The Army We Need

[Ken White]

...Nagl and others have gotten the goat of many within the defense community but it may be more important to see what kind of effect their messages have had on those within the political structure and accept that maybe just maybe in the end it might not have been such a bad thing.

Sigh. History says you have a good idealistic view that will sadly go unrewarded...

...people on the other hand just might, and that is something which I'm afraid we tend to forget way to often.

Sigh again. See my previous comment.

[Ron Humphrey]

Sigh. History says you have a good idealistic view that will sadly go unrewarded...Sigh again. See my previous comment.

As always greatly appreciate the reminder that more often than not life doesn't quite go the way we think it should. And as I have found growing up many of those same things my parents had to rain on my parade about I now tend to do the same to my own. That said I do enjoy the fact that at least for now I still get to believe that things can be better. At some point I'll have to be the curmudgeon; but not quite yet

Just a side note though, when I was young I remember a president who pointed out that the very fact we seek to make things "better" is where we draw our greatest strengths from. Seems to me that trying to make things better isn't quite the guaranteed failure we usually think it will be.

In the last two hundred years we have been through periods where multiple groups of people were treated as less than others. Tradition, cultures etc stood in the way of moving past that yet we did. As of next month we will have someone representative of just one of those groups become the president and all indications are thats taking place because a large enough group of people thought there can be something better and voted accordingly. The curmudgeon in me might say they most likely will be sorely mistaken in their expectations but in all honesty I hope not. Thus continual efforts made to ensure thats not the case.

Just never been able to accept not doing something simply due to the fact it probably won't work. Kinda like the saying -
You'll never win the lottery if you never buy a ticket.

Thank you though I don't know if you know how much the wisdom of your years is appreciated by those of us who seek to learn rather than just know

[Bill Moore]

Cavguy,

Thanks for your post. Until you stated the obvious I thought I was blogging with aliens (or worse my old SWJ friends were replaced by aliens! Remember the old science fiction movie where the aliens placed a pod next to the victims bed at night, and the pod would replicate the person? It was classic, and I know it relates to IW somehow).

The bottom line is that State doesn't have the capacity, so forget about what should be, and lets deal with reality. Problems have to be solved, sometimes significant problems that are more political in nature than military, and we're frequently the only ones the local populace will turn to, and we often "want" to be the only ones the people will turn to (note that when I say we, that can mean U.S. forces or the HN forces we're supporting, whoever we want to win). If we don't fill this void, then someone else will, and it won't be DoS. In Afghanistan it may very well be the Taliban.

ODB, the military isn't wrong when it conducts negotiations. The requirement to be able to negotiate has long been recognized in the Special Operations community, and SWC (the Army SOF schoolhouse) has open source lesson plans and video courses on how to conduct negotiations. Negotiation may be a specified or implied task depending on the situation. In smaller scale operations like the OEF-Philippines and when I participated in JTF Liberia, DoS conducted the effective diplomacy, just the way we would like to see everywhere, but in more remote, or larger scale problems, or in extremely hostile situations the military may have to do it. Fortunately, in Special Forces we generally don't have guys who say, "not my job man", if it needs doing, we'll do it. After a slow start effective conventional force leaders came to the same realization.

I think we're agreeing more than disagreeing. Irregular Warfare (like the term or not) is largely political in nature at the local level, not just at the nation-state level. I agree with Bob's World post in one of the forums, where he said that the issues we're dealing with are the result of failed foreign policy (failed diplomacy). While I don't think the problems' origins are confined to failed foreign policy (let's face it, the HN owns 95% or more of the responsibility for failing, we don't need to own that guilt), the point is still valid in that what they and we were doing at the political level obviously failed. Once you have a broken society, political system (Iraq, Afghanistan) do you fix it from the top down or bottom up?

You'll be able to answer that one when you can tell me what the sound of one hand clapping is. Have a Happy New Years.

Bill

[Ken White]

Ron: No intent to temper idealism, after all that turtle wouldn't get anywhere unless he stuck out his neck a bit. Just a caution to remember that politicians have short attention spans and memories and are prone to try to reinvent wheels and that doing it right is not generally one of their priorities...

Bill:

"I think we're agreeing more than disagreeing."

Oh man. Me, too.

"Once you have a broken society, political system (Iraq, Afghanistan) do you fix it from the top down or bottom up? "

Neither. You just hold the window open while they either fix it or don't and you better be prepared for either result.

[ODB]

Seems to me that really what we are all saying in our own ways is that we are failing in our training.

With that said how do we fix it? Who do we train and when?

Where is it taught? Is it something added to all advance courses (NCO and Officer)? Or is it done earlier on?

