This is an extremely interesting discussion and I have only just now had some time to try to participate. I am a little confused, however, and I have either missed something (sorry!) or am not fully conversant with a more modern-day military lingo. First of all, I am not sure I understand what you all mean when you use the term “Battle Drill.” When I was in the army (1962-1972), we used a term called “small unit tactics” and I am guessing those two are synonymous. If I am correct, then I am even more confused by what I am interpreting as a general disapproval of either or both disciplines.

I am not sure how I should respond or refute the things I question, but I find it rather startling that anyone would want to eliminate a general concept of tactical operations for very small units. Or have I missed the point here, as well? I don’t know what the army teaches “fire teams” or “squads” or “platoons” today, but when I was in the infantry and learned what later proved to be some of the most asinine folderol imaginable, these tactics were the heart and soul of a battle group/battalion. One of the things I remember the most about the Fort Benning small unit tactical doctrine was probably because it proved to be the most embarrassing—for me, personally. I remember we were required—at some point close to the objective—to all rise up and form a skirmish line, marching toward the objective, firing from the shoulder and the hip. We used to call it, "John Wayne" tactics.

When I pulled that stunt on my first field exercise as a brand-spanking new second lieutenant under Bill DePuy and Oren Henderson, my ass was hauled out of that platoon so fast I thought I had to go back and hunt for my head. DePuy explained to me, “We don’t do that here,” and I was given a mimeographed set of 1st Battle Group, 30th Infantry tactical mores that set me back about a month in training. The skirmish line was never used, having been replaced by the practice of fire-and-maneuver, always, always, always! There were things like “Traveling,” the “Traveling Overwatch,” the “Bounding Overwatch,” “Overwatch Fire and Movement,” “The Assault,” all of which, when applied in practice—and then in combat in Vietnam—made eminently more sense than the garbage Benning was pumping out.

Now, I do not want to mislead anyone. I was no longer in the infantry, per se, when I was in Vietnam; I was the C.O. of Company A, 1st Supply and Transport Battalion, and as such, commanded the only truck company in the 1st Infantry Division (once again, working for Bill DePuy). So, while even though I could not employ DePuy’s “battle drill” as an infantryman, I found two occasions to use it when my convoys were ambushed, and I used his moving formations when I ran patrols—which was quite often, since I seemed to have been designated the unit expert in that area. DePuy's movement formations bordered on the brilliant, with a wide fan, wide spacing, and mutual support, rather than the claptrap “column” movement we so often see. A perfect example of this appeared in a photograph in Tuesday’s New York Times. The caption read, “American and Iraqi soldiers patrolled Monday outside of Baquba. A bombing in the area killed militia members aiding the military.” The first four clowns in the picture appear to be Iraqi’s, followed by an American and then some more Iraqis, all in a column of single file. There are quite a few Americans bringing up the rear. I cannot make out the unit insignia, but the column is simply moving along a well-worn path. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t have run an operation that shoddily if I were just out trolling for Broadway tickets. To my way of thinking, a formation-- or mission-- of the sort in the picture falls under the category of “battle drill,” and unless this were an administrative movement, it appeared about as effective and secure as Calhoun’s skirmish line at the Little Big Horn.

As far as the “fire and maneuver” aspect of “battle drill” or “small unit tactics” is concerned, I would tend to agree with critics, if firing and maneuvering were the only ingredients in the sauce. That was never meant to be the case, however. When you worked for and trained under DePuy, you were told you had assets other than your small group of soldiers. Back in 1962, 1963, and 1964, when I was running hills for DePuy, Henderson, and Turner, if we didn’t call in smoke, mortars, artillery, air, or whatever else was available, we couldn’t sit for a month. In Vietnam, if one life was lost because some lieutenant or captain didn’t call up his available assets, the man’s career was soon over. We were taught to think and to employ our tactics with originality and intelligence. Cover, concealment, smoke, noise—anything we could think of to distract, to panic, to hamper, to bother the enemy. “Fire and Maneuver” was a lot more difficult than firing and maneuvering.

The same thoughtfulness employed in small-unit infantry tactics can also be employed in the convoy operations I ran in Vietnam or that someone should be able to run in Iraq. In 1966, I wrote the division SOP on convoy operations, something I am sure is no longer followed in this “professional” army run by so-called professionals—and contractors. (It is no wonder men like Yingling, McMasters, Nagel, et al, are viewed as such rebels and spend so much time pleading their case!) We had rules on how to run a convoy and how not to run a convoy. All those guys—and women—in the back of that truck a year or two ago, would never have been killed had it been one of my trucks. There would have been no “Jessica Lynch incident” had those trucks belonged to the Big Red One in 1966 and 1967. (But then, there would have been no Jessica Lynch, period, in my command… but that’s a whole ’nother issue.)

So, overall, I see a clear need for an intelligent, effective, and functioning set of “rules” we can term “Battle Drill,” or, euphemistically, something else. I am simply not sure what you would replace the “drill” with were it to be eliminated. What is, however, most important, is that we teach our leaders the necessity to think and to use their heads and to improvise rather than follow blindly. In that regard, I completely agree with the WWII German method of training leaders. It is not a lot different from Erich Ludendorff’s “corporate” management style when he was Chief of the Imperial German General Staff. That style fostered leadership, ideas, and discussion that, in turn, led to a number of clever battlefield innovations and changes, and befuddled the Allies. Those German innovations proved brilliant and probably prolonged the war a considerable amount of time, even giving rise to their contention that they were never militarily defeated.

Best wishes,
Fred.