More training, less parading urged.

[marct]

Hi Nichols,

There is no place for COD in today's military. Teaching and conducting it only enforces first generation infantry tactics plain and simple. COD promotes the concept of "strengh in numbers" and the only way to have it is by have the troops all lined up to look pretty and go over the top in WW I trenches.

Why bother with language, culture, tactics, techniques, and proceedures when all no need to do is stand in formation. COD, spit shined boots, pressed out cammies are like a good coat of paint being applied to rusted metal. It looks nice but the foundation will crumble at the most unopportune moment.

Do you feel that it has no place in moral and building an esprit du corps? I agree that as a combat drill, it is useless, but I think it still has an important moral function.

Marc

[Tom Odom]

Admittedly I am something of a radical on this and related phenomenon. My take on it is that there is no place in the Army for the pomp and circumstance anymore beyond 3rd Infantry burial and tomb guard elements. That means all the bands, choirs, sports teams like the Golden Kinights (And I am a broken wing skydiver), boxing, pellet gun shooting, etc etc are wasted slots that should go to filling combat needs rather than entertainment and recruiting PR that is (again in my admittedly biased view) misleading to say the least.

OK throw rocks!

best

Tom

[marct]

Admittedly I am something of a radical on this and related phenomenon. My take on it is that there is no place in the Army for the pomp and circumstance anymore beyond 3rd Infantry burial and tomb guard elements. ...

OK throw rocks!

Well, I must admit that I've never understood a military that requires 10 "support" people to send i fighter into the field . Personally, I think bands and, most definitely choirs (!) are great, but I really don't think that the members in them should be excused from combat duties.

Send the Pipers to Sadr City!
Let the Mahdi Army beware!

Marc (ex-piper)

[Stan]

Marc,
I like your attitude, you would have made a great NCO, albeit waaay tooo intelligent for the job

Do you feel that it has no place in moral and building an esprit du corps? I agree that as a combat drill, it is useless, but I think it still has an important moral function.

You are indeed very correct, COD were and probably still are for basic training, a means of building a sense of spirit and team work. Had to, the Drill would punish all the rest for one small idiot's mistake. You would later work out the problems at night

I also like Tom's approach. But then, he thought I worked wonders at times. However, I didn't get their on my own, I also had a drill who set me straight and emphasized in no small way, how important this would later become.

I'll let Tom decide if my Drill "dun good".

Regards, Stan

[marct]

Marc,
I like your attitude, you would have made a great NCO, albeit waaay tooo intelligent for the job

Hey, Stan. What can I say but that I'm a typical Canadian - read caught in the middle. My father and his father were NCOs and, on my mother's side, they were all officers (and portrait painters).

You are indeed very correct, COD were and probably still are for basic training, a means of building a sense of spirit and team work. Had to, the Drill would punish all the rest for one small idiot's mistake. You would later work out the problems at night

I also like Tom's approach. But then, he thought I worked wonders at times. However, I didn't get their on my own, I also had a drill who set me straight and emphasized in no small way, how important this would later become.

I'll let Tom decide if my Drill "dun good".

I think Tom does have a really good point, especially about the add-ons (i.e. too many people who don't know how to fight and will never face it). Honestly, for most of the support roles, you could hire civilians. Although, I am still in favour of combat pipers!!!!!

Marc

[Stan]

Ya know Marc,
Most everybody in the Army (yes, even the Pipers) are still required to learn other things before.....I'm not going there

Fighters, definitely not. But they are not excused from participation and accountability. You're next statement will then be very much correct, who would then send them to say, play the cry of battle. No One !

Ah, it was worth a shot !

[Tom Odom]

I guess I have a hard time seeing what exactly is the combat multipler effect of a Army choir, rock band, or whatever when we are cycling units to theater repeatedly. Granted the numbers we are talking are small and I am trampling over real and perceived traditions; but other perceptions count more--at least to me.