Then when do we revisit that training, part of pre-deployment preparations along with everything else that we are required to suck down?

Do we turn it into it's own course that conducts MTTs?

Have to be honest the few hours I got at SWCS was not enough, felt it should have been more indepth. But then again the senarios training later on really paid off. Definately not something easily trained in death by powerpoint.

[RTK]

Seems to me that really what we are all saying in our own ways is that we are failing in our training.

With that said how do we fix it? Who do we train and when?

Where is it taught? Is it something added to all advance courses (NCO and Officer)? Or is it done earlier on?

Then when do we revisit that training, part of pre-deployment preparations along with everything else that we are required to suck down?

Do we turn it into it's own course that conducts MTTs?

Have to be honest the few hours I got at SWCS was not enough, felt it should have been more indepth. But then again the senarios training later on really paid off. Definately not something easily trained in death by powerpoint.

At Armor BOLC III training management is given a 1 hour block. It is essentially a "how-do-I-read-chapter-5-of-an-ARTEP" class. I go over training schedules, the platoon leader's role as a participant in sergeant's time training ("you mean my Soldiers can teach me stuff too?"), and what the PLs responsibilities to supporting the troop/company METL are in terms of collaboratively planning and providing guidance to his NCOs the focus on individual, crew, section, and platoon tasks.

Essentially, all the things I bitched about in the earlier post I address as talking points to get it into their minds and adjust our azimuth at the lower levels (my own private insurgency).

1 hour is not enough. The bag is full, however, and I don't know where else to cram it.

Training management was not taught at the Captains Career Course 2 years ago. I seriously doubt they're teaching it now. Jon Slack may have info regarding that one.

My NCOs that have recently come back from BNCOC/ANCOC who said there was very little regarding training management at the platoon level.

[ODB]

Where do we fit it in? What do we get rid of? I know we already try to cram everything possible in the shortest time possible. I just don't know what the answer is. I put myself in both shoes as the trainer and the student. We all know when we are the student we sit there and think why are they teaching me this? I have better things to do with my time. As the instructor we think I don't have enough time to train them on this. Can we ever get there, I do not know, I like to think we can.

I personally think we spend entirely too much time on yearly, quarterly redundant training. My pet peeves are the quarterly POSH training, the yearly safety training, terrorism level 1 training....etc. I just think there are more important things our soldiers need to be spending there time doing. IMO many of things would go away if we held individuals responsible for their actions, hold their feet to the fire. Hey troop why did you smack her on the ass? Sir I didn't know it was wrong no one trained me on it in the last 3 months. I mean come on..... Sorry to have digressed a bit, just seems to me we are wasting a lot of time on things that do not need to take up such a large percentage of our time.

On the advance course stuff, I know some years ago there was talk of integrating officer and enlisted during points of the course, did this come about? Thought it a good idea on the surface but never heard anything other than that. As some may know from my other posts I'm a big advocate of cross training across the Army. We need more integration on the training levels. Additionally in my experiences with most courses I come away having learned more from my peers than the school house. If only we could get our schoolhouse to adapt like we are on the ground. How can we not streamline this system as well? In the world of technology we have become an Army that does less and less face to face interactions and everything needs to be in pretty little spreadsheets and powerpoint presentations to get anywhere. Sorry but I just simply do not understand why changes take so long in the school house. Years ago when I attended BNCOC they were still teaching how to zero previous generation equipment. At least I had a fairly smart SGL (Small Group Leader) that let us revamp the classes we were teaching. Had a buddy of mine from 1/75 that we rewrote every class we taught. We threw out the classes that were created and started over. I cannot speak for things on the officer side, but on the NCO side of the house I do not see why this cannot be the norm in professional development courses. Upon arrival you are given the subject of the classes you are going to teach and you create and teach them. Might keep us up to date. I understand the cadre need to oversee the products being created to ensure all key points are covered, but this accomplishes many things.

Again I apologize for digressing off subject, do not mean to hijack the thread, just think that most agree we need to address "Diplomat Training" in the Army, but when and where and to who?

RTK pm enroute

[Gian P Gentile]

I wish some of you coindinistas (I use that term intentionally here to make my following point) would stop throwing these silly little catechisms in our faces. You know things like

"you dont get to pick the war you want to fight," or

"you are not going to kill your way out of this one," or

"in coin politics infuses actions to the lowest levels" or

"in coin man, you cant say 'not my lane," or

"when I was in coin i ate fish and man-kissed with sheiks because I realized what I was doing was inherently political,"

(and when we question calls for “diplomacy” we are not the new millennium’s Emory Uptons who are telling our political masters how and when they can use us!!)

