Restoring the Meritocracy, or addressing concerns about the US Officer Corps

Recently Mr. William Lind published his latest article, and as usual it was provocative. Titled "An Officer Corps that can't score," it argues that the United States military has lost the competitive edge in combat for the following reasons:

• An ego problem, the apparent perception of US Officers that they oversee the best military that's ever existed;
• A personnel problem, that officers are punished for creative thinking and innovation (and the mistakes that invariably accompany such a mindset);
• A staffing problem, which shortens command tours of duty so everybody on the bench gets a chance to play, if only for a short period of time; and worst of all,
• A moral problem, in which officers support and perpetuate the status quo to protect their careers--notably a problem the US Military did not have after the Vietnam conflict (according to Mr. Lind).

Certainly these are serious accusations. Mr. Lind's article sparked a great deal of response, too. Several active duty officers penned articles which asserted indignantly that there *is* a great deal of debate in the military regarding staffing, weapons acquisition, force structure, and other 'big picture' issues. What is conspicuously absent from the responses, however, is a critique of the personnel situation--which, as the lynchpin of Mr. Lind's argument, probably deserves the most thoughtful consideration.

Mr. Lind's own history plays a big part in his critique as well. I've never met the man, but if you'll indulge in a little amateur psychology, I would say that Mr. Lind very much has a dog in this fight. He was foremost among what he calls the most recent wave of "reformist innovators," and highly praises his contemporaries Col Boyd (USAF) and Col Wyly (USMC), with whom he generated much of the intellectual foundation of so-called Maneuver Warfare. He also helped introduce and develop the theory of Fourth-Generation Warfare, an extension of Col Boyd's definitive and much-lauded omnibus theory of combat "Patterns of Conflict." Anyone who is a bit startled (and/or stung) by the opening line of his article, "The most curious thing about our four defeats in Fourth Generation War—Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan—is the utter silence in the American officer corps," ought to at least realize that Mr. Lind is aggressively applying the theories of warfare that he developed and championed to his very broad-brush of a statement about our apparently constant defeats.

The predictable--and justified--knee-jerk reaction by junior officers in the US Military is that Mr. Lind is wrong, and that there is anything BUT silence about the struggles and outcomes of these so-called "Fourth Generation Wars." Indeed, in my own experience there is a lot of debate about technology (drones, bombs, tanks, and their efficacy) and tactics regarding the most recent conflicts in the Middle East. That is all very good. But I think Mr. Lind hits the nail on the head when he criticizes the military--particularly the officer--personnel system. And while there is a lot of debate about that issue as well, it's usually conducted in hushed voices and away from field grade and higher officers.

Complaints about personnel issues usually center around field grade officers focused on achieving the next rank (and running their subordinates into the ground to get it), or general officers trying to maintain their reputation to their civilian masters with an increasing administrative burden of annual training and paperwork accountability. To the uninformed, it just sounds like bitching, but hearing enough of it reveals that both types of anecdotes coalesce around one central issue: today's officer cadre does not have either the time or resources to focus on warfighting.

How has this come to pass? At the danger of theorizing ahead of data, I have some suggestions:

