The Squad: Foundation of the Decisive Force

This is absolutely great. It foreshadows significant capability gelling within the force at the squad level. These things are needed and there will be great payoff in terms of near-future operations. But it shows also, I think, that the Army sees itself more and more in an operational environment that dictates a wide area security approach to war as opposed to combined arms maneuver.  This could be a stroke of genious, or it could be problematic in circumstances yet unforeseen.  It's something to watch.

Capabilities are developed to fill needs. Current capability development emphasis on the squad indicates that Army resources of late have been steered to other areas and that, consequently, squad-level capabilities have suffered. That's sort of the nature of the beast. The Army must direct its appropriations to where they are most needed. We can't have everything we want whenever we want it. Finally, the guys at the 'edge' are in the spotlight.

Oh, and one fact is inescapable.  The Army these days sure makes much better promotional and informational-type videos that it used to.

The Army Continues to Transition

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Army of 2020 ...

One of the Army's Lowest Points Ever

From Geoffrey Perret's There's a War To Be Won ...

"The 11,000 men who surrendered on Corregidor were, they soon discovered, not considered prisoners of war by their captors.  Instead, they were treated like a low form of life, on a par with parasites and vermin.  [Japanese Lt. Gen. Masaharu] Homma [commander of the main Japanese invasion force in the Philippines] threatened to murder all of them unless [Army Lt. Gen. Jonathan M.] Wainwright [commander of U.S. forces in the Philippines] ordered subordinate commanders throughout the Philippines to surrender themselves and their men.

"The Japanese put Wainwright in front of a microphone at a Manila radio station.  [Army Chief of Staff, General George C.] Marshall wanted someone who knew Wainwright well to listen in and tell him if the broadcast was genuine or a Japanese hoax.  J. Lawton Collins, recently appointed commander of the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii, had served for three years under Wainwright and admired him unreservedly.  Collins listened to the broadcast as Marshall requested.

"There was no doubt about it.  That was Skinny Wainwright, his voice dulled by exhaustion, choking with emotion as he ordered his men to surrender.  That was Skinny Wainwright, with his limp from a bad riding accident, always leaning on a stick when not in the saddle.  That was Skinny Wainwright, humiliated, defeated, heading for captivity and possibly a cruel death.  Collins sat by his radio that balmy evening in Hawaii, his round, boyish face wet with the tears shed for his friend." 

Revised FM 3-24 to Hit the Street Soon

Military to unveil new counterinsurgency field manual

by, Stars and Stripes

The part that has always intrigued me ...

"A large number of experts, including academics and active-duty and retired veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, provided input for the rewrite ..."

That's just totally outside my own frame of reference.  I wish it weren't.

 

Marshall, McNair, and Army doctrine

George C. Marshall became the Army Chief of Staff on 1 September 1939. Incidentally, this was the same day that the Germans overran Poland in a sign of things to come. The United States was not at war yet, but those who could discern the times knew that we soon would be. 

One of the first things General Marshal did—and he did a lot—was to completely, totally, from top to bottom—revamp Army doctrine. That’s right, one of his first concerns was the fundamental principles that would guide the Army in its pending war. He had to raise an Army practically from scratch, equip it, and then train it to fight a world war against a well established enemy. So he set about very early on to remake the Army’s intellectual base. 

He was in a hurry about it, too. 

"He shut down the War College and the Command and General Staff School at Leavenworth,” writes historian Geoffrey Perret. “Marshall wanted their instructors and students to get to work writing more than 150 new field manuals that would incorporate the most modern military doctrine. He hoped to get this task done in three months.” Three months! “'Impossible,’ said the general he asked to supervise it. Marshall retired him next day and turned to the commandant at Leavenworth, Brig. Gen. Leslie J. McNair."[1]

And I would bet my last dollar that Marshall’s fundamental concern was not the accessibility of those manuals, it was their content.


PS:  It took McNair four months instead of three.

---

[1] Geoffrey Perret, There's a War to be Won (New York, Ballentine Books, 1991), 24.

Vince Flynn

“[He] saw communism for the sham that it was--a bunch of brutes who seized power in the name of the people, only to repress the very people they claimed to champion.”
― Vince Flynn, American Assassin

From Goodreads.

Contractors and the Army

CONTRACTORS

This is not the guy
who posts this stuff

A-9. Contractors are not members of the Army profession; however, they provide valuable support and augmentation to the capabilities of the Profession of Arms and the Army Civilian Corps, both stateside and overseas. Hired under contractual terms for specific tasks of a specified duration, they provide essential skills and perform technical and administrative tasks that allow Army professionals to focus on their primary missions. Contractors are an important part of any current or future Army effort.[1]

Just in case you were wondering.  And I think I'm going to get myself one of those yellow hard hats, too.

---

[1] ADP 1, The Army (Headquarters, Department of the Army, September 2012), A-4.