Training or Doctrine, Which is More Important?

LTG Moore, earlier this year,
at West Point
(Wikipedia)

And what would Hal Moore say about that?

Today I discovered this blog: Steven Pressfield Online.  I came across it quite by accident during the course of my routine internet research (and promptly added it to my blog list).  What came up was a post on Mr. Pressfield's blog about an interview he had conducted with retired Army lieutenant general, Harold G. "Hal" Moore, Jr. General Moore, as a young lieutenant colonel, commanded the 1st Battalion of the 3rd Brigade, 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of Ia Drang in 1955 during the Vietnam War.  Of course, as an admirer of General Moore (I read the book, "We Were Soldiers Once .... And Young," and watched the move by the same name--twice), I read Mr. Pressfield's post in its entirety.

What prompted me to share this discovery here is the following passage:

SP:  You wrote (an autobiographical paper written by General Moore)

"Some things happen in life that are a result of one's total being responding to the moment for others.  You do not think.  You do not analyze.  You do not measure.  You act!  Pure and simple.  All the things you are trained to do come together as one."

Artists and entrepreneurs can certainly relate to that (even though they may be physically safe in an office or a studio) because they often have to act in the face of what are, to them, overwhelming fears.  How do you do this .... Where does the strength come from?  And how would you advise today's service members in particular about acting in the moment--not overthinking or analyzing, but just doing?

HM:  Two things:  instinct and training.  You have to trust your instincts.  Don't second-guess.  But at the same time, proper preparation--mental as well as physical--makes all the difference because, in the moment of fear, you often can't think, you can't reason.  You have to fall back on something and that something is training.  If a soldier is poorly trained, having to act in the moment can be overwhelming, paralyzing.  With me, training is everything--for myself and for those I have the privilege to lead.  I never asked anything of a man under my command that I could not or would not do myself.  You might find yourself in the thick of things you've never done before, but if you are well-trained, you'll bring a level of confident that can turn the moment in your favor.  Training is the secret to just doing it.

What struck me upon reading this, as a military doctrine writer, was that one of those two critical things General Moore mentioned was not doctrine.  "You have to fall back on something," he said, but that something is not doctrine.  It is training.

Now, I work within the Army's Training and Doctrine Command, or TRADOC, for short.  The US Army Signal Center and Fort Gordon, one star amongst TRADOC's modest constellation of training schools and centers, is where I presently write doctrine.  The doctrine developed at the Signal Center defines Signal's roles and responsibilities within the Army.  It describes the unique capabilities that the Signal Corps brings to the fight.  And it helps the non-Signal soldier and commander better understand the who, what, where, when, how, and why of Signal support to Army operations.

TRADOC's mission is to "develop the Army's soldiers and civilian leaders and design, develop and integrate capabilities, concepts, and doctrine in order to build a campaign-capable, expeditionary Army ..."  According to its own motto, TRADOC is where victory starts.  I find it interesting that nowhere in its mission statement does TRADOC specifically mention training like it does doctrine.  Remember, it is the Army's training and doctrine command.  That's two domains, training and doctrine, within the Army's capabilities development umbrella known by the acronym DOTMLPF--

Doctrine
Organization
Training
Materiel
Leadership and education
Personnel
Facilities

TRADOC, as the Army's architect, is responsible for all the D-O-T-M-L-P-F pieces to the Army capabilities puzzle.  But two of those, doctrine and training, are specifically highlighted in the command's formal designation. 

Only one of them was cited by General Moore as the thing which soldiers, operating "in the moment," fall back on.  That one thing is training. 

I hear it all the time--from the trainers, from the materiel requirements folks, and from action officers within the other elements of DOTMLPF, that Doctrine "is broke."  That is, doctrine--particularly Signal Regiment doctrine--is behind where it should be.  I have no argument with that.  But quite often it's taken further to imply that the materiel developers, the trainers, the educators, and the others cannot meet their own mission requirements because doctrine is somehow holding up the show.  That I quite emphatically do not accept.

Just yesterday I heard a sergeant major explain to a group of soldiers visiting from another installation, here to learn more about Army Signal operations, that because of technology Soldiers are having to do things they've never done before, things that aren't supported by doctrine, that the development of doctrine is not keeping pace with developments in the field, and that this is a major problem.

Go back and read again General Moore's words above, only this time replace the word "training" with the term "doctrine."  It's absurd!  Doctrine may be the "Fundamental principles by which the military forces or elements thereof guide their actions in support of national objectives ..."  (Joint Publication 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms), but it is not what the military's most essential element, the soldier, falls back on when his life is on the line. 

Hear again the combat-tempered wisdom of LTG Hal Moore:  ".... You might find yourself in the thick of things you've never done before, but if you are well-trained, you'll bring a level of confidence that can turn the moment in your favor.  Training is the secret to 'just doing it.'"

So, in that light, which do you think is more essential, doctrine or training?