Quote Originally Posted by John T. Fishel View Post
2. Ken, must disagree on one point. Throughout the 19th century, the officers who fought the big wars (1812, Mexico, Civil, and Sp-American) were mainly veterans of the Indian Wars or went on to fight in the Indian Wars. this same trend continued into the 20th century. The problem was that few of those officers internalized the lessons from their small wars or internalized the wrong ones. This is reflected today in the Nagl-Gentile debate (which never would have happened in any open and transparent way at any other time).
I'm not sure we have a disagreement. I agree with your statement above except that last sentence. That only because I can recall similar debates in the old Armed Forces Journal (less assertive in tone, to be sure) and the Cavalry and Infantry Journals. That's a minor quibble, I agree with you that the 19th (and early 20th) Century folks did swap back and forth. My point was that even so, the gear switching was obvious in the minor glitches that occurred and we have, in every war; Mexican, Civil, Spanish American, World Wars I and II, Korea, Viet Nam and today had an initial period of major and minor errors. You can even toss in Grenada and Panama, Small Wars with many errors -- that's not a knock; error is inevitable in war -- my comments were aimed at the 'why' they are inevtiable

I meant to apply my problem of generational dissension and "The problem is skill decay from non use between wars, varying opponents who suffer from the same problems and adopt different fixes for them thereby confronting us with different TTP / Operational methods and the (probably necessary) Momization, my term for excessive niceness, in civil society between wars" mostly to the post WW I Army and I'm remiss in not being clear on that.

I did slightly better with the one year tours for Korea and afterwards...