My point is that in this thread to try to sum up and the fact that many of us have done coin at the business end with combat soldiers we get all of the political, nation building stuff; the thing of being respectful, of negotiations by certain levels of leaders with locals. Got It!! Did it!! So Ken White in the Nam ate rice with farmers and me and Big Rob Thornton in the Bdad ate kbobs with sheiks or Iraqi Army colonels!!!

What we are saying, I think, is that for this coin stuff to happen by combat forces first and foremost they must be just that: combat forces, trained, organized and deployed as such. To start throwing catchy words like diplomacy as a potential skill that combat soldiers must have, many of us took a step back and worried about what that actually means on the ground in terms of training, priorities and functions. Does a captain at a cop in the Korengal need to be able to talk, negotiate, bla, bla, bla with the locals? Well yes sure a big duh he does. But does that same concept before that young captain’s company ever gets to the Korengal from Fort Drum, Pendleton, Fort Benning, etc play itself out by meaning that instead of going to the shoot-house for a month it gets classes from the local community college on conflict resolution? See what I am getting at, and I think this is in line with RTK’s concern too.

gian

[Ken White]

Bill Moore said:

Max161 posted a RAND article somewhere in SWJ that addressed the reasons that the Army failed to use the existing COIN doctrine during the Vietnam War. In short, it stated that the information was available, but it was rejected. Seems the problem is more related to professional culture and organization. As you have stated elsewhere leadership can be decisive. If it is important to the leaders, then it will generally happen. Then again the RAND study said that GEN Abrams couldn't get his subordinate commanders to toe the line in some cases. He told them to focus on the populace, and they still did everything possible to up their body counts.

There are three problems with RANDs conclusions. The methodology wasn't rejected, it was ignored by the MACV staff which was more interested in metrics ans a tidy battlefield than in the COIN effort; it was rejected by some -- not all -- commanders who were into ticket punching and thought body counts were the way to go for more merit badges; it did not point out what I'm trying to point out with this post:

We pay lip service to train as you will fight and we don't do it. We pay lip service to first class training and we don't provide it. Our failures in training affect the way we operate.

Based on what I've seen over the last 60 years (sheesh... ) then and now, the way we minimally train those entering service is the culprit. In my observation, the average over all those years, 1948 to 2008 is that it takes about three peacetime years of IET / OBC and unit 'training' to produce a pretty competent Private / Specialist / Lance corporal or company grade officer. Introduction to a harsh combat situation will cut that time by 75%, to a less harsh situation (Afghanistan, Iraq or Viet Nam like) will cut it by about 40-60+% dependent on many factors. I think that's unacceptable.

If we train newly entering enlisted people and officers to full basic competency and demand excellent performance, they will perform better, casualties will be lower, retention will be higher and those inclined to be slothful and irresponsible will seek other employment.

We insist we can only afford to train people for their 'next assignment.' We have done that for years at a cost of high casualties until combat experience kicks in, mediocre retention rates and an abysmal failure to acknowledge that the Armed forces are not Acme Industries -- there. the cost of inferior training and education is busted widgets and a tax write off -- in the Armed forces, the cost is an unnecessarily high casualty rate. I submit we should train everyone for two levels ABOVE their next assignment.

That applies also to PME. It amazed me when I was an instructor at the Armor School that POIs for BNCOC and ANCOC differed very little. Going up a notch, the POIs for the OBC and the OAC differed not a great deal more. Give that some thought. As RTK says above that still seems to be pretty much the case. Some things don't change. Thirty years later and no change -- if that doesn't scare you folks, it should.

My contention -- and I base this on two major short notice deployments with units to combat in two different wars -- is that if the unit is good at the basics, a major trainup is not required so all this pre-deployment training can be task focussed and not back to basics. I was recently in Atlanta and I got a look at the latest FORSCOM pre-deployment training guidance. It is embarrassing. it is a litany of every conceivable training requirement for both theaters for everything from CSS to combat aviation and back again, I do not recall the page count but it was huge -- it was NOT training guidance; it was a CYA effort so they could say "Well, we told them to train on it." Bureaucratic idiocy.

Yeah, training is the problem -- and as RTK pointed out yesterday, the new overfull and unimaginative FM 7-0 is not going to fix it.

Extremely long winded way of agreeing with ODB; we are failing in our training, it needs to be fixed starting with IET / OBC and worked upward through PME. MTTs and pre-deplyment training are NOT the answer. Neither are the CTCs (Sorry, Tom and others ;( ). They are great training but no one seems to pick up on the lessons learned at them -- same problem as MTTs, it's a canned solution. Try free play and see how that works...

Yeah, I know, I've heard it -- that may omit some required training evolutions and graded efforts; we can't afford the infrastructure to do that with a degree of control. Umm, free play and control are a contradiction in terms...

