This week I finished Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove. While reading, I came across a passage that ties in well to one of the war lessons I think junior military leaders need to understand (**spolier alert for this whole post**). While on a Texas-to-Montana cattle drive with some of the men from his former Texas Ranger unit, there is a point where one of the cowboys, Augustus McCrae, has just fought off six of 12 attacking Indians alone. Stranded and away from support, McCrae’s mind wandered before the second part of the battle with the Indians. He reminisced about some of the Rangers’ abilities in battles with Indians. I particularly noted the description of a character named Josh Deets:

“Deets’s great ability was in preventing ambushes. He would seem to feel them coming, often a day or two early, when he would have no particular clues. “How’d you know?” they would ask him and Deets would have no answer. “Just knew,” he said.

In Lonesome Dove, Josh Deets is an free black, high-performing cowboy. Recognizing Deets’ abilities as a reconnaissance man and tracker, Woodrow Call–McCrae’s business partner and leader of the cattle drive–assigned Deets the scouting duties for the cowboys when they departed for the cattle drive. As scout, Deets’ job consisted of riding out in front of the cattle to locate the next day’s path, find water, and scout for signs of Indians or bandits.

For a black man at this time in history–post-Civil War America–to have such an important role was abnormal and speaks volumes to Call’s leadership abilities. When Call named Deets scout, Deets felt “proud” and considered the title an honor. Because of his familiarity with the men–he and Deets had worked together for 30 years–Call knew Deets possessed the ability to serve as the scout. And Call wanted results, so he placed Deets in the best position for success, especially given his sixth sense for snuffing out ambushes. Call did this despite the cultural norms at the time.

Throughout the story, Deets served admirably. But towards the end of the book, as the cowboys near Montana, an Indian kills Deets during a  stressful situation where a miscommunication confuses the Indian into thinking Deets meant to be hostile. Without a scout after Deets’ death, Call then sent McCrae to scout ahead of the cowboys, and McCrae bemoaned losing Deets. Call agrees. And as McCrae headed out to scout, the reader can sense the story is about to turn for the worse. I won’t spoil everything, but the cowboys will later wish Deets was still alive.

Like Deets’ ability to “sense” ambushes, junior military leaders know that certain soldiers or Marines–no matter their ranks–turn out to be particularly attuned to one important task or skill in a manner no one can quite describe. He didn’t train to learn the skill. He didn’t possess the skill before joining the military. It’s just that for some reason he has the skill.

Different wars’ tactics rely on different skills. In Vietnam, it could be a Marine able to “feel” the Viet Cong’s presence on patrol. In World War II, a particular soldier may have seen an enemy unit before being spotted. In Afghanistan, the biggest, most persistent threat–even if the main threat at a given time was firefights–was Improvised Explosive Devices (“IEDs”). And like Deets’ ability to sense ambushes, certain Marines could call out IEDs no one else saw.

“Freeze, everyone freeze. I think I see an IED,” they’d say.

“Where?” the patrol leader would ask.

“There, by that little depression in the ground,” the IED-spotting Marine would say.

“I don’t see it,” everyone would say. Then the Marines would sweep the area with a metal detector and find an IED right where the spotter thought he saw it.

“How the hell did you see that?” the Marines would ask him.

“I don’t know,” he’d say honestly, “I just kind of ‘felt’ it.”

And like Call did with Deets, the small infantry unit leader must make sure he has the right guy in the right place regardless of rank, billet, or ego. This requires three steps:

