Ken, I think that is a good question - but I don't think it is an easy one to answer. You have remarked before that some guys are clearly better commanders then others - I'd agree, but the number of commands are probably higher then the number of those with the “natural” talents which we attribute to the magic they bring. To account for those with less “magic” then others – we value certain experiences and education as pre-requisites, while having a system that is supposed to identify and develop potential. This is not easy – it is subjective, and it is prone to the types of biases we see in all our human actions. It has been said that there is usually at least a grain of truth in any stereo-type – otherwise it would not have been perpetuated – I’d concur, but I’d qualify it by saying no matter how you do a qualitative assessment on someone, the weight of that assessment is going to be ascribed a subjective value based on who is doing the follow on assessment, and what are the conditions in which it takes place – I’ve never sat on a promotion board, but I can only imagine the difficulty of trying to focus and scrutinize each write up as an individual vs. consciously or subconsciously looking for things that for whatever reason – you have ascribed disproportionate value to.My question is why do they have to work hard on what we SAY, doctrinally and Army mythically, we have been doing all along?
So why do they have to work so hard? Because if something, for whatever reason does not seem blatantly obvious to the audience, then it gets pushed the periphery as something extraneous to “glass ball of the hour”. This goes beyond Army culture – its human nature. I think another example is how people are often pre-disposed to take information at face value without conducting any analysis of what it might mean – the process of turning information into intelligence. We often throw terms de jour such as Situational Awareness and Situational Understanding as being interchangeable – hell, the very names imply different levels of thinking.
I think the doctrine can provide the means to be who we’d like to be, but leadership is the actual vehicle to get us there.
I’m here reading the articles penned by retired LTG Cushman ref. SFA – I swear, so much of what is there could have been written yesterday. Much of it is more accurate and applicable then what was actually written yesterday. It has a gritty language that can speak to PVTs or GOs. Its interesting that you should remark on McNamara – Old Eagle and I were just talking about this – Here is Cushman on Pacification:
Here is Cushman on his evaluation of Army company grade and young field grade leadership in the Army in about 1965. Sounds allot like conversations we've had:“It was not clear to us how this process called “Pacification” would actually take place. We knew it was a subtle process of the mind – a psychological procedure not unlike the one experienced by a young man winning the heart of his lady.
We knew that as in courtship, indicators of success could not be tabulated precisely during the campaign. They could be subjectively judged, just as the young man does when he senses he is progressing. However the young man has an advantage; fruition arrives when his lady consents. The hamlet action could not be sure for months, probably years that the job of pacification was completed.”
Here is one from the Long Good-Bye on advising (and how poignant this one is)“The U.S. Army lieutenant, captain or major is well equipped by background, training and heritage to assist his Vietnamese counterpart in developing these forces. Our young officers may not know much about Vietnam, but they do know how to organize, and they adapt fast. They can rapidly grasp the complex civil-military nature of pacification.”
How did we lose all of that? Why do we refer to T.E. Lawrence instead of Cushman? We made a choice to. Somewhere we decided that since we “lost Vietnam” (or did not win it), that we could not have done much right, and that whatever we did there could not be very applicable to winning this war. I’m flattened nobody has distributed Cushman mainstream – everything I’ve read so far either translates directly and clearly, or can be adapted – far easier then some of the other things I’ve been handed. Culture and Advising are not exclusive – i.e. you don’t have to learn how to advise Arab forces exclusively from someone who has advised Arabs – Arabs are people too – so depending on the who is giving the info and who the audience is - it might be more useful then someone who sort of seems more like the conditions you face, but whose message is a bit muddled. Cushman is not muddled – he talks (and writes) like one of us.“To assist somebody you have to understand what he is doing. And it may be that you are much smarter then the person you are advising, but you still can’t do it for him. Let’s say you are a duck hunting guide. The hunter has to rely on you to get him to the blind, get out the duck-calling whistle, make the ducks come in. He can’t do any of that. But when the time comes, he’s got to shoot the duck. Now if he works with you long enough, he might learn some tricks of the trade. It would have been wonderful if we had advisors at every level in Vietnam who were as qualified as the average northern Canadian duck-hunting guide. The trouble was they took these guys off the street – not off the street so much, but out of the Army – put’em on orders, and said, “Now you’re an advisor, go do your job.” Sometimes they got a little training,. And advisors turned over pretty fast, once a year.
So here’s this Vietnamese BN CDR. He’s been fighting the VC for ten years. Living in the rice paddies, living in the mountains. Fighting. Lucky to be alive, in his opinion. He’s got all these problems on his mind, all these troops he has to take care of. He’s not even sure he’s going to survive the next day. And here comes this new advisor, some captain fresh out of advisory school. Doesn’t know how to live in the rice paddies. Gets diarrhea the first week he’s there. Of curse he does know something about helicopters. He might know something about the theory of tactics, and he’s smart enough to know when the troops are dogging it. Nonetheless, what you have there is a very interesting situation: an advisor who has got to learn from his counterpart.
Its an art, an absolute art, to be a good advisor. The first thing you have to do is understand the situation. If you don’t you have to be smart enough not to act like you do. Don’t be popping off about it. Find out about your counterpart. See what your leverage is. You can’t be a non-entity. You can’t just come along with him to run the radio so he can get helicopters. You have to earn his respect. You come with a certain amount of respect attached, because you represent the United States of America, a powerful country with lots of resources and you represent the U.S. Armed forces”
How does this relate to doctrine and why these 1 stars have to work hard – because in addition to the sender and the message, there is a receiver – and the receiver does not always want to listen for one reason or another – the sender must determine if it is either the message that needs to get restructured, or if it’s the receiver that just does not want to listen – that can be hard work – especially when it’s the same message, but multiple receivers.
Best, Rob
"A Sherman can give you a very nice... edge."- Oddball, 
Good Post
Originally Posted by Cavguy
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