Quote Originally Posted by Sargent View Post
Gen. Petraeus might not agree, but Dr. Petraeus ought to understand.
I'd wager the latter does.

I understand why many have problems with there not being more citations. But there's a big difference between "more notes would be nice-to-have" and "it is invalid because it doesn't." Some of the criticism has flown too close to the latter. (Not yours, Jill)

FM 3-24 does not draw its formal authority from an auditable trail to the source material, but rather from the two flag officers' signatures that annoint it as the doctrine of two services. In practice, it gains added strength from the value, relevance, and effectiveness of those ideas. Not from how well they are cited.

A few readers could have used notes as a shortcut to their own self-study. But only in our sound bite culture would that be seen as a major value-add. For extra exploration, which the work has certainly encouraged, there's a healthy bibliography. For the core idea, it is there in black and white with two meaningful signatures, and it does need any more.

Unlike in any number of reduced-size hip-pocket manuals, an extra end note appendix wouldn't have killed anyone. Oh well. It didn't make the cut. Coulda, woulda, shoulda, didn't.