• First, during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts we created a whole sub-combatant-command for each location, complete with Joint Force Commanders, Functional Component Commanders, Service Component Commanders, and associated staffs. This effectively doubled the requirement for staff officers in each of the four major service components. In addition to being top-heavy, it prevented the whole coalition from having any true cohesion as a unit, because new units were revolving in and out under a joint commander who, in addition to directing the whole campaign, also had to administer the vastly increased relief-in-place and transportation requirements of such an ad hoc system. Imagine if Patton had new armored and mechanized units rotating in and out of the 3rd Army throughout 1944 and 1945. Would he have been able to build such a successful and dynamic fighting force?
• Second, as a corrolary to the first, there are career requirements for officers appointed to joint commands. The demand for those officers has forced the services to cut career billeting corners to get enough qualified officers to meet the demand. That is a recipe for "check-the-box" leadership and careerism from start to finish.
• Third, most services made a decision to shorten deployment times in order to ease the burden on servicemembers' families. This was a social decision, and it may not have been a bad one. However it did create a 'revolving door' in nearly every unit in the military, as whole combat units turned over from year to year and had to be assigned places in the supporting establishment, which in turn was bloated beyond needs and suffered the same 'revolving door' effect. The Army alone experimented with year-long deployments in the hopes that more time in country would allow greater innovation and success in the counterinsurgency fight; I'd be curious to see if there were any positive results.
• Finally, Congress has micromanaged the benefits of servicemembers to the point of restricting officers from shaping their force. I doubt anyone in the military, including me, would complain about pay increases, money earmarked for better base gyms and housing (including 'in country'), and a reduction on sexual assault and/or suicide. The problem is the way Congress has enacted these changes. Forcing them down the military's throat creates a culture of 'yes-men' who must "support and defend" the Constitution by bowing to each new decree of a prime Constitutional institution, Congress, no matter what that does to already scarce military resources. Sergeant Major Barrett's comments, while tactless and insensitive, demonstrate the frustration of many military leaders that servicemembers need meaningful combat training, expensive as it is, more than they need administrative sexual assault training and fast-food joints on base.

The prevailing sentiment among junior officers is that the military is directionless, or maybe more specifically suffering the pull of too many 'missions' at once. There's Congress, forcing social changes and shutting down government. There's the so-called "War on Terror," which carries real danger but no real reward--neither Congress nor the Services themselves seem to care much about it anymore. There's the Administration, preaching a "pivot to the Pacific" and a drawdown, which ominously promises more tasks for the military to accomplish with fewer people, and there's the innate sense of honor in the services themselves that expect the officer cadre to keep all these masters happy and still field fighting units.

In this context, I will speak heresy to the die-hards and state that there's small wonder junior officers in particular keep their heads down and try not to screw up (i.e. bring all their servicemembers back alive with comparatively little regard for 'the big picture'). It also explains why so many veterans of the recent conflicts look back nostalgically on the simpler world of their combat tours, when they had a single direct mission and a feeling of accomplishment.

So what sort of reform would make Mr. Lind happy? I'm not sure, as he simply bemoans US Officers' lack of creativity and moral fibre, but I have some suggestions on that score as well. But first, I'll point out that some of the best ideas have come from much more creditable sources than me. Go there, and explore.

My ideas are pretty simple. There is a romantic conception floating around that the military is a meritocracy--in other words, the officers who are best at their jobs should be the ones that get promoted. The shortened command tours, vast administrative requirements, and glut of officers in the services effectively obscure the good officers from the mediocre, lowering moral and motivation. I believe that the best leaders in today's military truly seek a chance to lead and to show their mettle, so I propose the military make a few structural changes to recover a merit-based promotion system.

• Lengthen command tours, including the tours that are required for command screening, to 3 (or 4) years. This would first of all require existing commanders to put a lot of thought into the junior officers they promote, knowing that the officers they evaluate highly will eventually control a combat unit for three years (instead of 18 months), and would allow existing junior officers a lot more time to develop and lead their troops under the guidance of one Commanding Officer. 
• Longer tours help mitigate the 'zero-defect mentality,' a colloquialism which refers to the reality that one mistake in an officer's career is enough to prevent him/her from making it to the next step, because he/she will always be compared to other officers with no such mistakes. It's a lazy way to evaluate, because the positive effects of the officer with the mistake may be greater than those of his/her peers, and may indicate greater potential. But at least with a full 3 years of observed time, officers will be able to recover from mistakes--and their seniors will be forced to consider which of their subordinates are best suited for further opportunities, knowing that maybe only one will have the opportunity.
• Longer command tours also permit greater unit stability, which will increase esprit de corps, has been shown to reduce things like suicide and sexual assault, and will certainly increase combat effectiveness.
• Increasing tour length will be essentially meaningless if officer staffing remains high, because right now it seems like every officer gets the chance to move on regardless of his/her performance against peers. As part of the draw-down, the military as a whole should reduce officer staffing to the minimum level required for service administration, starting with Generals and working down the rank structure (and this reduction should occur before any enlisted personnel cuts, in accordance with good leadership practices). The military should also eliminate the additional joint force staffs located in Iraq and Afghanistan. This will be an unpopular step, as many generals will be forced into retirement, many more field grade officers will be forced into early retirement, and many junior grade officers will not have the opportunity to continue in the military past their first tour. It would help ensure, however, that only the best officers in each rank will remain--reinforcing the idea of the military as a meritocracy.

