The best job I’ve ever had was as the company commander of a combat engineer company in the Army. It is like being a Chinese feudal war lord which is reputed to be a very good gig.
Company D as in Delta was in need of a firm hand having failed to pass its annual ARTEP (Army Training and Evaluation Program) for multiple years. The battalion was headquartered about five hundred miles away and I never met my battalion commander. Not sure I knew his name.
I was quite alone.
I’d received a very clear order, “Go over there and sort out that fucking band of brigands. Pass the God damn ARTEP or its the end of your career.”
This order was delivered by a Major General with whom I ended up becoming friendly nigh on to “rabbi” status (a general officer who looks after your career) and I ended up going fishing with him in his Boston Whaler several times. It was what is known in the trade as a “direct order.”
The last company commander had been relieved and there was a sad story of others up the chain of command having suffered for the company’s failure to perform. At the Officers Club it was not a hit to be the Commanding Officer of Delta even on your birthday.
It gets worse
This was compounded by the impending end of the Vietnam War and the wholesale discharge of a goodly number of draftees who were assigned to that unit until their separation date arrived. Imagine the demeanor and discipline of a young man jerked out of his life for two years, sent to Vietnam, and having six more months before he can get out.
The company had an authorized TO&E (table of organization and equipment) of 186, but there were more than 400 soldiers (to ultimately double in size as discharges blossomed as the Army downsized) plus it had a fair number of convicted criminals awaiting their final appeal at the Military Court of Appeals — murderers, rapists, shooters, stabbers, violent young men.
About 90% of the Jeeps, trucks, dozers, front end loaders, graders, cranes, chainsaws, minesweepers, CEVs (combat engineer vehicles, M60 tanks with a bunker busting 120MM gun), and other combat engineer equipment did not work — primarily blamed on lack of parts, but that turned out to be a lie.
The company hadn’t trained in its infantry mission (combat engineers fight like infantry until you get to a river and then the combat engineers force the crossing while the infantry stops for tea and crumpets) or its combat engineer mission (explosives, mines, bridges, fortifications, building) for years and they hadn’t been to the rifle range to qualify since Christ was a corporal.
There was substantial racial tension, fat NCOs, the barracks was a disaster, the mess hall was a mess producing lousy food, the unit didn’t do regular physical training, long hair, sloppy uniforms (one platoon decided to go to work in sneakers), and every pay day the MPs filled their stockade with drunk, bloody-knuckled engineers.
The technical military term for this was a JUG FUCK.
I had already decided by then that I was not going to pursue a military career thinking after Vietnam there would never be another war, but I had pride, came from a military family, was a VMI graduate, and I liked a challenge.
I was twenty-five years old and had been in the Army for three years. I had the confidence of youth (often the byproduct of hubris and ignorance).
What did you do, Big Red Car?
I spoke with my father who was a Command Sergeant Major and the post Chief of Staff, a Colonel who had been in the Army since the American Revolution. I rented their wisdom.
My father told me to run the Hell out of them every morning to take the spunk out of them, get young NCOs, and to improve the chow.
The Colonel told me he would get me any NCO (sergeant) in the US Army that I wanted and that he would run interference if I wanted to relieve all the NCOs.
“The key to any unit is the NCOs,” the Colonel said to me.
What happened, Big Red Car?
I got a new First Sergeant with whom I had served overseas. He arrived in 48 hours from Germany. Not a happy guy, but just what the unit needed.
First day, he comes to me and says, “You need to get rid of all the platoon sergeants, the training sergeant, the mess sergeant, but the Motor Pool sergeant is OK. He needs some help in ordering parts.” Notice he said “you.”
It took a week, but the wholesale change happened, the Colonel came through, and in a week, the company was up at 5:30 AM for physical training and a five mile run. As they rounded into shape, we began to run absurdly long distances at a comfortable Airborne Shuffle speed, but a good 10-12 mile run takes the sass out of everyone. I ran with the troops every morning.
I made them march out to their training and work sites so the Motor Pool could work on the rolling stock and to tire them further.
By eight o’clock every night the barracks was quiet.
And then what, Big Red Car?
There was a magical transformation — the mantle of command, power descended upon my shoulders and we began to train.
How does one eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
We began to train on individual skills. We went to the rifle range and I issued a very unpopular order, “We are not leaving this sand flea bitten rifle range until every swinging dick fires Expert.”
The sergeants grumbled, but a week later, we had every soldier qualified Expert including the machine gunners. It was my first triumph of command. The First Sergeant later told me he didn’t think I had the balls to make that order stand, but he forgot my old man was a Command Sergeant Major and I’d gone to VMI.
After that, the Motor Pool got parts and the equipment came up to 99% operable, and we trained as squads, followed by platoons, and then company exercises.
When we finished the cycle, we did it again.
The chow in the mess hall improved when the First Sergeant located a set of Cajun twins from New Orleans who were cooks. The food was fabulous. I used to eat every meal there. What mess hall serves shrimp jambalaya? Mine did.
ARTEP
Eight months from when I took over, I arrived for work in my bright orange TR-6 and there was a crew from Department of the Army waiting on the steps of the brick barracks with white engineer tape around their helmets — the mark of graders for tests.
“We’re here to conduct your ARTEP.”
Several of them had been there last year and I could sense the affront of low expectations.
We loaded up, went out to the field, and they handed me a set of “problems.”
We put mines in. We took mines out. We armed mines. We disarmed mines. We blew trees up. We cut trees down. We built fortifications. We blew them up. We built timber trestle bridges strong enough to cross our CEVs and then we blew them up. We designed and installed a defensive position at the squad, platoon, and company level. We shot rockets at dead tanks. We drove live CEVs. For three days, they conducted the training equivalent of a three fingered prostate exam.
I sensed that the troops were on their game and nothing they threw at me we hadn’t trained on. I began to feel pretty good about things.
The final exercise was “company in the attack” in which we were given an objective some four miles from the LD (line of departure) and told to make our way there, conduct a leader’s recon, make an attack plan, and to attack the position.
We found a creek, followed it into the rear of the enemy position, descended on them from the rear, and the lane grader assessed we’d wiped them out.
So what happened, Big Red Car?
At the debrief in front of the equivalent of my battalion commander, the brigade commander (later two star general who commanded all special forces in the Army), and the head examiner, we received our marks.
We’d aced it. We received what turned out to be the highest grade in the entire Army that year (in fairness, about half a dozen companies received the same score).
The General and my Brigade Commander came to my office and gave me an MSM (meritorious service medal) which in those days was only awarded to higher ranking officers — subsequently they became the equivalent of a toy in box of Cracker Jack.
Is that it, Big Red Car?
No, here’s the lesson. What happened could have been done by any reasonably competent combat engineer officer. I could name a dozen off the top of my head.
What had really happened was I had taken control, taken power. Smartest thing I did was to talk to my father and the Colonel.
In life, you do not receive power; you take power.
Stop, read that sentence again. In your endeavor, have you taken power?
If you are the CEO of a startup, a small/medium business — you must ultimately take control, embrace the power. When you do, you are in charge. Be in charge. Take the power!
Nowhere am I suggesting that you raise your voice, try to mimic Patton — just take the power in a calm, deliberate, professional manner.
Still, eat the elephant one bite at a time, but you decide where to bite, and how big a bite to take. Put every element of your company on a trajectory of constant improvement and test them.
The marketplace is going to conduct your ARTEP, be ready.
Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. Have a great weekend. Is this a great country or what?