Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
In 1966 in Viet Nam, I was unfortunately * attached to Dave Hackworth, then an Acting Bn Cdr, at one time. He gave me a mission using the Platoon of which I was the acting PL and I said "Yes, Sir" then went about it in a totally different manner than the way he had over directed be employed. He was afterwards quite torqued but couldn't say or do much but grumble because we had been successful and had no casualties. Aside from that incident I have many, many times disregarded orders, in peace and in combat, and done so with variations from very slight to totally ignoring and turning off my radio. I strongly encourage anyone who thinks to do the same. YMMV.
I'm not sure I fully understand what you are meaning here (and the circumstances where a bn comd issues patrol orders directly to a platoon - where was your coy comd?)

Are you saying that a Bn Comd gave orders for a patrol more than the mission (being what to do) and instructed on the execution (how to do it) as well?

I can't think of circumstances where that would be required or advisable other than where the platoon commander is an absolute greenhorn or in an 'in contact' defensive setting where the movement tolerances are extremely tight.

The guiding principle in issuing such orders is to tell the patrol comd what to do (the mission) but not how to do it (the execution).

What I learned at the feet of the masters and adopted myself was to brief a patrol commander on his task (mission) then tell him to go away and plan his patrol but before he issued orders to come back to me and run the outline plan past me. In this way I could get a feel for the competence of the commander while at the same time being able to influence the conduct to some degree (while knowing that once the patrol commander was on his own he could do almost as he pleased regardless of what I had said).

This is how the men are separated from the boys. The more competent officers/NCOs tend to be given all the more testing patrol tasks while the junior ones or those about which there are some doubts get given the routine stuff.

As stated I never deviated from my orders because I was never told how to do it but suggest that where patrol comds find themselves in such a situation where they deviate from the orders on how to do it the troopies don't need to know this is happening. The last thing one needs, as it is bad for discipline, is for a general belief to develop that orders are negotiable where all junior officers and NCOs believe that they can decide which orders to follow and which to ignore.