11-16-2011, 06:29 AM
Ranger Rick,
That's probably one of the best explanations of the officer corps I've ever heard summarized in such a fashion. The prior service LT's I had definitely had more control over the Platoons than an IOBC grad though, and they knew what to look for. Inexperienced Lt's actually had to be monitored for excessive use of inappropriate force or stupid actions while deployed in my experience.
Quick example: We had this one Lt. who should have been kicked out of the Army for cheating on the EIB test, at the range estimation station, since he was caught with the distances written on his arm by the EIB cadre. BC backed him up, and he drove on to take some C4 when we were in OIF1, light it on fire (like he had read in the books about Vietnam when guys would use a sliver, not a full 1 1/4lb block, to boil some water in their canteen cup)...then threw it into a pit right near our field ASP for the battalion, where crates of ammo, demo, and pyro were kept.
One of our Combat Engineers, the most sqaured-away 12B E-6 I ever knew, tore into him like there was no tomorrow, explaining that he just nearly took the lives of scores of men, etc. and that they needed to go see the Chain of Command over it ASAP. Lt. was backed again. A weak junior officer is more likely to experience war crimes under his command than a strong prior-service NCO with morals. Don't ask me how I know.
I'm also aware of the officer promotion system, which is dog-eat-dog. In the end, teamwork takes a far lower rung on the pole to CYA and ensure my OER has high ratings. We also are in a situation where there are a lot of senior NCO's who have more college experience than most Captains, with only 4yr degrees. There is the tradition that officers are educated so they can read and interpret orders, which was necessary back in the day, but the level of smart-Aleck enlisted nowadays negates that specific requirement to a large degree. I had this discussion with a 1SG in 19th Group last year, as we waited in-line to shake George Bush's hand.
He has a Master's degree, and had accumulated all sorts of statistics about the educational levels of junior officers, senior enlisted, etc., and even suggested that a prior-service NCO with a 4-year degree could jump to a Company Command position if they had the junior unit leader experience already.
I'm a bit of a throwback to history where I have this idea of a General who lives to win, versus the current line-up of politicians in pristine ACU's, who sound more like Dan Rather than Patton. I would follow Patton to hell and back. Dan Rather wouldn't last my first visceral throat strike...
I've always been of the opinion that we shouldn't place the least experienced guy in a position where responsibility for overall success or failure of the Platoon lies in his hands. The PSG needs to focus on beans, bullets, bandaids, and the combat support aspect of the Platoon HQ in the field, establishing logistics points for distribution of ammo, casualty collection, etc. That is quite separate from the Platoon leader managing the squads, coordinating indirect assets, conducting leader's recons, emplacing ambushes, managing the squads in react to contact, etc.
I can't tell you how many Lieutenants I've seen conduct a leader's recon that was akin to a gypsy caravan, with SAW gunners, AG's, security elements, complete with helmets on. Any local or half-drunk soldier in the area could always hear them from a mile away, whereas any PFC who had been doing recons in a Scout Platoon could tell you right away that the complete lack of stealth with such a large element would compromise them before even leaving the rest of the patrol...but you know what, they can't be told! That's how they did it in Ranger School, and that's how you do it.
In contrast, I've spent literally days on my hands and knees sneaking into denied areas, as a 2-man R&S team. There are so many principles of patrolling commonly violated because it's written in a Ranger handbook that you take X many PAX on a leader's recon. They used to wear PC's in Ranger school, until after the drowning/hypothermia incident in 1994/95? in a Winter class. After that, Kevlars were the norm throughout, since some risk-aversive overlord at unseen levels of the command mandated every possible piece of PPE imaginable.
That then became the norm in light units, since the Lieutenants and Captains didn't know any better. This inability to step back and say, "This doesn't make sense!" really handicaps the leadership system, and translates into a lot of negative value training exercises, with scores of entry-level soldiers who "can't wait to get the **** out of the Army". It really pained me to hear that all the time, since I loved the job, and saw how misguided training was so often, and demoralizing. It's as if a psychological warfare expert from the KGB had penetrated the system long ago, and carefully weaved a convoluted scheme to demoralize warfighters from within the system...