• Know your troops–during training, try to find the guy who excels while on a patrol’s point or has a sixth sense for spotting IEDs. You can only know these things by being present and paying attention. Once you are in combat, every patrol becomes a form of training for the future. Debrief all missions. Understand each of your men. Refine.
• Build a culture where junior guys feel comfortable speaking up–your job as a leader is to inculcate an atmosphere where these guys with the gift feel confident and empowered to speak up. If your PFCs and lance corporals are so afraid of their corporals, sergeants, and lieutenants that they fear judgment over a wrong feeling more than getting it right, you have failed and Marines will get hurt and killed. Temper your subordinate leaders’ judgments on junior enlisted when they speak up. Make sure your junior enlisted guys know their observations matter. Understand that your first time encountering a situation–a new deployment, a new area of operations, a new patrol setup–your troops will be hypervigilant and may make many false calls. This will bog down your patrolling efforts, but remember that this is your guys building a new baseline. By establishing a baseline for a reality, they can better observe deviations. Encourage them.
• Put the Marine with a special, important skill in a position to exploit the skill–identify your biggest vulnerabilities and the enemy’s biggest strengths. Where they overlap, locate the guy with the special talent that counters the enemy’s strength. Now position that Marine or soldier where he can best do that job. Rank, billet, and ego be damned. Buck convention.

Two stories: first, during my nine months of training in Quantico, Virginia, I realized I was adept at being a patrol’s pointman in the forest. During this training, the lieutenants take turns alternating between being in charge and then pretending to be the enlisted men in the platoon while another lieutenant takes his turn as the leader. I enjoyed being the pointman and volunteered to do it whenever I could. When in the woods, the “enemy” (other student platoons) never once spotted me before I saw them. So when it was my turn to be platoon leader, I uncharacteristically placed myself at the very, very front of the patrol with one other trusted classmate (Pete). This was abnormal–generally a platoon commander should be somewhere around 1/3 of the way back from the pointman in the platoon–but defensible. Instructors commented that I was closer than normal, but when I defended it they relented and actually complimented the tactic.

However, I would never have done this in Afghanistan. Afghanistan was not woodsy like Quantico. I grew up in the woods, not a desert, and was good at maneuvering Quantico’s hills not Afghan mountains and wadis. Further, the main threat in Afghanistan was (mostly) IEDs, not other platoons out patrolling. So in Afghanistan, I positioned myself the normal 1/3 of the way back. When mounted in sections of four vehicles, I commanded the second vehicle. Had I commanded the first vehicle, I would have been completely ineffectual. Because the first vehicle’s gunner and commander must look for IEDs, I would have done my platoon a disservice. With me in the first vehicle, we surely would have hit more IEDs and been less effective as I would have increasingly focused inward instead of outward as a lieutenant’s focus should be.

Second, in Afghanistan, we noticed a small number of guys spotted a disproportionate number of the IEDs. Whether these guys were engineers, PFCs, or corporals, we tried to position a proficient IED-spotter at the very front of foot patrols or on the turret of the first two vehicles when mounted. We especially noted a couple Marines could call-out IEDs from turrets with amazing consistency. So we began to use those guys as turret gunners more often. Then, these two guys already gifted with “sensing” the IEDs spent hour upon hour of time in their turret getting even better at spotting them. These Marines established such strong baselines to go along with their “gift” of spotting IEDs that the slightest deviation sent up red flags.

In one case, one of these spotters actually stepped “down” to a lower billet from his normal job because of his ability to spot IEDs. We recognized his proficiency and placed him in the turret despite his rank. We also tried to make sure the Marines who could “sense” IEDs never had to sweep the metal detector at the point. While that seems to be counterintuitive, sweeping the metal detector narrows a Marine’s vision, awareness, and ability to look around. We wanted the IED guy focused on scanning the area for anomalies. Often our most proficient IED-spotter was the engineer tasked with sweeping for the infantry. Sometimes, then, we had infantry Marines sweep the metal detector while the engineer navigated spotted as we went through a particularly likely IED spot. While unorthodox, we valued having the right guy in the right situation more than the individual Marine’s job or billet.

And finally, when these Marines pointed out purported IEDs that were not IEDs, we did not old grudges or berate them even though a false positive cost us many hours conducting a cordon while waiting for the Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) patrol to linkup and confirm or deny the IED. We considered a “bad” IED identification much less bad than a failure to identify a real IED. In doing this, we eventually worked a rhythm where we spotted a large proportion of the IEDs around us and hit less than we otherwise would have.

So, junior military leaders, remember to put the right guy in the right place no matter his rank or billet for those biggest vulnerabilities you face. Get to know your troops, build a culture where they feel empowered to speak up, and then use those gifted guys with a knack for whatever skill you need.

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