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4. Keystone Kops and the Fog of War
- Texas A&M University Press
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125 keYstone koPs and the Fog oF War 4Nate Allen had a problem. Allen was a company commander.1 A company represents a basic unit in almost anyarmy: one amounts to about a hundred soldiers or so. For the US Army, the company is the equivalent of a ship at sea—also commanded by a captain—and in many ways army captains run their command like ships. They are responsible for everything the company does and everything that happens, from ensuring that the troops are fed to giving directions in battle. It is a tough job with singular authority, in many basic respects not much changed from the age of Napoleon —one responsible for the lives of many. For a junior officer , usually a young college graduate with less than five years of military service, it is seen as the key test of mettle and the ability to lead. For many, it is their first command. Commanding can be an exhilarating and rewarding job. Many call it the best job they ever had in the army. It can also be daunting, frustrating, and lonely. In the US Army, the company commander is the first level of authority where an officer has significant legal responsibilities. Under the military code of justice, company commanders can impose nonjudicial punishment on soldiers for breaches of disciple and violations of military regulations. They are judge and jury. In battle, the commander’s role is even more dramatic. The commander’s decisions can mean life or death. In a civilian job when things go wrong a manager might get reprimanded or even fired. In the military when things go wrong sometimes people get crushed, maimed, shot, or blown up. Even in peacetime the responsibility of command is great. Training can sometimes be as dangerous as combat. Even discounting the physical risks, commanders face a myriad of perplexing issues almost every day. 126 Chapter 4 Command is not a job to be taken lightly. Nobody knew that better than Nate Allen. Tall, square-jawed, with a standard, close-cropped military haircut and razor-clean face, Allen looked GI-issued. He commanded a company in Hawaii, and his then next-door neighbor and West Point buddy Tony Burgess commanded another. Both were frustrated. When one solved a knotty problem, it wasn’t easy to share the answer with the other. In the army, companies are grouped in battalions, and Allen and Burgess were in different ones. They each followed a different chain of command, reporting to somebody, who in turn reported to somebody else. “If I had a good idea,” Allen recalled, “I’d have it pass up, and it would have to be blessed two levels above me, and then passed down to Tony.” Army life was like that. The army could be a lot of top-down. On the other hand, they didn’t need permission to talk with each other. In 1963, Tom Christie had helped John Boyd evolve his ideas for the OODA loop over beers at the bar of the Eglin Air Base officers’ club. In 1995, while sitting on Nate Allen’s front porch, Allen and Burgess began to think about how to share mastering the challenge of command. They formed the world’s smallest social network: two people. By the time Allen and Burgess turned in their guidons (small flags with the unit designation embossed on them—the symbol of command), they had become disciples of professional networking. After their assignments in Hawaii both officers were slotted to return to the US Military Academy at West Point. Allen was in graduate school, preparing to teach. Burgess was in a program for training “tactical officers,” captains who organized military instruction and supervised discipline for the cadets. Their command days were behind them, but neither could forget their passion for the challenges of command. In the pre–Web 2.0 days of the mid 1990s they could only think of one way to share their experiences. They started scribbling a book—Taking the Guidon (the title referred to the traditional change-ofcommand ceremony). Others took notice. Soon the project collected the interest of a cabal of instructors at the academy, a small group with a big passion to share their ideas. Burgess suggested that they put the whole thing online. Steve Schweitzer, a would-be webmaster, volunteered to give it a try. Schweitzer, who taught computer-aided-design classes to the cadets, had an aerospace engineering degree from Penn State. He was the...