THE Fighting Illini

Here is an interesting article for all from Tom Rick’s blog, The Best Defense:

By Maj. Fernando Lujan, U.S. Army
Best Defense guest columnist

I graduated from West Point in 1998, served several combat tours, then received a master’s degree from the Harvard Kennedy School so that I could instruct the cadets in politics, policy, and strategy. I have worked on the West Point faculty for two years, and this summer I’ll return to the operational Army in Afghanistan. From my own limited perspective, I can say that the Academy is falling heartbreakingly short of its potential to prepare young officers.

While West Point has recently made an effort to change with the times by adding a handful of elective courses in counterinsurgency, expanding its foreign immersion programs, and hosting several high level conferences on key Army issues, the founding principle of the cadet system remains the same:  We lecture the cadets on professionalism but we practice bureaucracy.   To summarize the difference, professional cultures debate, discuss, and continually innovate to stay effective in the changing world.  Bureaucracies churn out ever-restrictive rules and seek to capture every eventuality in codified routines.

Consider this:  From day one at the academy every possible situation that a cadet could conceivably encounter is accounted for by strict regulations. Not sure how many inches should be between your coat hangers, whether you can hold your girlfriend’s hand on campus, or how your socks should be marked? Consult the regulations. Moreover, all activity is subjected to the cadet performance system, which essentially assigns a grade to every measurable event in a cadet’s life (think shoe shines, pushups and pop quizzes) then ruthlessly ranks the entire class from first to last. Cadets at the top of the list get the jobs and postings they want after graduation. Those near the bottom end up driving trucks at Fort Polk, Louisiana….

I think more and more people are starting to confront the realities and downfalls of our academy brothers. We heard over and over how ROTC cadets can stand toe-to-toe with USMA, and many times outperform and outlast them in the “real Army.”

I know at least every other new USMA lieutenant I meet is already “done” with the Army, only looking forward to the end of their contract…in five years. I think the restricted education and liberal freedom at the academy is truley burning them out before they even start.

Any other anecdotes?

"Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strength. When you go through hardship and decide not to surrender, that is strength."

-Arnold Schwarzenegger

Just in case you all didn’t see it, I am doing a guest column for the Chicago Daily Herald. Here is my second column:

Lombard soldier’s intro to war: 10% violence, 90% excruciating boredom

Editor’s Note: Army Lt. Matt Spartz, a lifelong Lombard resident, is a 2008 journalism graduate at University of Illinois. He recently was deployed to Afghanistan with the 101st Airborne Division. From there, he will be submitting occasional reports for the Daily Herald.

When the suicide bomber and squad of reported Taliban dressed in U.S. Army uniforms used grenades to breach the gate at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan, the morning of May 19, my eyes shot open. I pulled one ear out behind my Bose headphones and listened intently, as if my hearing could zoom in like a sniper scope through the thick silence and pick out the specific noise.

After a year of firing more than 2,000 artillery rounds as a fire direction officer at Ft. Campbell, Ky, and multiple combined live fire exercises with our infantry units, I was used to the low thud of indirect fire. But now that I was in Afghanistan, something didn’t feel right about the crunching bass booming so close.

I put the headphones back on and closed my eyes. There was another thud. Then some indistinguishable noise. I slowly opened my eyes this time and looked around the half football field-sized tent with aluminum-framed bunk beds stacked 28 deep, seven wide, with barely 18 inches in between. The sun had yet to crest the jagged mountain peaks that surround the base like a bowl. No one stirred.

At this point I figured some shipping containers were being moved across the base, or someone was getting in some early morning training. Only later would I learn that a group of Taliban on a suicide mission would almost get passed U.S.-trained snipers, wounding nine Americans in the process.

Once the official reports got to the tent where more than 300 other soldiers and I were staying, the collective blood pressure rose. Laptops closed, boots were tied, and magazines of ammunition were passed out.

The only problem was the 68 soldiers in my unit had a collective 12 rounds. The other units weren’t much better off.

A few captains in the tent came up with a hasty plan to pull security around our tent with the combined firepower we had until more information came our way. A group of soldiers were given three rounds a piece and sent to the corners of the concrete slab of our domed tent.

We hurried to our positions, and then we waited. And waited.

A few privates carved tic-tac-toe in the dirt. Others sat at a picnic table in their T-shirts and smoked nonchalantly. The sun was hot and a quick wind blew wispy dark clouds from the north over the snow-capped ridgeline.

Soldiers joked about having to stand guard in buddy teams in order to have enough fire power to take out the enemy.

The next tent over was the local national living quarters, which was a diverse as any Chicago neighborhood. But now anyone not in uniform looked suspicious. Their darting looks and the way they walked around any group of soldiers gave away their new uneasiness with our heightened status.

An hour or so passed by. My stomach growled at the noon sun boasting above. I dreaded the thought of the dining facility staying closed more than the actual threat of a suicide bomber sprinting across the street in front of me, past the 12-foot concrete blast barriers, and taking me with him to meet Allah.

Slowly, more buses appeared on the road; the Kiowa and Apache helicopters were no longer buzzing in circles, and we got the word that we were “all clear.”

Luckily, I thought, it was the middle of the night in the states and no one knows that I’m in the middle of CNN’s breaking news. Then I realized that this was my initiation with the real war, and that it fulfilled the stereotype many people experience — war is 10 percent horrible, frightening violence and 90 percent horrible, excruciating boredom.

"Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strength. When you go through hardship and decide not to surrender, that is strength."

-Arnold Schwarzenegger