplete rather than intentionally vague to spur initiative. The unintended side effect of those flaws was that we had to plan without all the answers, as is often the case. I am an advocate for a curriculum that recreates the uncertainty that staffs work through every day in the force. I believe understanding the inputs and outputs while coping with friction produces more flexible officers that have a greater appreciation of risk and required commander’s decisions.

Additionally, I believe the planning echelon should vary – my staff group planned as a division staff the entire course. I would have liked to see us plan as a corps, Joint Task Force, or Army Service Component Command to expose us to other types of staffs. This would also give students a better understanding of the operational level of war and the Army’s role in the joint force.

“It’s only a lot of reading if you do it”

Do the reading and participate in the classroom. You may find the curriculum lacking academic rigor at times, and it does have a lot of room for improvement. You will learn the most from class discussions, and you will miss out if you do not engage with the course and your peers. You will read some Clausewitz and Jomini and probably not understand a lot of it. You will definitely not become an expert on any of it. You will have one class on Sun Tzu and the Chinese way of war. Is that a problem? Probably. Should we toss the Western Way of War? No. An Evolution of Military Thought elective covers those theorists more in depth along with naval theory (Mahan and Corbett), air power (Douhet, Mitchell, Boyd, and Warren), and insurgency/revolutionary war (Marx, Trinquirer, and Mao). It is required if you are selected to attend the School of Advanced Military Studies, but should be incorporated into the base curriculum.

Final thoughts

It may or may not be the best year of your life, but your experience will be as positive or negative as your perspective. If you approach the course with a negative perspective and simply poke holes, you will find plenty of things wrong with it. The school is neither perfect, nor broken. It is an institution beholden to the bureaucracy that created it, and like all large organizations has institutional inertia that makes change difficult. Engage with it, offer constructive feedback and find ways to enjoy Fort Leavenworth and seek opportunities for professional and personal growth. You can allow CGSC to become an exercise in frustration or you can set conditions for yourself – we will soon enough be the heirs of organizations with their own problems because, like CGSC, all organizations are made of well-intentioned but imperfect people and the processes they create. Understanding that inherent imperfection and recognizing the primacy of relationships in improvement is, for me, the key takeaway from this year. Any organization can become better if stakeholders build trust, offer useful feedback, and work to incorporate relevant recommendations. CGSC is no different. Cynic chic may be a fashionable shade to wear, but it offers nothing of value to the institution or professional military education.

MAJ Mike G. Maurais is currently a student in the Advanced Military Studies Program at the School of Advanced Military Studies. A Field Artillery officer, he has served in Airborne and Armored Brigade Combat Teams and as an instructor at the Field Artillery Basic Officer Leader Course. His previous assignment was the Combined Joint Fires Element, United States Forces Korea, and he is a recent graduate from the Command and General Staff Officer Course at Fort Leavenworth, KS.