The Strategic Corporal

[nichols]

Some would argue a clearly articulated commander's intent would be better served with 23 - 24 year-old small unit leaders with more training, education and experience as well as maturity vice 19 -20 year olds.

If a commander's intent type statement can work with a properly prepared 12 year old, it can work with a properly prepared 19-20 year old. The training and education piece is what we as an institution are lacking.

Eyeballs........snap sir!!!!!!!

Sir, the private doesn't know sir!?!?!

From front to rear, count off!!!!!!!!!!

This is my rifle, there are many like it.................

SMEAC, BAMCIS, ADDRAC, METT T, IA Drills, TTPs, 6 line, 9 line.........

Marines, today's period of instruction is on the AN PRC 119.............

There is no requirement for the Marine to THINK in the above examples. This system worked great for a large draft army, it doesn't work in today's environment.

Von Stueben had it figured out during the Revolutionary War, you need to tell the American soldier "why."

Why don't we push critical thinking in bootcamp?
Why don't we push executive level thinking at the L/Cpl level?

Because, we are lazy. It is a lot easier to have the Marine blurt out Situation, Mission, Execution, Admin & logistics, Command & signal then to explain how the current enemy/friendly situation could effect the mission and ultimately the commander's intent.

What determines how a Marine becomes situational aware?

Perception = something is happening........
Comprehension = the alarm clock went off.....is this familiar?
Projection = if I turn it off, I get to sleep longer......
Prediction = if I sleep longer, I could get fired......
Decision = go to work

Our training takes the Marine to the Comprehension stage and then turns him loose with immediate action type decision making. This is the point where experience plays a critical function. Without teaching critical thinking he doesn't care about familiarity. His decision could very well be based on Hollywood, Soldier of Fortune, Sea Stories, video game.........

[SWJED]

The training and education piece is what we as an institution are lacking.

Our training takes the Marine to the Comprehension stage and then turns him loose with immediate action type decision making. This is the point where experience plays a critical function. Without teaching critical thinking he doesn't care about familiarity. His decision could very well be based on Hollywood, Soldier of Fortune, Sea Stories, video game.........

This was also discussed heavily in JUW 06 - The need for more of the "how to think" about fluid and complex situations instead of “templated solutions on what to think".

At this event it was our pleasure to have Brigadier Rod West (Australian Army) as one of our senior mentors. He talked about the value of "scenario-general" training over what we seem to do best - "scenario-specific" training. I thought that was a very valid point. Scenario-general training - with a range of problems to solve.

This also proved true in my dealings with the Corps’ Project Metropolis experimentation that resulted in the USMC Basic Urban Skills Training (BUST) package. Readers Digest version – the only Battalion Landing Team that received the package prior to OIF thought that the range of complex, and seemingly “off-the-map”, situations (scenarios) that were thrown their way were in the category of “yea fine – but we’ll never see this…”

The Marine Corps Warfighting Lab (Project Metropolis Team) sent a lessons learned team to Iraq after this same battalion completed the “March Up” to Baghdad. Funny thing, their assessment was - yep – we did not see the scenarios MCWL gave us – but sure enough the program sure taught us how to think and deal with the unexpected…

That said, kudos to Mojave Viper (USMC training at 29 Palms) and the JRTC (US Army training at Ft. Polk) - it is my understanding that they, and others have picked up on the scenario-general... Let's hope all ground forces get this type of training and after it is all said and done - not s***-canned like some of the Vietnam-era lessons learned, programs and training programs were.