Attritionist Letter (#10): A response

In recent months I have read several articles regarding the ever-encroaching efforts of Training and Education Command (TECom) to provide “centralized” training at the expense of commanders’ prerogatives. Col John A. Keenan, USMC(Ret), wrote an editorial lamenting the “standardized” approach to providing training to operations officers and operations chiefs via the Tactical MAGTF Integration Course (TMIC). His point was that the course was doing what commanders should be doing, not an organization from TECom. There has also been “The Attritionist Letters (#10),” which added fuel to the fire. Apparently, the author’s belief is that everything is moving in the direction of centralized, cookie-cutter-type training that does not teach decisionmaking and removes any responsibility from commanders to train their subordinates. The end result is a crowd of automatons who cannot think but who are adept at Microsoft PowerPoint presentations and the use of command and control systems. While I applaud the efforts of the author of “The Attritionist Letters”—and find myself in agreement at times with the sentiments expressed—I would caution the author to do his research better before he writes. Critics of the system need to have their facts straight before they write, or their credibility comes into question, and they lose their value as critics.

In January’s electronic version of the Gazette, an article was published regarding our efforts here at the Marine Corps Tactics and Operations Group (MCTOG) to produce operations and tactics instructors (OTIs). It is likely that all of the information regarding the course obscured the true intent of the course to the reader. The entire emphasis of the TMIC, which certifies OTIs, is to give them the fundamentals of their job so that when they return to their units they can drive the training process for their entire unit and enable their unit to get beyond the basics. It also specifically teaches them decisionmaking skills because that is exactly what we need OTIs to do—think and make decisions. In other words, the training is enabling them to help their commanders to better prepare their units. How many times have Marines been thrown into jobs with little or no turnover and only a vague understanding of what they are supposed to do in those jobs? If, as a commander, you are spending your time trying to get people to understand the fundamentals of their jobs, when do you have time to take them to the next level before you are all in harm’s way? Company commanders come out of Expeditionary Warfare School or an equivalent career-level school and generally understand what is required of them to be successful company or battery commanders. They are not truly proficient in their jobs until they have done it for a while under the tutelage of a battalion commander who is guiding them and causing them to develop further, as is his obligation.

The fundamental question behind all of this is where does an operations officer or an operations chief learn to plan, train, and execute in the operational and training environments at the battalion and regimental levels? The answer before now was, simply, nowhere. If we put all of the OTI rhetoric aside, what we do is train operations officers and operations chiefs to perform at the baseline level required of their positions. Training them to the baseline allows commanders to then issue guidance and intent, and then coach, teach, and mentor the staff as they work through the command and control process. Prior to this the commander had to teach first, then issue guidance and intent, and then coach, teach, and mentor. Having been assigned as a regimental combat team (RCT) operations officer shortly before deploying to Iraq for a year, I know this from direct experience. It was all adventure learning. Since my arrival at MCTOG and seeing what the TMIC offers, I have been kicking myself and thinking about how much better I could have been, and how much better our RCT could have performed, if I had been allowed the head start of attending a TMIC, but MCTOG did not exist at that point. I am thankful for the patience and support of my RCT commander. I also know that this is nowhere near an isolated incident because of what we observe year in and year out here at MCTOG. In just the time that I have been here, we have trained with 4 active duty regiments, all 3 Reserve infantry regiments, and over 40 battalions from across the ground combat element (GCE). Needless to say, there is a great deal of evidence to back up what I am saying.

As for the critics, I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but it does not take a really smart guy to realize that the nature of today’s operating environment compared to the environment of 10 to 15 years ago has changed significantly. Back then the crowning achievement of command was conducting a movement to contact up the Delta Corridor, destroying the air defense artillery and indirect fire threat, conducting the breech, establishing the support by fire position, maneuvering, and then conducting a dismounted attack on little green plastic silhouettes, all with a combat operations center (COC) that was a general-purpose tent filled with radios, maps under acetate, and lots of yellow canaries. Taking nothing away from the difficulty of doing all that, I would submit that the demands of today are such that no one should ever be expected to go into a GCE COC and function effectively without being specifically trained to do so. This is doubly true of OTIs who are expected to run those COCs in support of their commanders’ decisionmaking process.

The courses and exercises that we here at MCTOG provide are tools that commanders can take advantage of to get their personnel and units trained in the fundamentals so that they then have the flexibility to get to the more advanced skills required of their units in the current operating environment. Instead of trying to figure out how to do their jobs, OTIs already understand what needs to be accomplished in a general sense, and then the commander provides the specifics for his own unit. A major part of being able to function as an organization that adheres to maneuver warfare doctrine is that the commander and his staff are proficient in their jobs and trust each other implicitly. Wouldn’t it be better if people assumed their jobs with a great deal more proficiency so that they could develop trust faster? Decisionmaking is also a great deal easier when you do not have to spend the majority of your time trying to figure out what you need to be doing in the job you just assumed. If you already understand that, you can spend your time thinking about how best to train your unit and get them to the advanced skills that few units these days have the time to get to due to the continued press of relatively short dwell times. I say relatively because this situation has certainly improved, but we still have too many units that get their key personnel too late in the predeployment training cycle and are training under a compressed timeline to make their latest arrival date. How many Marines and sailors have been killed or injured because we have left things to chance and put the entire burden solely on commanders for far too long?
   
Finally, I firmly believe in the old adage that “it is better to work smarter than harder.” That is what we at MCTOG are offering—a chance for GCE units to work smarter because they are coming together with more proficiency at the start and can therefore get further along in their training than they ever have before. They are already working tremendously hard. We see that with every unit with which we train. Asking them to do more is simply unrealistic. If you truly want to understand the benefits of what we provide, then either attend one of our courses or exercises or talk to the staff of tactical training exercise control group who have reported that they see a pronounced difference in units that have trained with us versus those that have not. Better yet, talk to the battalion and regimental commanders we have helped. You’ll have to move fast to catch them though as they are extremely busy.