Quote:
Originally Posted by troy2k
Easily the dumbest of 20 years worth of dumb events...I was in the last WOC class to include 180As, before the "trial" implementation of Ft Bragg's 180A WOTTC course, which includes a 2 week candidate phase.
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Troy, I suspect that put us in the same WOBC - the one where we got the "whoops, did we forget to tell you that SDAP isn't part of save pay anymore" speech? (And I'm not so sure WOC was useless - until I went there, I thought that the NCOES was the dumbest thing ever devised by mankind. Now I know better.)
On a more serious note, I think the community missed a bet by appointing the candidates at the 2 week mark. There was a real opportunity to make the course more selective by holding the decision whether to appoint as a 180A to the end of the course. That would have made the course more of an evaluation of whether a candidate should be a 180A, rather than a foregone conclusion. (Of course, that would have never happened in the numbers driven SWC environment of the last few years - maybe things will be different now.)
As far as the original question goes - its a tradeoff: with a WO, you get a 2IC (or in a lot of cases, an ODA commander) who has a good bit of SF experience and know-how; with an LT, you get a chance for extended professional development for a soldier who may some day be a team commander.
In my opinion, the tradeoff is well-worth it. In the absence of a CPT, a WO can make a credible team commander, and with a CPT, can make a real contribution on the planning, intel, and ops-intel fusion side of the house. I started in SF before the transition, and my experience with an LT XO (as a young corporal and sergeant, so I was pretty much in the same boat) is that they're pretty much in the mouth shut, ears open and learn mode. I think the "seasoning" of an LT is less important than having a fully capable, experienced person who can either command the team, or advise the commander on the best way to employ an ODA.
And, if an LT wants to be an SF ODA commander in the future, it's not like he's not able to get valuable experience beforehand. In the GWOT, the line between SOF and conventional has blurred (maybe too much, but that's a different topic) and a conventional infantry platoon leader probably has experience with training and working alongside indigenous troops, working through interpreters, dealing with and influencing local nationals. Heck, I remember running into a platoon size patrol in a small Afghan town in 2003 - the PL was all of 23 years old, and (until we showed up) in command of the only US forces within a hundred kilometers. He was dealng with local officials, working with the ANA and AMF in the area to coordinate their activities, scoping out the AO, and so on. Before the war, many seasoned ODA commanders couldn't claim that kind of experience.
My concern is more with the SF warrant program itself - the genesis of the warrant officer program in SF was to get the best of the best into leadership positions - to select and train the most capable and most experienced SF NCOs who had the qualities necessary to be good officers. I think that, with manning pressures, we've lost sight of that goal.
I don't think (less the inevitable 5% who slip through the cracks) that we're selecting bad people for WO. I do think that we're not focusing on experience the way we should, and there are several reasons I feel that way.
1) Taking the 18F requirement out of the pipeline was (IMO) a terrible idea. Almost any experienced SF NCO is going to understand operational planning, if only through osmosis (although I think we ought to require SF ANCOC as a prerequisite for warrant as well.) That's not true of the intel process. On many teams, the 18F goes off into his corner and pops out every once and a while with an area brief or a target nomination. How he gets there is often a complete mystery to other members of the team. How can we expect a WO to be the "go-to guy" for intel-ops fusion if he doesn't understand intel?
(And yes, I know that there is intel training in WOBC. It might be different now, but when I went through, they tried to compress a 3 month course into as many weeks. Those of us who had had the 18F course thought it was extremely rudimentary; those who hadn't were learning enough to pass the test, but not mearly enough the understand the process.)
2) I think that the 3 year ODA requirement is inadequate (especially given the access at less than 10 years goal) Some of the 18X people are approaching their three year mark. You could end up putting a warrant officer on a team who has never been on a JCET, never done an HCA or CD mission, never deployed to any country outside of a war zone, never had to deal with country clearances, the embassy, coordinate with a host nation's military on an equal footing - and the warrant is supposed to manage the long range training calendar and take care of the JCET paperwork, etc. It's very possible that a three year SF veteran will have spent their entire time doing one job (eg FID or DA) on one team for two to three rotations. To me, that's just not enough experience, or enough different experiences, to make a good candidate for a SF WO.
The point of the warrant officer is to provide some depth of experience and continuity on the team, especially given the (again, in my opinion, really dumb) personnel policies that restrict the longevity of the team commander and team sergeant. That means that the warrant oficer should have some knowledge and experience to draw upon above and beyond the average team member. (In fact, we might be better off if we drew WOs primarily from 18Zs who were finished with their 2 years, rather than E-6 and junior E-7 candidates.) I'm concerned that the numerical shortages in the WO field are driving short-sighted decisions about who we access and train as 180A, and in the long run, that can only hurt the 180A program.
my $0.02