The Army We Need

[Bill Moore]

In my early years we had limited money, at least until President Reagan was able to get the money flowing again, and SOCOM came on line, but it "seemed" that we trained more, and in many ways trained more effectively. We had training distractions then, but not to the extent that we do now. The training was less structured then, so there was more "time" for mentoring, which is when the real learning takes place. That also meant that leaders were being more effectively developed. Everything today seems so rushed, and this condition is not just a post 9/11 condition, it started in the 90s. I hate the term training management, because training management today is now driven my red, amber green dots on power point slides. Simply conducting mandated training does not make it effective training, and while we're supposed to train to standard our current management system doesn't allow that flexibility. We have idiots who think that the training schedule is the Holy Bible, and if you need to need to change it based on discovering a weakness in your organization, then you're obviously a poor manager. We give lip service to good training, but it does seem to be a lost art. One of the few things we did right is stand up the national training centers, and while I haven't been through a NTC rotation since 9/11, back in the day they were excellent training, and I hope they still are. But that doesn't make up for the loss of our day to day training. We have a mind set in many units that if you have green dots across the board, then we must be ready for war. That analysis is power point deep, and while it may sound absurd to blame a software product, powerpoint has fundamentally changed the way we manage training and other things in DoD for the worse. I would love to see a study on how the Army functioned prior to power point and harvard graphics, and what happened to it since then. We now live for the brief. Commanders need to observe more training, and spend less time in briefs. Talk to the troops, they'll tell you if they're confident.

To some degree we need a check the block mentality, but it is way over done. If we did all the non-combat related training that the Army mandated (often coming down from Congress) ranging from annual sexual harassment, drug abuse, gangs and tatoos, family support group stuff, briefs and more briefs, human rights training, etc., we wouldn't get any training combat accomplished. Why we have to conduct these events annually is beyond me, but once it becomes a requirement on the books, then it never goes away. Gian's post makes sense, because we are challenged to find the time we need. The reality is we need to train on both clearing houses and conflict resolution. The reality is that we frequently don't have time.

Someone mentioned that they wanted to bring back the Army Common Task training to Special Forces. Having lived through that whole cycle of stupidity that is the last thing we need. If Team Sergeants can't figure out what Army common tasks are relevant and how to train to them in a "realistic" manner, then they need to be fired. We used to get this laundry list of 10 tasks from higher that everyone needed to know, and somehow that was one of our metrics for effective training? If it wasn't related to your mission it was a waste of time period. Furthermore, the Army has adapted much of SF's training methodology from instinctive shooting to advanced medical treatment because when the bullets started flying it soon became apparent that a 30 minute block of instruction on how to apply a pressure dressing was a waste of time. If you can't teach that in 5 minutes, then something is seriously wrong. Instead of focusing on what is key, we used to focus on the type of knot, ensuring no white was showing on the bandage etc., things that had absolutely no functional value whatsoever to stopping the bleeding, saving a life. That is training management in the Army, and fortunately we have been drifting away from that mindset. Unfortunately it took a war to wake everyone up. When the Vietnam Vets said it was a waste of time, no one wanted to listen.

Hey my first rant for 2009. A case of beer.