Actual, active duty officers have much more specific lists of things which need to change, most of which revolve around their ability to train their servicemembers. And we should listen to them. But we can't force current officers to change their way of thinking--most of them have been shaped by the questionable leadership environment that Mr. Lind notes for the entirety of their career. We can, however, collectively change the game--we can stop playing that 'everybody gets a chance' and start giving our officers the space and responsibility to fully lead their men and women. That's why most of them sought a commission in the first place.

These kinds of changes will force leaders at all level to focus on quality, not qualifications; it will force officers to make tough evaluation decisions after years of watching their subordinates develop. Ultimately, only the top 20-30% will have a career each tour, which will ensure that only the most effective officers run our military.

When our nation's security and American lives are at stake, isn't that what we want?

A Suggested Scientific Definition of the Meaning of Life

It's funny how thoughts and ideas coalesce. As I worked my way through five or six Michael Crichton novels on one of my periodic binges, I noted in The Lost World an astonishing addition to the standard evolution narrative. And then as I trolled my Facebook feed I saw the same idea again in a Psychology Today article, which I read and shared. I didn't quite recognize the relation then. Not until tonight. There is something truly fundamental to humanity about relationships, it seems--and it seems like humanity eschews relationships to a greater degree now than ever.

Many scientists and philosophers have marveled at the evolution of humanity. Since Charles Darwin revolutionized the understanding of biology by showing that some species suffered extinction, and others evolved, a great many ideas have surfaced. For example, rationalists doubting the presence of God and suspicious of religion regarded this new information as another nail in the coffin of superstition, as humanity marched towards a greater and more knowledgeable civilization. This was regarded as an attack against religious institutions, who fought back first by declaring such belief heresy and blasphemy, and second by co-opting evolution as proof that God brought about His likeness on earth through this new biological process.

Interestingly, it seems that when scientists and thinkers began to examine the why of it all, they largely passed over the why as it related to humans. Some claimed that extinction and evolution were a result of "Natural Selection." Species had to adapt (evolve) to cope with changing environments which included new predators and predations, or they suffered extinction. Later, more randomness was inserted with the claim that evolution was a result of gene mutation; namely that species were randomly mutating all the time, and beneficial mutations conduced to survival and became species characteristics, while weakening or harmful mutations resulted in extinction.

These ideas became canon and carried wide influence. It's a neat and tidy explanation, and it has sheltered a comfortable delusion about the supremacy of humans. Anthropologists and sociologists drew a similarly tidy line from our forebearers, who must have evolved oversized brains as a clever response to the dangers of their world. Because we humans alone developed tools, and imposed our will upon certain animals to domesticate them, and upon certain plants to cultivate them, and formed societies for mutual support, we ascended to "the top of the food chain." We evolved to survive, and natural selection has declared us winners.

But there are problems with this canon. One is that our near relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas, survive just fine without walking upright and without our oversized brains. Another is that we are not the only species who use tools and exhibit complex problem-solving and form societies. Most glaring, however, is the problem that has clouded the issue of evolution since it broke upon the world: we assume that we are superior because of our brains, our tools, and our civilizations.

Furthermore, the evolutionary canon usually ignores an essential element in species, which is behavior. It's clear that human behavior--complex problem-solving, for one, and societies, for another, has enabled our race to not only survive but flourish. Interestingly, the behavior of certain animal species (such as gorillas, wolves, and dolphins) has conferred similar advantages. Perhaps my own research has been incomplete, but I have not found much historic literature on evolution which addresses this.

