The Perfect Officer - Henrik Bering
The article The Perfect Officer - by Henrik Bering contains enough to keep an enquiring intellect busy for months.
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The key element of fighting power is leadership. In screening for officer material, the German emphasis was on all-around personality, rather than on intelligence and education alone. Intelligence is important, but even more important is character. A man can be clever and a coward. Or he can be indecisive. What the Germans were looking for was determination, the individual’s willingness to assume responsibility, and his ability to handle adversity. Here van Creveld uses the German word: the officer had to be Krisenfest, “crisisproof,” i.e., steady in emergencies.
Saw that. Scared the devil out of me...
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Originally Posted by
Bill Moore
Obviously our form of discipline didn't work for the PLT PBS Frontline did a special on last night. It was a case study on the most undisciplined soldiers I ever recall seeing. I suspect the senior NCOs kept them in the right uniform (fashion police patrols), but were obviously missing on combat patrols where discipline was really needed.
I suspect you're right. I saw little evidence of any real NCO involvement in what those kids did at any point. I also noticed there were incidents of unaimed pray and spray firing and just general poor tactical competence.
We recruit but do not select. We fill out counseling sheets but do not fire due to lack of competence. We train lethality and appearance well -- discipline and common sense not at all... :rolleyes:
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I do not lack sympathy for those with PTSD, and while the documentary attempts to make all these cases out to be PTSD they're not. Several members of this platoon had criminal records and a long history of discipline issues before going to combat, where they claim to have shot civilians for fun, they had one dumb kid trying to hug an Iraqi women, etc. Hard for me to believe the Army allowed a unit like this to exist, much less deploy, and worse deploy in combat with no adult supervision. No wonder so many Iraqis hate us.
Yep. I didn't see much PTSD -- just a bunch of kids with no control just as occurred at Abu Gharaib and dozens (probably hundreds) of other times. The NCO Corps has has lost the bubble, I think...
Of course, at their behest, we do now have the most atrocious set of uniforms ever... :rolleyes: