Quote Originally Posted by Rifleman View Post
To the extent that D&C can instill and reenforce a sense of primary group it remains a good thing.
I respectfully disagree with you on this point.

Sorry guys but this COD madness is like fingernails on the chalk board for me.

Training seastory time.

For just under five years I was granted the privilage of being a Platoon Sergeant to a Regimental Sniper Platoon that did not have a T/O on the books. We would detach from the Regimental S-2 and attach to C Co 3rd Recon operationally. We would give C Co 5-6 six man additional recon assests that had guns. The teams were large because of the radio requirements, 77/ky for VHF, 104/ky for HF, 113/ky for UHF, 68 for sniper team comms, and a DCT.

I always managed to find a way out of my requirement to hang out in C Company's COC and be a member of a team. My last mission with that unit had me locked into the COC, Budda smiled on me and one of the RTO's caught chicken pox so we left him at Camp Lester. The team that I inserted myself in was already short by one Marine (wish I could somehow blame this on COD). Due to mule shortage issues, this team didn't take the 113 so CAS was a non-player. I insert this team (with me) in an area that I felt wouldn't see to much activity and the Sergeant that was going to take my spot when I PCS'd, I put into an area that should have seen a lot of activity.

Our SOP called for the shot to be taken while the bird was terminal dropping ord on target. The thought was that the bad guys would think that the bombs killed the Commander and give us time to E&E before they figured out that it was a 7.62.

D+4 the aggressor Battalion to put up a COC in our playground. From our target profiles the Bn CO was clearly identified and targeted. The spotter and I stalked for a good 3 hours and waited for sunset to occur from our final firing position. 30 seconds before I pulled the trigger on my blank round 2 A-6s did a simulated bomb run on the COC. Once again Budda was smiling on me.

The data was sent to the evaluators, the Bn CO was taken out of the execise for 8 hours and I was pretty happy with my last mission.

It wasn't until 4 days after we were extracted that I found out that Budda had nothing to do with those A-6s showing up at the right time. My replacement with who I had been training with for the past 2 years called for the CAS and directed from 20 kilometers away. He did not have eyes on target but he knew that we didn't have a 113 and he also knew me.

The closest that we came to COD in that platoon was during the occasional humps, other then that the training schedule always had us out in the field whenever a drill requirement popped up.