Good fiction is sometimes too real...
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Originally Posted by
patmc
Understood and know its not personal, though that does not always make it a less bitter pill...
True. Sometimes it even makes it worse...
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...That said, I think being more Sam than Courtney doesn't hurt. Also, I know some people who would take your statement as a glove slap, but I'm not one of them though. (There is no Santa Clause!)
True on the first. Excessive sensitivity on the part of those who would do so; wasn't meant that way as you determined. ;) Good for you and thank you for not taking it as it wasn't meant.
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...Hopefully recruiters are not telling people otherwise, though I suspect they may.
Agree with the first portion of that paragraph. On that clause I left; me too. I suspect the good ones are not while the Courtney-like recruiters are doing so. The Courtneys are with us always...
Like I said, it was good fiction... :wry:
Good anecdote; here are some stats for you
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Originally Posted by
Rob Thornton
Quick Anecdote:
When I went to the ODA up on MAREZ and asked for some assistance in training some high end skills for the IA (CTR), they could not assist. They truly desired to, but there schedule was not their own - in fact even the BCT CDR had limited input - mostly coordination and benefit from the information they'd obtained and their assessment of their operations. The ODA did provide advice to us on how to do it, which was a great start, but their unique skill sets were being used in other areas.
So while a force may have a range of skills, the conditions may require those skills and numbers to be concentrated on specific things that are critical to achieve an operational objective.
Rob,
I understand you anecdote but I think you also know that is a snap shot in time. Let me run a few things by you. Right now we have 270 active fully mission capable ODAs in the force, another 18 just entered the force at IOC this summer and we will get another 18 every year through 2013.
As we speak there are some 105 ODAs deployed around the world supporting 6 named operations including of course OIF and OEF. They are advising and assisting some 97 battalion size units (either combat infantry, special operations/commando or national level counter-terrorist forces) on a 24/7 basis These ODAs are doing 7 months in the box (in all 6 named operations) and pretty much 5 months out. In addition in FY 08 SF ODAs conducted 115 additional advise and assist missions anywhere from 6 to 16 weeks in duration around the world that were outside the named operations in more than 50 different countries. That doubles the number of battalion size units to some 200 units on an annual basis that are being advised and assisted. I would ask anyone to try to project a requirement greater than 200 battalions in a post Iraq and Afghanistan situation.
I mention this because when people talk about "other missions" they usually confuse SF with other SOF elements. We have SEALs and Special Boat units, Special Operations Marines, Civil Affairs, PSYOP, Rangers, Air Commandos/Special Tactics/Combat Controllers, and of course special mission units. Like SF they all have unique and important missions and need to be employed within their capabilities for the right mission. Like GPF, there is no one size fits all and all units do not perform the same missions and it requires good mission analysis and thorough assessments to determine the right force for the mission. But SF's niche is "through, by, and with" indigenous forces, again whether in a UW role of a FID role and obviously the majority of missions are FID (whether we are fighting the GWOT or assisting a force in a direct action mission against a terrorist target, or advising a force in a counter-insurgency operation it is all FID - indirect, direct, or combat FID)
Of course as we have discussed, SF cannot do it all nor does it have the skills needed to advise and assist in every area. This is why we need to apply the right force for the mission. Our friends, partners, and allies will also desire and need "full spectrum" assistance and we will need to apply personnel from across the force to advise and assist in a myriad of areas whether it is armor and artillery to intelligence and communications to logistics. And then there are the "enterprise" level advisers that may be required. The experts we need to conduct these missions will have to come from our units because that is where they ply their trade and gain their expertise.
I just offer this as food for thought.
V/R
Dave
Gen Casey and Advisers and SF
This was just posted on SWJ and is from the January Joint Forces Quarterly.
Hate to beat a dead horse but here is what the CSA has to say on the subject of advisers.
Quote from GEN Casey:
Now, there are some folks who say
we need an advisor corps. I’d say we have
an advisor corps; it’s called Special Forces.
The question is how large of an effort do
we need for training foreign armies. I got
together with Jim Mattis [General James N.
Mattis, USMC, commander, U.S. Joint Forces
Command], Jim Conway [General James T.
Conway, commandant, U.S. Marine Corps],
and Eric Olson [Admiral Eric T. Olson,
USN, commander, U.S. Special Operations
Command]. We all sat down and said, “Okay,
what do we really need here?” First, we all
thought we needed to set ourselves up in Iraq
and Afghanistan for the long haul because
we’re going to be training the militaries and
the police forces in Iraq and Afghanistan
for a while. Then we thought that we could
probably do the rest of the engagement with
other militaries with Special Forces, and
we’re growing a battalion each year over the
next 5 years. There may be times when we
need to have Special Forces teams augmented
with conventional forces. For example, we
can send a 10-man team out of a brigade
headquarters, lash them up with an A-team,
and they can assist in training with foreign
brigades. But more and more, the people who
need our help are not going to be in a position
where they can be openly seen with American
Soldiers running around the country. So
we’re looking more toward the majority of
this work being done by Special Forces, augmented,
when they need to be, by regionally
oriented conventional forces, which is something
else the ARFORGEN model allows us
to do.
We also asked ourselves if we really
think we’re going to build another country’s
army and police forces and ministries from
the ground up any time soon. And the answer
was, probably not. We’ve got several challenges:
we’ve got to set ourselves up to do Iraq
and Afghanistan for the long haul, and then
figure out how we augment Special Forces
to do the other engagement that we need.
That’s kind of the direction we’re going. In
the interim, we have a training center for
transition teams that we’re going to continue
to run, it’s going to move down to Fort Polk,
out of Fort Riley, and we’re going to have a
brigade dedicated to doing nothing but training
transition teams. So we’ll continue to do
that for a while.
I think the issue in the minds of some may be
the intrusion of DA msns for ODAs to the exclusion of the advise and train msn. Kicking in doors is more fun but most in the Groups know what their job is and are more than willing to do it. As you point out, they do not select their missions...
Many in the Army do not understand that partial focus on DA is driven more by conventional force or major conventional headquarters shortfalls and misalignment / misassignments than by SOCOM or SF predilection. The recent diversion of an entire well trained and capable Abn BCT from one mission to another -- convoy guard on the MSR :mad: -- in Iraq literally as they deployed is an example and almost certainly meant a few Teams had to be retained for a necessary mission.
We can all get perturbed by this or that imbalance or miscue but we also need to remember most everyone is doing their best with the hands dealt. :cool:
I didn't take it that way, to me, a 10 man team
out of a Bde Hq is just that, 10 bods -- rank not specified but probably including a couple of Troopies for dirty work and -- some staff trainers, NCOs and Ossifers under maybe a MAJ at most. That crew trains the staffs at Bn and Bde while the ODA concentrates on the troop level skills for the units in that HN Bde. Makes sense to me and that's been done long ago in a galaxy far away...
(and my view is that the Bde HHC and staff are now more than big enough to spare that few folks with no significant impact on own ops)
Can I please say A-Team insteada ODA; I'm old, okay...:o