Can the Army Lead?

You’ve all heard how soldiers have received some kind of leadership training and or experience. Since the beginning of our nation a formula has been set up to create order and discipline in the military system. This system is called the rank system. Now, I don’t want to sound like a disgruntled private (I’m not a private) but I think we all know which leaders are those we want to emulate and those who are the ones we don’t want to follow. Being in the Army Infantry even the lowest private gets to learn troop leading procedures and mission planning, but it wasn’t until my combat deployment that I learned there is a hole in the system which allows for incompetent leaders the right of coveted leadership.
I first joined the Army with ambitions of being Special Forces, Airborne, Ranger and all the goods but later found out that it wasn’t my cup of tea, and I stayed infantry and joined likely the best infantry unit in the Army a Stryker unit. Strykers have proved themselves more effective than any other conventional unit against fighting terrorism, which includes the Airborne, Mountain, and several other units. I got out shortly after a 15 month Iraq deployment plus a little stop loss.
Iraq was no easy task; we were often subjected to mercy of our over-educated leaders’ supervision and tasking. The general idea of a new officer is that it is his duty to volunteer his platoon for the most missions possible so that he can shine through his peers and get himself a spot as a company XO or the scout platoon.
First, the Army really has no system of keeping uneducated and potentially bad soldiers out of leadership. It’s all up to your platoon and company to promote you, and if you have a bad crop of leaders, then a bad crop of privates become sergeants. There is nothing to stop the chain of incompetency.
To give you an example of this, I’m taking it upon my experience to better inform the bloggosworld of this outstanding problem our Army has.
On a combat mission in Baqubah, Iraq, we were tasked with building a COP (combat operations post) in the middle of town. We patrolled the area for about a week and finally found a building that was suitable for the taking. We took a house and paid off the owners to go find another place and used it as our center for operations in the area. We eventually moved in, sand bagged it, and turned it green within a few days. Shortly after we began standardized patrols out of the building and it became our new home away from the FOB (Warhorse). I had always been suspicious of our leadership because I had always thought they did illogical things. About a couple of weeks into our occupation of the area we came under mortar fire and things started looking a little less mundane. Making an impulsive decision our platoon sergeant ordered 1st squad to go and invest the impact site of a rogue mortar that hit close to our COP. Anyone that knows that mortars are and indirect fire system that usually calls for the mortar crew to “walk” rounds into the target also knows that this decision wasn’t exactly thought through properly. If 1st squad is at the impact site, then the mortar crew doesn’t have to adjust fire to kill a whole squad of soldiers, and losing a whole squad of soldiers renders your whole platoon useless. It was decisions like these that ran my platoon into the dirt, and ultimately caused a massive dissention in our platoon. Joe began talking about his leadership’s inability to care for life and our leaderships desire to take unnecessary risks. Soon meetings with the 1SG were established and things began to change, but the change wasn’t ample enough.
I was only a wee E4 at this time in our small weapons squad on the M14 for awhile and on the M240B for most of the time. Shortly after we got in a fire fight north of COP, in fact, one of our only good squad leaders was wounded and sent home early. We used to do these things called SKT’s or Small Kill Teams for those who don’t know. We would simply take the whole platoon on a patrol, and in the middle of the patrol we the 22 of us would go into a house and 18 would leave, leaving 4 of us behind to do recon on the surrounding area overnight. These tactics were usually dangerous but had huge results on fighting Al Qaeda. The only problem this time is that Al Qaeda actually occupied the area we were operating in they were monitoring our movements the whole time.
Before we can even find a suitable place to set in the SKT we come under contact by small arms fire from a small field to our 12 O’clock. In fact, you could clearly see muzzle flashes from the enemy firing on our position; our position at the time was in the middle of a street with no cover. We immediately moved into a house for cover by use of smoke for concealment. The enemy began spraying into the smoke hoping for a lucky hit. And I do clearly remember that famous milblogger and author of “Army of Dude” was there during the later part of this skirmish with Al Qaeda. His platoon was on QRF (quick reaction force) and was dispatched to help us in case of a massive skirmish.
When we entered a house that could provide us with ample cover, we began returning fire on the enemy positions. After about ten minutes of exchanging fire we began running dangerously low on ammunition. I was a 240 machine gunner at the time and to be down to about 100 rounds on a machine gun means it’s about time to lock and load your pistol. We kept our leadership informed on our ammo situation about every minute. Our platoon Sergeant eventually made the last ditch decision to abandon the house we were in and make a run to try and link up with the rest of the platoon (they got separated from us when we came under fire).
Now that we are in the streets of Iraq, we are low on ammo, under fire, and we’ve just gotten word that one of you soldiers just took a bullet to the arm. This soldier happened to be the squad leader of the group that got separated during the skirmish. We made a ¼ mile sprint to his location under serious fire and with what??? NOOO AMMO! We eventually got to his position and our medic gave him aid, he was totally happy that he got shot;” I finally get to go home and ride my Ducati!” was what he said as he was stoned from the morphine shots. Would we have had such a problem if our leadership didn’t spend all of our ammo so quickly? I think the situation wasn’t utopia, but it really could have been handled differently. Are Small Kill Teams really a smart tactic to use?
I’m now currently in ROTC at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas. The meat and bones of the ROTC department is PT and grades. The institution is completely ran by those who are seniors of the system and it creates a massive void for those of us who have completed combat tours and other things, when they haven’t even seen what basic training looks like. So those of us that are older and more experienced are under the “guidance” of kids who only know what has been taught to them from a month long camping trip called LDAC. Even those that claim they have experience or claim to be prior service are prior national guardsmen that enlisted only for the GIBILL or bonus. So this system of training our nations leaders could quite possibly be the reason we have such bad problems with dissention between NCO’s and new officers in the Army. Myself, being a 24 year old infantry combat veteran, is under the supervision and “guidance” of 21 and 22 year old kids that have never known anything more than ROTC. ROTC rank system is a lot like the grandfather system. If you are a 19 year old sophomore, you have more authority than a 26 year old freshman with 2 combat tours with the prior rank of E6 (this is actually the case of my roommate). Does this make any sense? Wouldn’t you prefer an officer in charge that was a private first? Or perhaps an officer in charge that was an NCO before?
So with this picture I have painted for you, will tell if you think future officers should at least have 2 years service as an enlisted member before they are given that golden bar? I certainly think it is a grand idea. Thanks.