Quote Originally Posted by SWJED View Post
James Joyner at Outside the Beltway - COIN at the Company and Platoon Level.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, critical tasks go unmet - awaiting the pros from Dover to show... tick, tick, tick...
Exceptionally poor sensing on the Gwinn article, I'm glad he got out and went on to bigger and better things.

He's obviously unaware that the world has changed since DS/DS. The 11-Bushes today are doing what the mighty Scroll Rangers used to do and said Ringlers are doing what the SF Hot Teams used to do and so on.

What he misses is that the kids will do what they're trained to do and while the US Army has absolutely mastered the technique of cramming two weeks instruction into six weeks, that is slowly changing and can be changed even more with a slight push.

Bill Slim said it well; any well trained infantry battalion can do most things the so-called elite units do.

He obviously doesn't know that many units are in fact doing what Gwin recommends and did.

As you say, tick, tick -- he offers another excuse for sitting on hands and letting the world fall in around someones ears.

Whatever happened to "Never explain, never complain, always be five minutes early and do something even if its wrong?"

He's out to lunch. Outside the Beltway sounds more like the bureaucracy inside it...