Drill and unit cohesion go hand in glove. Certainly they are a bedrock of building Soldiers--and yes Stan I would give your drill a copy of my book to show him that he did indeed do good.

Best

Tom

[Charlie 14]

Marc,
I like your attitude, you would have made a great NCO, albeit waaay tooo intelligent for the job



You are indeed very correct, COD were and probably still are for basic training, a means of building a sense of spirit and team work. Had to, the Drill would punish all the rest for one small idiot's mistake. You would later work out the problems at night

I also like Tom's approach. But then, he thought I worked wonders at times. However, I didn't get their on my own, I also had a drill who set me straight and emphasized in no small way, how important this would later become.

I'll let Tom decide if my Drill "dun good".

Regards, Stan

Ahem...So just how borderline dull/normal do you prefer your NCO's?

And yes, COD is essential for turning 120 individuals who joined an Army of One (Thank God they ditched that little promotional device) into something resembling troopers, much like confidence courses, fearing-then-hating-then-loving drills, and getting the fat kid over the wall on the obstacle course, or any other team building activity is in basic training...

By the time you get done their eyeballs should snap when they do, "Eyes right."

And one of the few institutions in this country (USA) with traditions is the armed forces. Traditions require ceremony, but the less dog and pony shows, and mindless chicken#### regs, the better, at least as far as anyone who has cleared AIT goes. There are better things to do.

[FascistLibertarian]

This reminds me of that jerk in Catch-22 who gets everyone to drill all the time. And then they make him in charge of everyone in Italy.

[Charlie 14]

This reminds me of that jerk in Catch-22 who gets everyone to drill all the time. And then they make him in charge of everyone in Italy.

Heh, heh...Well, OK, had to bring that up didn't you...

Lieutenant Scheisskopf longed desperately to win parades and sat up half the night working on it while his wife waited amorously for him in bed thumbing through Krafft-Ebing to her favorite passages. He read books on marching. He manipulated boxes of chocolate until they melted in his hands and then maneuvered in ranks of twelve a set of plastic cowboys he had bought from a mail-order house under an assumed name and kept locked away from everyone's eyes during the day. Leonardo's exercises in anatomy proved indispensable. One evening he felt the need for a live model and directed his wife to march around the room.
"Naked?" she asked hopefully.

Lieutenant Scheisskopf smacked his hands over his eyes in exasperation. It was the despair of Lieutenant Scheisskopf's life to be chained to a woman who was incapable of looking beyond her own dirty, sexual desires to the titanic struggles for the unattainable in which noble man could become heroically engaged.

"Why don't you ever whip me?" she pouted one night.

[kwillcox]

COD should have its cadence in elementary arabic or farsi. Every soldier should know 500 emergency words in both. Every soldier should learn how to sit sharpsooter still for six hours before shooting a target. Every soldier should compete on watching video monitors from stationary or moving/robotic monitors for suspicious activity. Those are good drills.

Every command should trade in every single piece of ornamental stuff, band instruments, budget for drill, and spend the money on the best protection from mines or ambushes, or top equiment in non-painful lie detectors, thermal scans, MRI machines, voice stress. Every Iraqi neighborhood should expect 5% of its people to be rounded up every day, and given simple lie detector tests - one question - which of your neighbors is an insurgent. Then release them, round up the insurgents, send them to (Greenland, Alaska, the Falklands) someplace cold and wet, and give them jobs.

That is what I would do if I were in Iraq.

[nichols]

COD should have its cadence in elementary arabic or farsi. Every soldier should know 500 emergency words in both. Every soldier should learn how to sit sharpsooter still for six hours before shooting a target. Every soldier should compete on watching video monitors from stationary or moving/robotic monitors for suspicious activity. Those are good drills.

We are focusing on tactical language, not close order drill at the current time.