The Psychology Today article noted in passing some recent research that suggests cognitive development happens more efficaciously in social environments--literally, at play. The social environment seemingly must include physical interaction, like eye contact, physical cues, and auditory communication. It may have suggested that the human brain evolved to support more advanced social relationships, or it may have been Mr. Crichton. But that strikes me as a very important piece of information, because it suggests that our large brains are not primarily problem-solving apparatuses that (for example) helped us connive ways to bring down a wooly mammoth. More likely our brains have developed to handle relationships.

If true, this has great implications for our way of life. Whence notions of love, honor, duty, and morality? From an evolutionary standpoint, such notions are of dubious value, because often they result in annihilation (I recognize that that they also result in creation). But in a social context--seeing society as an evolved characteristic which permits adaptation to an environment--such notions actually conduce to the continued presence of the species. Nature is full of examples where an organism sacrifices itself for the good of it's species, and I find it unlikely that humans are that different. Take the common characteristic of mothers to defend their young unto death, if necessary. That is certainly a necessity for the procreation of the species, but it also fits into a description of love and honor and duty, which exist in nearly all human societies and accomplish the same end.

In fact, I've read some evolutionary studies that have remarked upon an accelerated development of species that exhibit complex behavior. Whereas it may have taken a geological epoch for life to move from single-celled organisms to multi-organ mammals, the amount of evolution which has occurred in the last million years has seen the ascendance of incredibly rich biodiversity, many with complex behavioral components (not least humans and their close relatives). Is this a sort of evolutionary arms race? As competitors evolve to survive, they must become more complex and more social in the process. Larger-brained humans could not be born as mature as other animals, some of which can walk and even defend themselves immediately after birth, because the large head containing that brain wouldn't fit through the mother's pelvis. Therefore they were born increasingly helpless, with brains small enough to be housed in a birth-able head--but with increased need of protection as well. Therefore societies had to be formed to protect children until they could survive on their own--misnomer in and of itself, because humans don't generally survive alone.

Which brings up another question: why don't humans fend for themselves? why do we do that in societies? Do we need cooperation to survive, or did we learn that cooperation (and the intangible values and ethics that support it) simply yielded a more successful species?

Taking religion, humanism, and arrogance out of the dialogue, it would seem that the human organism is constructed for societies. Perhaps that's why research shows that cognitive development happens the most in a social environment. Perhaps that's why the majority of our brain runs our 'unconscious,' which provides intuition, directs and interprets body language, and generates moral reasoning, all of which are of great use in helping us get along with our fellow humans, and of less use than our 'conscious' rationality when it comes to solving problems (like bringing down that scary mammoth).

So if science has an answer to the meaning of life, it would appear to be relationships and societies. That's nothing new, of course--the importance of family has been defended by Aristotle, the Bible, and every eastern religion of which I'm familiar. Concepts like freedom, and equality, and virtue, and the rest appear to exist to support our biologic need for society and it's advantages. I'm not diminishing them; such concepts I believe to be essential. Yet they exist to serve our relationships, and not for their own sakes.

I find it a common conception that humanity has marched steadily from primitive beginnings to ever more advanced and meaningful civilization. I disagree with it, however--perhaps our physical quality of life is better now than in the Renaissance, but whether we are happier or better is conjecture, and I believe in doubt. Science tells us that the denizens of hunter-gatherer societies are happier and healthier than we civilized internet-users, by nearly every criteria (objective and subjective). In fact, the current generations are shorter, less healthy, and more prone to mental and behavioral disorders than recent generations, such as those which fought in the Second World War and the baby boomers.

While I don't believe that human societies will ever be perfect--society by it's nature constrains because cooperation requires sacrifice--perhaps the exploding diagnoses of mental illness and disorder in our own can be traced to the breakdown in relationships. I think it no accident that the most destructive humans among us are usually loners, with little in the way of participation in society (there are exceptions to this, of course). It's no secret that our modern world offers a great deal of distraction from the business of relationships, from demanding careers to ubiquitous media to solitary entertainment (like video games). All of which makes it easier to plug away at the office, or watch one's favorite shoe (or sports team) on the television, or develop a virtual life via social media.

