Today I wanted to post some thoughts, and hopefully get some feedback on a recent "policy" shift within the US Army that in my opinion as a professional leader is very flawed. I hope to receive some comments, to determine if my thinking is flawed and perhaps I don't have a grasp of the "big picture"
The policy to which I am referring is the "every soldier a marksman" and "every soldier an infantryman" which is a concept that is being pushed Army wide, and which leaders are being required to force feed the troops. In theory and on paper, the policy is a realistic and reasonable policy, soldiers are after all soldiers, and have the save basic sets of skills to prepare them to survive and win on the battlefield. The problems with this concept however are numerous, and I will list some I have observed in my 12 years of experience, real or perceived.
The first and I think most major issue with this policy centers around the nature of the mission of non combat arms soldiers, that is support and admin soldiers. For the purpose of this discussion I will use the word support when referring to any non combat arms troops.
Support soldiers as a rule already have a great deal more to learn and know then your average combat arms soldier, due to the nature of their specific job. For example, a soldier who is a mechanic, not only has to learn and be proficient in being able to troubleshoot and repair vehicle engines, that soldier also has to learn the admin side of maintenance, which is shop operations and all the documentation involved in ordering and receiving parts, accounting for manhours etc, as relates to being a mechanic. Additionally that soldier is also required to learn all the "warrior tasks" all the soldier skills such as rifle marksmanship, land navigation and map reading, nuclear biological and chemical warfare, first aid, weapons (M240B, M249, M2, AT4 etc) constructing fighting positions, range cards and range estimation, radio procedures etc.
For an infantryman, all those "warrior tasks" and skills are his job, and during a duty day, each of those things can be trained and rehearsed, and honed to a fine sharp point. This creates extremely proficient and well trained infantry soldiers, tankers, artillerymen etc. The problem is that there are only so many hours in a day, and these same skills and tasks are now being pushed aggressively on support soldiers, the idea being to bring them to the level of the combat arms soldier. Herein lies the major flaw in the concept.
Support soldiers have the mission of supporting and keeping the combat arms soldier moving. The daily training and rehearsals accomplished by the US Army's superlative combat arms troops not only produces well trained warriors, it also produces broken equipment. A great deal of it. Army equipment takes a tremendous amount of abuse, and through that abuse, and through normal wear and tear, equipment requires maintenance and repair.
The support soldiers spend their days making the mission of support and repair happen, and by the nature of that job it often requires late nights, and weekends to accomplish. It is done efficiently and exceptionally well by these soldiers, however this does not hone their "warrior skills." The current system provides for only one day a week for training of soldier skills, provided by Sergeant's Time Training, and although in some units it is now an all day event, in most units such as my own, it is from 0700-1230 hours by order of the Commanding General.
that's roughly 5 hours a week available to train tasks that combat arms soldiers perform daily, 12 hours a day or more, 7 days a week or more. Additionally the tasks that are trained are dictated from higher, often resulting in repetitive training, which in an of itself isn't bad, (repetitive training produces experts) it causes other tasks to be missed. The squad leaders should be determining what areas their soldiers are weak in, and training them accordingly, and this is in fact the guidance, and what is "policy", however this is far from what is occurring in reality, at least insofar as maintenance and support units are concerned.
Support units are also not a priority when it comes to scheduling training that is combat arms specific in nature. For example, if I were to try to schedule urban warfare (close quarters combat) training for a support unit for example, we would be at the bottom of the list of units with priority, and in fact if the training site and logistics were approved, we could and would be bumped by any combat arms (especially infantry or military police) unit scheduling the same type of training, up to and including on the day of execution.
This includes and also applies to normal field training exercises, especially those within the Republic of Korea, where the standard is supposed to be "fight tonight" and where a majority of the fighting and defending should war erupt, would be in urban environments.
In addition to the training and proficiency issues regarding support soldiers and warrior tasks, another equally important issue is equipment. Support soldiers are not issued the same equipment, down to the individual soldier equipment and weapons, that combat arms soldiers train with and are issued to accomplish their mission. Bear in mind that under the concept of every soldier a marksman / every soldier an infantryman, the requirements for training and proficiency, as well as the ability to step up and perform the same missions is now expected to apply equally to support soldiers as it is to combat arms troops.
While some of these things are now beginning to make their way to the hands of support soldiers, (in the way of body armor and helmets) support soldiers are still using and being trained with M16A2 rifles, which since Operations Enduring and Iraqi freedom has been studied and shown to be inadequate and unwieldly for us in close quarters combat, and when ambushed during vehicle convoys. Combat arms soldiers are issued M4 Carbines, and additionally receive optical gunsights, laser pointers, and tactical lights etc for use in urban environments.
Additionally many support units don't even have M240s are part of their unit's equipment, using only M249s, and erroneously calling them "crew served" weapons. Not having this weapon in a unit arms room prevents NCOs from training soldiers on the weapon.
Another issue is support leaders. Many support NCOs and officers have no experience or familiarity with these same systems and training outside of a basic knowledge, having spent their careers focusing on the support mission. These are to be the very people responsible for training and getting their soldiers proficient in these tasks, however these leaders have neither the training or experience to accomplish this realistically. This is not to say these leaders are incompetent, but rather to show that until now, this has not been the primary policy and focus for these leaders within the Army's doctrine.
The Army is attempting to make this change and shift overnight, however leaders only know what they know, they cant train what they haven't been trained to execute, and cant be expected to do it proficiently. Considering the seriousness of the training, and the threat we face, it seems that there would have been more thought given to accomplishing the policy change, rather then the make it happen do more with less attitude.
Support units are often required to conduct these various kinds of training, however due to the lack of various types of assigned equipment, most often many things are "simulated" or not trained. Careers in the support field are made or broken on the NCO or Officers ability to do their job as far as maintenance is concerned, and the check the block and career progression items reflect this as well, so realistically, the focus will always be support mission accomplishment, not warrior combat skills. Conversely, combat arms NCOs and Officers career focus will always be warrior combat skills, which in turn creates broken equipment, which creates more mission for support soldiers. This creates a terminal loop in which the every soldier an infantryman/marksman/warrior does not thrive, and cant possibly survive.
Ill close out with the previous paragraph, in order to let it be digested. Id like to get some feedback on what Ive posted so far, and I will continue this subject in further posts, to give some more observations and experiences.