No intent to pick on anyone or the CTCs who do provide a valuable training environment -- I just get awfully frustrated by the lack of initiative, imagination, logic and willingness to accept 'risk' in our training. We breed bad habits inadvertently. Good units can turn that around with a lot of work -- they should not have to do that.

[Ski]

The FORSCOM pre-deployment training "guidance" is near criminal. It's a CYA document that continues the shameful practice of stripping command authority, personal expertise and command responsibility so the higher command can have a physical document handy that acts as a get out of jail free card in case a unit gets mauled in theater.

FM 7-0 is another waste of trees, similar to FM 3-0 and FM 3-24. A few good points, mostly filler.

The entire issue with training comes down to two very simple problems and I don't have any great solutions at the ready:
1. Training management is a dying if not dead art. A good friend of mine in my CGSC small group and I have talked this to death. LT's and Junior NCO's have no concept of training management any longer, and it's going to bite us in the ass sooner rather than later. We're so focused on deployment related training and activities because of ARFORGEN that we often disguise or conviently gloss over certain training. It does not help with the FORSCOM pre-deployment training guidance being so broad and forceful at the same time.

2. There is not enough time to train on both COIN and conventional tasks in this environment. BRAC is also going to accentuate this problem by jamming more units into mega-bases with finite ranges, training areas and simulators. The personnel system also ensures mediocrity when the last fills for your upcoming deployment walk in the door with 45 days left on the clock. There is simply too much to do, with too little time and people to become masters of all training tasks. It might change in the future when the OPTEMPO reduces, but I doubt it. We'll continue to try and meet unrealistic training goals, and we'll half ass our way to being mediocre and hope that no major problems occur on our deployments.

Just like we're continuing to relearn lessons from Vietnam, we will have to relearn such basics of training management when the OPTEMPO decreases.

[Ken White]

The FORSCOM pre-deployment training "guidance" is near criminal. It's a CYA document that continues the shameful practice of stripping command authority, personal expertise and command responsibility so the higher command can have a physical document handy that acts as a get out of jail free card in case a unit gets mauled in theater.

True dat.

The terrible thing is that approach to Command and Command Guidance effectively ropes in subordinate commanders to a host of rules that emascualte them (well, some of them...) and the compensatory factor is an allowance to do some few things with no guidance. We've got it backwards.

For example, much has been written about the problems with Divisional level hand overs in both theaters; such a transition always seems to result in a steep learning curve and many early errors. Thus, freedom to handle transition anyway you want is proffered but actual operations are constrained by a host of rules -- many arcane and unnneccessary (but protective of reputations and the institution...).

FM 7-0 is another waste of trees, similar to FM 3-0 and FM 3-24. A few good points, mostly filler.

Equally true. All are way too wordy (so am I but then, i'm old ) and 3-0 in particular didn't really have enough changes from the previous version to merit publication.

The entire issue with training comes down to two very simple problems and I don't have any great solutions at the ready:

1. Training management is a dying if not dead art...We're so focused on deployment related training and activities because of ARFORGEN that we often disguise or conviently gloss over certain training...

Appears to be true to this observer and echoes some errors experienced by me in the past. The primary job of every officer and NCO is training of subordinates; they'll spend more time doing that than they will directing combat operations. That priority is not reflected in our training.

A secondary problem is the ARFORGEN process itself. I believe that needs a really critical look, followed by destruction, followed by a logical, simpler, less bureaucratic approach.[quote]2. There is not enough time to train on both COIN and conventional tasks in this environment.[quote]That's why the ARFORGEN process is broken. an added problem is all the 'mandatory' training, much of which is simply time wasted so someone can check a block -- shades of the atrocious FORSCOM guidance.

BRAC is also going to accentuate this problem by jamming more units into mega-bases with finite ranges, training areas and simulators.

Many of which mega bases are located in areas where the environmental and anti-war types will challenge everything and slowly degrade capability. That happens when the Bean Counters instead of Operators and Trainers are allowed to determine which Base where gets to stay -- with an eye on which Congressional delegation has the most clout.

Congress's politicking adversely impacts more than just big ticket equipment buys and degraded training. The US Congress has over the years been responsible for more US combat deaths than they should be comfortable with...

...We'll continue to try and meet unrealistic training goals, and we'll half ass our way to being mediocre and hope that no major problems occur on our deployments.

It is, unfortunately, apparently the American way...

Just like we're continuing to relearn lessons from Vietnam, we will have to relearn such basics of training management when the OPTEMPO decreases.

But Ski, you don't understand! We're smarter now, far better educated -- we don't have to pay attention to what any of our predecessors did. We can and should easily reinvent all the wheels, particularly the square ones...