Second-guessing

[Guns64D]

I was sitting at home yesterday and I picked up the new ARMY magazine. I saw an interesting aritcle about leaders second-guessing some of their decisions in combat that affected them later on.

One example was about a platoon leader that assaulted a building that they were taking fire from instead of using the 64's above to hellfire it first. Well, his NCO was killed in that assault and the PL had an over whelming sense of second guessing his leadership abilities, especially after one of his soldiers blamed him for the NCO's death.

Basically, I would like to start this thread to hear about some personal experiences from the wealth of knowledge here.

What happened, how you coped, what you learned, how can the members of this site benefit from your experience?

[Jack Moroney (RIP)]

You know this is really not a great subject to lay out in an open forum, for many reasons. We all have shadows that haunt us from time to time, we all have seen things a lot clearer in hind site as it is always 20:20. I am sure there are many that have benefited from leasons learned so that they did not become mistakes revisited. The best way to do this is face to face around a blazing fire or over a couple of brew where we all know one another, have shared experiences, and a basic understanding of who we are, what the circumstances were, and know there but for the grace of God we were able to shake off the that hollow feeling deep down in our gut. But, do not take this the wrong way, I do not know you well enough to even begin to do this and you certainly do not know me well enough to even begin to understand from where I might be coming. The best advice I can offer anyone about situations such as these is to understand that at the time you made the best decision you could have knowing what you knew and using the skill sets that were available to you at the time. Reflect on it too much and you will become a basket case. Look forward, not backward. Never forget, but always strive to hone your craft and be better. Build on it, do not wallow in it. This thread is closed.