Quote Originally Posted by Ranger94 View Post
You guys are smart, that is why I and others come here. But how many 11B2P or 3V read FM90-8 in 1998? 1999? Yet, how many of them "fought" on the "Island" of "Cortina"? The FTX's of the '90 never went enough towards the clean up of some missions.
The 11Bush - 2s that is, most of those guys shouldn't have been expected to read them. An exceptionally sharp kid might have, good for him...

However, the 11B/19D3-whatevers should have been at least aware of their existence and every 11B4-whatever and every combat arms LT and CPT should have read them. For their Bn Staff Officers and Senior NCOs to not have read them is, IMO, inexcusable.*

It's not Joe's job to read that stuff; it is Joe's job to screw off as much as he can. It IS the job of those other guys to take care of Joe and lead him to do what's necessary. That means making sure he can do what he has to do. That's done by his Honchos using the knowledge they have gained through training and experience -- and reading unassigned but relevant material -- to get him trained. But you know that...

The chain of command was given a job it had not trained for. The Doctrine was available but training wise, it was ignored for 25 years. So you've got a very valid complaint on the fact that 1990s era (and personally, I'd go for 1975-2002...) training Army wide was broadly inadequate -- and the responsibility for that lies at the then COL and above level.

Yeah, the guys in Vernon Parish blew it. So did those around Bicycle Lake. So too did the BCTP guys who trained the Cdrs and Staffs here and there. When victory was declared, they turned off the computers and the lights and no one gave a thought to what came next. Simply put, the Army screwed up, big time...

We do not train entering officers or enlisted people as well as we should. We never have and while I keep hearing noise about improvements in NCO and Officer training and education, I sure don't see many indications of greater tactical competence in open sources.

* Though in fairness, given all the furor over FM 3-24, it is obvious a number of the senior people involved in the production committee of that Great American Novel were not as familiar with the older manuals as one had a right to expect. One almost senses in some cases they started writing their 'new' bible, stumbled across the old one and grudgingly said "I guess we oughta put that in there..."