Initial Officer Selection

[Ken White]

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?)

In reverse order, The Platoon was a Battalion Reconnaissance Platoon which did reconnaissance and surveillance missions as well as some limited economy of force actions. Only one per Battalion, assigned to Headquarters Company (which does not exercise tactical command). It is one of three tactical Platoons (Recon, Antitank, Mortar) which operate independently and directly under Bn Control. They are generally placed under Operational Control of other Bns only rarely; this was one of those rare times. Indeed, during seven years in such platoons in three units, that was one of only two times, both quite brief, such detachment was experienced.

I was given an over prescriptive order for a reconnaissance and an economy of force mission combined. Mission was not a particular problem but the 'how I think this should be done' way it was couched, engendered in large part due to that trust issue; he didn't know me or the capability of the Platoon, I didn't know him (that happens often in large Armies that rotate people frequently) was IMO the wrong approach, likely to result in failure and with a chance of own casualties. So, rather than get in an argument I would lose, I just said "Yes, Sir" and went ahead and did it my way.

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?

Exactly. Most would never do that, Hackworth, OTOH, was a legend in his own mind...

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.

I agree -- even given a cross attachment where neither person knows the other and the competence of the tasked organization is not known, it's rare but it does happen.

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).\

That's the way it's done ordinarily. For this particular mission, there was a time problem and that's why we were doing it instead of his own Reconnaissance Platoon. Which might've had a problem doing it in any event, that platoon had been combined with that Battalion's Antitank Platoon into what they called the 'Recondo' Platoon, it was, in essence a junior rifle company and was used as such and thus did not do reconnaissance missions often.

As stated I never deviated from my orders because I was never told how to do it

Well, good for you. Everyone should be so lucky. It is indeed a rare circumstance to be told 'how' but it does happen.

,,,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.

We can disagree on that with a situation dependent caveat (that approach is sometimes needed, more often not. The Troops aren't stupid...). I always had more confidence in myself, in the other NCOs and the Troops than that. In my experience that vaguely martinetish attitude certainly exists and is in fact too prevalent but everyone doesn't operate that way. Fortunately IMO.