Category Archives: Leadership

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The Danger of “Should”

Guest Post by Capt. Benjamin Hockman

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In 218 B.C.E., Hannibal crossed the Alps and invaded the Italian peninsula. It should not have been possible to bring a large army, including cavalry and elephants, along that route during winter. When the two armies met at Cannae, Hannibal’s elephants were long dead, and he was outnumbered 5 to 3. The Roman leadership assumed their standard tactics would be sufficient. What should have been a straightforward victory became one of the most famous massacres in military history; Hannibal slaughtered virtually all of the 50,000 Romans.

A 173rd Airborne Brigade Paratrooper gives directions to his troops while participating in Exercise Immediate Response at Pocek Training Area, Slovenia, May 15, 2019. Exercise Immediate Response is a multinational exercise co-led by Croatian Armed Forces, Slovenian Armed Forces, and U.S. Army Europe. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Henry Villarama)
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Want to Avoid Getting W.T.F!ed? Lead.

A Response to U.S. Army W.T.F! Moments' Article

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The U.S Army W.T.F! Moments Admin Team recently wrote a guest piece on Joe Byerly’s blog, From the Green Notebook, titled “The Leader’s Guide to Being Featured on U.S. Army W.T.F! Moments.” The team offered the 10 most common ways leaders find themselves featured on their forum. Like any list, this one is ripe for a few addenda. While they offer a great list, these 10 examples are the baseline; they are the minimum expectation of our leaders. Here are an additional 3 ways you can strive to create a command climate that avoids the dubious honor of a W.T.F! Feature.

Brigadier General Hodne, Deputy Commanding General–Infantry Maneuver Center of Excellence, talks with Charlie Rock 22-week OSUT Soldiers of the Mailed Foot Battalion (2-54 IN) at Fort Benning Georgia. (Photo Retrieved from the 2-54 IN Facebook Page).
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Don’t Schedule – Prioritize to Maximize

Maintaining Consistent Development During Seasons of Inconsistency

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Five hundred, twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes – if you were able to read that without singing, you may not have seen RENT. We have 525,600 minutes in a year, each of them equal in seconds but varying in value. We define the importance of these minutes by how we use them. Tailoring this to a week, we have 168 hours to accomplish that to which we invest our hearts and minds. Josh Bowen of 3×5 Leadership provides a great overview in terms of structured time in his piece “6 Ways I Develop as a Leader Each Week.” But, what if this framework doesn’t work for you? In this post, we will review 3 guidelines to maintain consistent self-development in an inconsistent schedule.

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Regardless of Branch

Trends Across #BranchSeries

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Over the past few weeks we re-ran #BranchSeries that originally published last summer (2018). Each post was unique in its own way and highlighted the individual leader’s, purposefully focused and tailored, take on their branch. Every branch, in the original series, was accompanied by an interview with a senior officer at the U.S. Army War College by Lopez on Leadership. While #BranchSeries intentionally focused on each branch as separate from the whole, there were some clear trends. Here is a look at a few expectations of a junior leader that transcend any one individual branch.

B Co, 1-21 IN soldier conducting day and night live fire exercises. U.S. Army photo by Specialist Cooper.
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What’s So Hard about Cavalry Anyway?

Finding, Tracking, and Fighting in Depth

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What is so hard about cavalry? Nothing, especially. It’s just different. To be frank, cavalry is not more dangerous or more important than other tactical enablers. It’s not even that mystical. Becoming a good cavalry trooper and leader is pretty simple: be better and faster than anyone else at understanding when, where, and why you are, within your recon and security operation. In other words, you need to be able to quickly—and without orders—recognize how newly discovered enemy, terrain, and civil considerations relate to friendly troops and time available…and what all that means to your mission. Knowing when to switch between the fundamentals of reconnaissance to the fundamentals of security (and back again) is a developed instinct.

Idaho Army National Guard Soldiers conducts platoon live-fire gunnery qualification, Feb.14, 2019, at the Orchard Combat Training Center, Idaho. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Mason Cutrer)
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A Look Inside the Best Ranger Competition

Q & A with a 4-Time BRC Competitor

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The Army’s David E. Grange, Jr. Best Ranger Competition is a three-day (62 hour), two-man team gauntlet of physical, mental, and emotionally challenging events meant to test the mettle, technical skills, and tactical proficiency of the competitors. The first requirement to compete – being Ranger Qualified, meaning that you are a graduate of the U.S. Army Ranger School. The 2019 Best Ranger Competition begins on Friday, April 12. The Company Leader conducted an interview with Mark Gaudet, a four-time BRC finisher and member the 2016 5th Place Team. Below are his answers, insights, and recommendations.

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Attacking Razish – Part II

Getting Punched in the Face

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After seven hours of fighting our way through the central corridor the support by fire was set, obscuration smoke was out, our task force engineers were reducing the breach and my assault force began moving forward to quickly secure the far side objective and seize a foothold in the city. After months of preparation and midway through our combined arms breach the brigade was poised to take the largest city in the national training center and my battalion was about to lead the assault. That’s when things started to go wrong and failure ensued.

Paratroopers with the 173rd Airborne Brigade, participate in Exercise Rock Spring 19 at Grafenwoher Training Area, Germany, March 6, 2019. Rock Spring is an annual exercise to validate platoon-level proficiency at conducting offensive operations under live-fire conditions. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Henry Villarama)
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Combat, Orders, and Judgement

The Nightingale Series

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Combat is decidedly mortal to the participants. Leaders, officers, and enlisted soldiers, are charged with execution of orders and the strict adherence to commander’s intent as the responsible agents for the men they serve—both above and below them. Failure to do so in peacetime can be professionally suicidal. Failure to do so in combat may be either suicidal or the key to success. The difference is called judgment. And good judgment is the Holy Grail of any combat unit. One case of leaders on the beachhead, on June 6, 1944, provides a sense through which to view disciplined initiative via calculated disobedience.

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What I’ve Learned From Bullets

The Nightingale Series

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I was cleaning out my accumulated files when I came across a series of notes, regarding officers and leadership, accumulated through the years. I had the privilege of learning a lot through my commands of four rifle companies, three Airborne/Ranger battalions, and two Airborne/Ranger brigades. Many of these lessons learned were in garrison, while several more were in combat between 1965 and 1993. Bullets can be an effective teacher of lessons. This article is for those who wish the knowledge, hopefully without the pain.

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Building Houses that Stand

A Platoon Leader’s Perspective on Planning

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Nothing breaks a new platoon leader’s heart like hearing the words “change of mission.” I heard them within a couple hours of my first training exercise, rendering days of planning products useless in an instant. The lesson I learned – a painful one we all eventually suffer – exemplifies a common military expression: “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” While I was slightly discouraged, another question lurked in the recesses of my mind: if a plan is doomed to fail, why create a plan in the first place?

Capt. Wade Redenius of 2-1 IN discusses plan for upcoming mission with 1st Lt. Ross McDonald and 2nd Lt. Tony Eshoo at Yakima Training Center, WA. U.S. Army photo by Maj. Sonie Munson, 2-2 SBCT Public Affairs.