It's important to note that relationships and societies are physical things. Studies show that human senses are more stimulated by other humans--our eyes tend to focus on other people, we react more strongly to the smells of other people, we pick out speech more readily than other sounds. In a sense, our oversized brains are a complex communication device meant to connect us with other people. That does not happen effectively via computer (although I admit that deploying away from my wife made me very grateful for the telephone and video chat).

Apparently, the wisdom of religion and of old wives has been corroborated by science: family (and by extension, society) is everything. It is the key to humanity's success, and probably to its happiness as well.

The Leadership Puzzle

Generations of young men and women have entered the military wondering if they will be able to lead. The thought of ordering any number of cynical, experienced servicemembers to do something dangerous, or menial, or just plain unpleasant can be very uncomfortable. Many of my student lieutenants expressed the same fears I had - would they have the respect of their platoon sergeant or non-commissioned officer-in-charge? would they look like a fool? what mistakes were they likely to make? what if their troops didn't follow their orders?

There are many great books on leadership, of course. And there are many more great articles and perspectives (like this one) available online, which provide great practical advice on the subject. But I've found that the reality of leadership is that experience does not transfer, and most books on leadership are mainly a memoir. So though they may be candid and clearly written, they don't necessarily help anyone develop leadership, because their experience is not transferable. I suppose a new leader could try to act like a leader he or she admires, but that is a little false, and it's common knowledge that false leaders are loathed and ineffective.

I was flattered to receive a telephone call from a young Marine second lieutenant earlier this week, asking if I could meet him and discuss The Basic School. That institution is abbreviated "TBS" (the "T" stands for "The," a fact which is amusing to most). He sought me out because I very recently taught at TBS, and so would be able to tell him how to succeed. We met last night at my house with another lieutenant in the area, grilled some bratwurst, and tried to talk about leadership.

But how? If I tell them anecdotes of my own leadership, I will be offering great sea stories, but since they will unlikely face the same situations as I did (and they're even more unlikely to remember my stories if they do), the anecdotes aren't much help. If I tell them common mistakes, they will remember what I say as forbidden practices, without really comprehending the underlying issues or considerations that made each mistake, well, a mistake.

In the end, I mostly talked to them about the perspective and attitude of a leader, and illustrated with examples from my experience. It was the best that I could come up with, because I reasoned that very few people are 'born leaders' in the sense that they showed up to TBS already knowing how to lead effectively, and that the only way to develop leadership is to just do it, to get out there and keep trying until either you are effective, or you realize that your efforts aren't helping your subordinates. In the latter case, if you care about anyone but yourself, it becomes obvious that you should do what's best for them, and get a new leader who actually is effective.

So to start with, I told them that the reason leaders exist is to accomplish tasks, and to do it correctly. In the military, officers carry the authority of the President of the United States as well as his or her special trust and confidence. Their leadership is burdened by the expectation that they will succeed in their orders; that they will do so in a ethical manner; that they will proceed with as much care as possible to the health and welfare of their subordinates; and that their actions will reflect well on their service, their country, and their president. It's kind of a big deal.

But sir, I read in their eyes, but sir, that's all well and good and we get it. But what do we DO? or better yet, what shouldn't we DO? Because while their commission and their oath of office is impressive, it doesn't really provide much direct input into the day-to-day actions and interactions of a leader. And because they were raised in our current educational system (through no fault of their own), they unconsciously expect every problem and every question to have one specific, correct answer. Unless they can write it down in their notebook, memorize it, and then present it in response to a question, they find it confusing. That is how learning is modeled today, and they have to learn a new way to learn...they must learn to come up with answers on their own, guided by vaguely phrased virtues and values. Faced with the chaos and complexity of leading others, especially when they lead others into discomfort and adversity, they must be able to create order.

So I continue that the expectations they carry as officers are held by everyone around them, from the President himself to the lowest enlisted man or woman. That nobody joins the Marine Corps to be mediocre, to have an easy life, to be ordinary. Within every Marine there is a yearning to do great things. And they expect their officers to make that happen.

