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**Shek** · 01-25-2007, 08:34 AM

I'd like to point out that we are talking about cadets here and not a rifle squad that will have to execute a battle drill in Baghdad in two months. Whether the cadet unit is able execute battle drill 1A will not determine how successful or worthless they will be as officers.

The Leader Development and Assessment Course (LDAC) will train cadets to a minimum required proficiency on small unit battle drill. The Basic Officer Leadership Course (BOLC) will do the same, and then if the officer will be leading dismounted squads, then they will train once again on small unit dismounted battle drill at the Infantry Officer Basic Course (IOBC) or Engineer OBC, etc. Then, they will be exposed to again during Ranger School, Sapper School, and the Scout Patrol Leader Course (SPLC).

Bottomline, the Army system is designed so that cadets achieve a minimum level of standards that is built upon at initial officer training so that when a second lieutenant reports to his unit, he/she knows enough to be able to understand the importance of battle drill, how to resource and train it, and how to recognize right from wrong so that they can assess the training status of their unit on the task. More importantly, there are already senior squad leaders and platoon sergeants in place who have been doing the drill all their careers, and they can put any lieutenant over the top if they aren't up to speed.

On the other hand, the Army is not setup well at all institutionally for COIN. There are no mandatory college courses that will hit this topic (although there are tons of various angles to get at it, although not necessarily in a holistic way). The required military science courses will focus on the BOLC I skills that are required for commissioning. Then, whatever instruction that is done at BOLC and the officer's basic course, and I don't know how many hours are dedicated to this, will not be of the highest caliber 95% of the time, and will most likely be in a classroom with an instructor:student ratio of 1:200.

This is why doing some academic training about COIN in the academic environment of college would be a good idea. I'm not talking about trying to setup a COIN training lane where you have to react to the situation and make choices, as this takes lots of resources to do it right and be realistic. However, sitting down and discussing the appendix about developing your network diagrams after having read that appendix from the FM is a good use of time. Then, someone can discuss how 3ACR used this in Tal Afar during Operation Restoring Rights to determine which tribes were involved in the insurgency, allowing 3ACR to figure out their plan for clearing Tal Afar based on neighborhoods where it was most likely a battle would take place. This would take the theoretical to the applied example. Finally, a little field trip to the local police station's investigator officer could cap off the training by learning tips from someone who has to do real life networking diagrams to try and solve crimes. If you really want to go deep, then you could do another field trip to a nearby town where the cadets could just have normal conversations with people and try to figure out the networking of those who yield power, and try to see whether it is similar to the town's website of elected officials, or if there's a man behind the man, so to speak.

If you wonder why I chose the above as an example, it's because it's one of the top two critical skills that current lieutenants in Iraq say they wish they had been trained on.

So, I will close out by stating that cadets need to be exposed to many things, and it cannot be a sequential plan such that you go from the individual/team/squad level all the way up through the strategic level. You must be able to train individual and small unit skills while training on training management, doctrine, etc. The trick is how to integrate everything so that it has a logical flow and isn't too disjointed.

01-25-2007, 08:34 AM	#16 (permalink)
Shek *Military Professional* Moderator Join Date: 02-23-05 Location: Krblachistan Posts: 7,947 Country:	I'd like to point out that we are talking about cadets here and not a rifle squad that will have to execute a battle drill in Baghdad in two months. Whether the cadet unit is able execute battle drill 1A will not determine how successful or worthless they will be as officers. The Leader Development and Assessment Course (LDAC) will train cadets to a minimum required proficiency on small unit battle drill. The Basic Officer Leadership Course (BOLC) will do the same, and then if the officer will be leading dismounted squads, then they will train once again on small unit dismounted battle drill at the Infantry Officer Basic Course (IOBC) or Engineer OBC, etc. Then, they will be exposed to again during Ranger School, Sapper School, and the Scout Patrol Leader Course (SPLC). Bottomline, the Army system is designed so that cadets achieve a minimum level of standards that is built upon at initial officer training so that when a second lieutenant reports to his unit, he/she knows enough to be able to understand the importance of battle drill, how to resource and train it, and how to recognize right from wrong so that they can assess the training status of their unit on the task. More importantly, there are already senior squad leaders and platoon sergeants in place who have been doing the drill all their careers, and they can put any lieutenant over the top if they aren't up to speed. On the other hand, the Army is not setup well at all institutionally for COIN. There are no mandatory college courses that will hit this topic (although there are tons of various angles to get at it, although not necessarily in a holistic way). The required military science courses will focus on the BOLC I skills that are required for commissioning. Then, whatever instruction that is done at BOLC and the officer's basic course, and I don't know how many hours are dedicated to this, will not be of the highest caliber 95% of the time, and will most likely be in a classroom with an instructor:student ratio of 1:200. This is why doing some academic training about COIN in the academic environment of college would be a good idea. I'm not talking about trying to setup a COIN training lane where you have to react to the situation and make choices, as this takes lots of resources to do it right and be realistic. However, sitting down and discussing the appendix about developing your network diagrams after having read that appendix from the FM is a good use of time. Then, someone can discuss how 3ACR used this in Tal Afar during Operation Restoring Rights to determine which tribes were involved in the insurgency, allowing 3ACR to figure out their plan for clearing Tal Afar based on neighborhoods where it was most likely a battle would take place. This would take the theoretical to the applied example. Finally, a little field trip to the local police station's investigator officer could cap off the training by learning tips from someone who has to do real life networking diagrams to try and solve crimes. If you really want to go deep, then you could do another field trip to a nearby town where the cadets could just have normal conversations with people and try to figure out the networking of those who yield power, and try to see whether it is similar to the town's website of elected officials, or if there's a man behind the man, so to speak. If you wonder why I chose the above as an example, it's because it's one of the top two critical skills that current lieutenants in Iraq say they wish they had been trained on. So, I will close out by stating that cadets need to be exposed to many things, and it cannot be a sequential plan such that you go from the individual/team/squad level all the way up through the strategic level. You must be able to train individual and small unit skills while training on training management, doctrine, etc. The trick is how to integrate everything so that it has a logical flow and isn't too disjointed. __________________ "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3