That's probably one of the best explanations of the officer corps I've ever heard summarized in such a fashion. The prior service LT's I had definitely had more control over the Platoons than an IOBC grad though, and they knew what to look for. Inexperienced Lt's actually had to be monitored for excessive use of inappropriate force or stupid actions while deployed in my experience.
Quick example: We had this one Lt. who should have been kicked out of the Army for cheating on the EIB test, at the range estimation station, since he was caught with the distances written on his arm by the EIB cadre. BC backed him up, and he drove on to take some C4 when we were in OIF1, light it on fire (like he had read in the books about Vietnam when guys would use a sliver, not a full 1 1/4lb block, to boil some water in their canteen cup)...then threw it into a pit right near our field ASP for the battalion, where crates of ammo, demo, and pyro were kept.
One of our Combat Engineers, the most sqaured-away 12B E-6 I ever knew, tore into him like there was no tomorrow, explaining that he just nearly took the lives of scores of men, etc. and that they needed to go see the Chain of Command over it ASAP. Lt. was backed again. A weak junior officer is more likely to experience war crimes under his command than a strong prior-service NCO with morals. Don't ask me how I know.
I'm also aware of the officer promotion system, which is dog-eat-dog. In the end, teamwork takes a far lower rung on the pole to CYA and ensure my OER has high ratings. We also are in a situation where there are a lot of senior NCO's who have more college experience than most Captains, with only 4yr degrees. There is the tradition that officers are educated so they can read and interpret orders, which was necessary back in the day, but the level of smart-Aleck enlisted nowadays negates that specific requirement to a large degree. I had this discussion with a 1SG in 19th Group last year, as we waited in-line to shake George Bush's hand.
He has a Master's degree, and had accumulated all sorts of statistics about the educational levels of junior officers, senior enlisted, etc., and even suggested that a prior-service NCO with a 4-year degree could jump to a Company Command position if they had the junior unit leader experience already.
I'm a bit of a throwback to history where I have this idea of a General who lives to win, versus the current line-up of politicians in pristine ACU's, who sound more like Dan Rather than Patton. I would follow Patton to hell and back. Dan Rather wouldn't last my first visceral throat strike...
I've always been of the opinion that we shouldn't place the least experienced guy in a position where responsibility for overall success or failure of the Platoon lies in his hands. The PSG needs to focus on beans, bullets, bandaids, and the combat support aspect of the Platoon HQ in the field, establishing logistics points for distribution of ammo, casualty collection, etc. That is quite separate from the Platoon leader managing the squads, coordinating indirect assets, conducting leader's recons, emplacing ambushes, managing the squads in react to contact, etc.
I can't tell you how many Lieutenants I've seen conduct a leader's recon that was akin to a gypsy caravan, with SAW gunners, AG's, security elements, complete with helmets on. Any local or half-drunk soldier in the area could always hear them from a mile away, whereas any PFC who had been doing recons in a Scout Platoon could tell you right away that the complete lack of stealth with such a large element would compromise them before even leaving the rest of the patrol...but you know what, they can't be told! That's how they did it in Ranger School, and that's how you do it.
In contrast, I've spent literally days on my hands and knees sneaking into denied areas, as a 2-man R&S team. There are so many principles of patrolling commonly violated because it's written in a Ranger handbook that you take X many PAX on a leader's recon. They used to wear PC's in Ranger school, until after the drowning/hypothermia incident in 1994/95? in a Winter class. After that, Kevlars were the norm throughout, since some risk-aversive overlord at unseen levels of the command mandated every possible piece of PPE imaginable.
That then became the norm in light units, since the Lieutenants and Captains didn't know any better. This inability to step back and say, "This doesn't make sense!" really handicaps the leadership system, and translates into a lot of negative value training exercises, with scores of entry-level soldiers who "can't wait to get the **** out of the Army". It really pained me to hear that all the time, since I loved the job, and saw how misguided training was so often, and demoralizing. It's as if a psychological warfare expert from the KGB had penetrated the system long ago, and carefully weaved a convoluted scheme to demoralize warfighters from within the system...