Here is the reason why there can be no "do this" or "don't do this" list on leadership. Such things are too restrictive. Leaders must provide everything for their charges--they must train them well, give their lives meaning, teach them core values, and when necessary send them into dangerous situations. That means recognizing their value, knowing their personal lives, creating good training, and training yourself by orchestrating tough, realistic situations where you have to make hard decisions. The key to remember is that most people don't want what's good for them, they want what feels good. They don't want to change their practices, or complete another task, or sit in a class. They don't want to be the one selected to sit in a listening post near an enemy location. But a leader must decide what is right to do in a given situation--based on those commissioning expectations, as well as on the orders of his superiors--and then decide how to actually do it. Those are often hard decisions to make because they will involve sacrifice and toil.

But sir, their posture said, how do I know what is right? It's a fair question, because nearly every young leader is painfully aware of their great lack of both knowledge and experience compared to the men and women they lead. But there are a lot of resources available a young officer--the platoon sergeant, the squad leaders, fellow lieutenants, their executive officer and commander, and the written experiences of their professional forebearers. In fact, almost every leadership text notes (and I agree) that young officers should ask for help discerning what is right from those around them. It's courteous and frankly, they need the help. Yet no matter what, the leader must completely own every decision he or she makes, hard or not. Inexperience or naïveté does not exclude knowing right from wrong, and everyone inside the unit and out is counting on the young lieutenant to make the right decision.

So that is my first advice to a young lieutenant, or a new leader: Make decisions. Make them as best as you can.

Because leaders have to provide everything, they inevitably fail and fall short. Every young leader will look like a fool. Every young leader will at times be too hard on their subordinates, and at times too easy. Every young leader will in some way train their charges wrong and have to apologize and re-train. Every young leader will make bad decisions, even though they were trying their best to make good ones. It's inevitable. In fact, it's so inevitable that subordinates will expect those kinds of mistakes. And all of them are forgivable.

Unless it's a mistake because the leader knew the right decision to make and instead made a different one.

That's called a "mistake in character." That's called "violating integrity." That is universally identified as the one thing that is completely unforgivable in leadership. And I agree. That's when a leader shows him or herself unfit for the special trust and confidence, and frankly if the young, inexperienced, unknowing leader can't even do the right thing (even if he or she does it mistakenly), then he or she is useless. Literally useless. Less use to the unit than the newest private.

Now most people will also make some mistakes in character along the way. Little ones. Little lies, or little violations of orders. Here's the thing, however: it's impossible to be avoid the scrutiny of the subordinates. They will know. They will see dishonesty in their leader's eyes and they will magically be there when their leader decides to do something in violation of standards or values.

So the only way to recover from a mistake as a leader is to own it. If the decision was wrong, the leader still has to take responsibility for it (and for it's effects), and the leader has to make better decisions starting that very minute. Self-pity is not permitted. Giving up is not permitted. Never is it more important to continue trying than after one has made a mistake, and looks like a fool. No matter what just happened, no matter how many terrible or shameful instances lead up to a given moment, in that moment the subordinates still need--still deserve--a leader.

They need a leader who does the right thing even when it's hard, and unpopular, and makes others hate him or her. A leader who keeps emotions out of his or her decisions. A leader who models behavior, professionally and personally, for his or her subordinates. A leader who refuses to expect anything less than the absolute best from his or herself, who is dedicated to developing his or her unit into a group of great, extraordinary people who can accomplish great things.

So my second piece of advice: Never give up, and never quit.

The rest is personality. Every leader is different, and to give advice beyond all this is to suggest specific behavior. But the old wisdom of leadership is based in these two truths, and I discussed them with my audience:

- Making right decisions applies to oneself. That is why leaders need to be good and professional. They need to be competent, devoted to their service, and they need to set the example for everyone. Making right decisions for oneself (instead of wrong decisions, easy decisions, selfish decisions) is how one builds character and honor.