[SGTMILLS]

Ok, I am not concerned at all with the number of people in a band, a sporting team, recruiters, etc, etc. that are exempt from combat. That is their profession, and if that is what the military hired them for, why would we NEED them on the battlefield? We had the 101st band come to Tikrit, and it was nice, but once they did their thing, they packed up and moved on. We have people on bases right now who have one task...pulling over speeders. seriously, traffic cops on FOB/ COB's. THOSE are the ones i have a problem with, not the band geeks. the people with practical combat training (I.E. security forces from the air force) NOT doing combat patrols. serious mis-allocation of time, expense, and talent.

[jonSlack]

"I'd like to have two Armies -- one for display, with lovely guns, tanks, little Soldiers, staffs, distinguished and doddering Generals and deal little regimental officers, who would be deeply concerned over their General's bowel movements or their Colonel's piles; an Army that would be shown for a modest fee on every fairground in the country.

The other would be the real one, composed entirely of young enthusiasts in camouflage uniforms, who would not be put on display but from whom impossible efforts would be demanded and to whom all sorts of tricks would be taught. That's the Army in which I should like to fight." -- Jean Larteguy

Major recurring formal and ceremonial events requiring formal drill and ceremony should be handled by speciality units like the Old Guard. For recurring ceremonies and events, major installations should form a garrison "Old Guard" instead of "tasking" units in the garrison.

One of the biggest kicks in the junk is having to cancel a week of training on no notice so that you and your Soldiers can go stand in formation for a week for a ceremony and the numerous rehearsals required before hand.

[JHR]

Drill does seem to have its benefits, though an excess of drill does not pass pass an excess of benfits.

The drill we use now was developed to aid and enhance a certain type of warfare or fighting. Perhaps it is time for a new form of drill. Best would probably include the speed, endurance and dispersion of soccer along with a built-in trigger to unexpectently switch the person calling commands.

Leave the parades to the drill team and the volunteer octet. Also, the drum major should be required to polish off a full glass of port upon finishing retreat as in Bugles and a Tiger (Col. J. Masters).

[nichols]

I would agree with COD being needed for crowd control, other then that where does it fit into today's dispersed asymetrical battlefield?

[nichols]

Leave the parades to the drill team

Eventually they end up in front line units.

Nothing like having a leader that can show you how to march in circles perfectly covered and aligned but can't navigate his way off of the drill field.

[jonSlack]

If you have time to do "drill" you have time to practice combatives, practice stacking and room clearing techniques, demo knot and breaching charge construction lessons, weapons assembly, disassembly, functions check, and reduce a stoppage drills, radio and ANCD classes, and a host of more relevant training that is easy to resource and execute during short garrison lulls.

[marct]

Hi Jon,

I've got to agree with JC on this. I do agree that training in something immediately operationally useful is very important. Still and all, "Man does not live by bread alone" - or, if you prefer Napoleon, "Morale is to materiel as three is to one". Regimental, corps, whathaveyou ceremonial is a "spiritual glue" that ties together those who have gone before, those serving now, and those who will serve in the future. Without it, there is no "sacred" reason for what you are doing; no "foundation story" or "elder tales".

American servicemen (and women) swear to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States" which, if you look at it objectively, is nothing but a bunch of ink spilled on a parchment over 225 years ago by a bunch of guys who are now dead. What, other than your oaths, links you to them, and how can you "see" / "feel" this linkage? This is the importance of ceremonial rituals.

Please believe me when I say that the REMFs who use those rituals as a way of polishing their own careers and justifying their own lack of actual combat skills / ability should be sent to Baghdad on 1 man missions. They are a disgrace not only because they do not have the skills and abilities they should have, and not only because they will lead their own men to death, which they probably will, but because they are breaking a covenant that streches back to your War of Independance.

This may sound somewhat wonky, but I want to finish my reply with a poem, written by a Canadian at the end of WW I that, I think, really encapsulates why ceremonial is so important.

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Marc

[jcustis]

What, other than your oaths, links you to them, and how can you "see" / "feel" this linkage? This is the importance of ceremonial rituals

.

It all just needs to be done in moderation, which is usually where the "operators" and the "garrison gurus" vehemently disagree.