2nd ACR follow up: It is hardly alone in the erosion of its conventional combat skills

A friend familiar with the exercise that revealed serious combat weaknesses
in an Army regiment comments:

1. Over 50 percent of the 2CR
staffs' will transition out of the unit by March 2013 just three months prior
to deployment -- nasty habit by the Army, most units do it just prior to
deployment or right after redeployment -- meaning for all those officers trained
up to now will not be deploying -- what a wasted effort and it is over and
over, thus no institutional knowledge is ever developed. Now one has to retrain
the new inbound ones in just three months.

2. The
official responses are interesting in that based on CALLS article lead in
-- the CALL writer got input from the OC-Ts and the O7s, who are the LTC/COL
OC team leads to include the RGT Staff observers, so it was overall a fairly
accurate picture. CALL based a reviewer at all CTCs -- if one goes back and
reviews all DATE exercises -- and there have been two at JMRC, several at the
NTC -- they ALL show similar issues. The Force has simply in ten years of COIN
lost their basic conventional Army skill sets.

3. With each section it indicated what warfighter functions were being addressed
and when it stated "All" then you know it just was not a pre-summary report, or a
shortened report or a snap shot -- it was an overall assessment for the six
warfighter functions. Yes, there were on occasions success, but few and
far between -- was actually surprised at the official responses.

4. The
underlying tone of the report reflects a serious lack of trust, serious
micro-management, and a deep lack of communication, i.e. dialogue -- all items deeply
embedded in mission command, but not spoken about in the report. Heard from the
field that the OCs basically hit the check marks on a standard critique list
-- also OCs tend to not cover the warm and fuzzy items in mission command, i.e.
trust, dialogue, team building, as they themselves are not anchored in the
necessary education/experience in mentoring those items.

Just a
note -- all of the bloggers and those who used the term mission command and
mission orders to include CALL's use of mission orders blow completely by what
MC really is -- i.e. even the doctrinal side is confusing -- in ADP 5.0 mission
orders emphasize Cmdrs intent -- in ADP 6.0 mission order is assumed to be the
standard three orders that also have been issued FRAGOs, WARNOs and OPORDs.

If
mission command is mentored correctly and the staffs are educated and trained
in MC -- even when cut off from the RGT Cmdr, and even when things are going
south individual units should and must adjust on the fly using independent
decisionmaking -- follow the Cmdrs intent and drive on in the knowledge
that the RGT Cmdr has allowed them to succeed even though he is nowhere to be
seen or even heard on the radios.

You
will notice in the
CALL article that even
while seeing some of the problems experienced right out of the mission command,
ADP 6.0 really did not address them -- this goes to our current way we evaluate
units. We have a series of organizations all calling themselves Mission
Command Training Programs, but absolutely none of them mentor, none of them
while using the term MC, and none mentor the core problem that jumps out of this
CALL article -- the need for trust and dialogue in a fear free environment -- all fuzzy things
which calls on one's confidence as a mentor, as you must be stable yourself in
the areas of trust and dialogue."

Tom
again: Meanwhile, a former 2nd SCR soldier writes in to say that the erosion
was exceptional, and resulted from poor leadership:

I've been watching the
comments here for a while, and I've finally decided to say something.  I
was a part of 2SCR for few years. Now when I first got to the unit, I was
under exceptional leaders (2007). Towards the end of my time (2012), it
eroded very, very quickly. I speak from personal experience when I say
that the unit doesn't train to standard, it trains to time.  Once we hit
the time, it didn't matter if we met the standard. Basic soldiering
skills are almost non-existent. One example is we did training on
field maneuvers and we never went to the field to practice, we
watched it on a powerpoint slide then checked the block as if it were done.
Also, we never followed a training schedule. A false training
schedule was put up every week, sent up, but we never even so much as glanced
at it.



Overall, I think it is a shame. The unit
definitely disheartened me from the military. For a long time I thought
that the military values, the Soldier's Creed, the NCO creed were things people
just pretended to be passionate about in boards and then threw it all away when
they left. I think it is also eroding soldiers' values and work ethic.
The only good thing I can say after walking away from this unit is that
after all of the hate and rage I had, it brought me closer to Jesus Christ and
God. I just hope and pray that people stop worrying and identifying with
what is on their chest and realize what an immense honor and responsibility it
is. The rank is honorable because of the responsibility you have to live
up to.  I just see a bunch of people who want the "honor" but
not the responsibility, not realizing that you cannot have one without the
other. My hopes and prayers are that people come home safely.