- Never giving up means a leader is there for his or her subordinates. There to learn about them, care about them, train them, teach them to do their job well and to take pride in it, and there to give them responsibility. It's more than just telling a subordinate what to do; the reality is that most people don't listen to much of anything spoken. A leader must teach something by demonstrating it, giving others a chance to try, and then correcting them when they do it wrong. A leader must forgive mistakes and reward achievement. A leader must be willing to concern him or herself with a subordinate's personal life. A leader must be totally devoted, totally committed to his or her unit.

- As mentioned earlier, people join the military to do great things. The nation expects the military to do great things. The point of having leaders is that those leaders make sure great things are accomplished. And so leaders must never falter in preparing their subordinates to accomplish great things if called. But they must also never falter in preparing themselves, which means they must practice making decisions. They must put themselves into unexpected situations where they have to make tough decisions. That is unpleasant, especially when it's so much easier to develop tough training for others. While it's great if subordinates are trained excellently, if their leader never developed his or her ability to decide, communicate, and act in difficult situations, then the unit is compromised and the leader is useless.

- The burden of having to make right decisions, and the importance of never giving up the fight to be better, means that leaders become professionally competent. That means memorizing data about equipment. It means reading tactics and techniques for employing their subordinates, or accomplishing their likely tasks. It means seeking out knowledge about upcoming events and challenges to better prepare, seeking out better ways to prepare, and making sure the leader is ready him or herself for anything that might come up, which applies to physicality as well--leaders must be physically capable and healthy. It means embracing a warrior ethos.

- Being a good leader is a discipline. It is a process. Leaders interact with, mold and shape, teach and mentor, discipline and evaluate people. They accomplish their tasks with people. There is no rule for success with people, and every situation will likely be unpredictable and confused. If a leader has made a life and habit of making right decisions and never giving up on his or her development, that leader will be mentally and physically capable of addressing each new situation, whether it's a trivial problem of a subordinate or a mission that threatens annihilation of the unit, without becoming flustered, overwhelmed, or desperate. That is mental strength and physical toughness and when practiced it is courage.

Those are the pieces of the leadership puzzle.

A critique of modern scientific thought

The theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) has caused a great of discussion in the past 30 years. There have been books, and award-winning movies, and Nobel-winning personalities, and most significantly millions (if not billions) of dollars dedicated to educating the public about this theory, and to stopping it. I personally have participated in debates about, mostly with my friends (on Facebook), and I have been surprised at how religiously the belief in the verity of the theory is held. It is one of the defining issues of our epoch, equal to the subject of the Vietnam conflict in the 1970s and perhaps eclipsing our on-going Middle Eastern conflict today.

AGW is depressingly obscure, I've found. There are those who debate the meaning of the word theory, explaining that it means only an explanation of something instead of a law. A theory is not immutably true, such as the laws that govern the conservation of energy in physics. Of course, I believe that gravity is a theory--the best explanation of why objects interact with this large land mass we call earth (and why other masses in space interact the way they do)--which seems pretty immutable itself. Clouding the issue further is the fact that the theory of gravity has laws that apply within the theory, such as the law that an object in space within the gravitational field of the earth will fall towards it.  So how much trust are we to place in this AGW theory? It appears that the answer lies in one's perception.

Then there are the details of AGW. I generally get the impression from the all rhetoric about "global warming" that pollution causes the world to heat up. That will apparently result in sea levels rising, perhaps several hundred (or thousand) feet. Digging a little deeper, it seems that the warming is supposed to occur because of carbon dioxide, a "greenhouse gas" that traps heat. Where it traps heat is confusing as well: is it in the atmosphere, or on the surface? The most scientific explanations focus on atmospheric warming, proposing that a global warming of the upper air will irrevocably trap heat on the surface, with a host of terrible consequences: mass species extinction, including the oxygen-producing algae in the ocean, and perhaps a catastrophic shut-down of the world's biological equilibrium. I've already noted the possibility of sea levels rising, which (given that most of the world's population lives on the coast) would be a very grave threat indeed. Spreading deserts, making agriculture impossible and engendering a massive famine. Terrible stuff indeed.

I hear a lot about climate models, vastly complicated computer programs which seek to extrapolate a set of data into the future. I could misunderstand, of course, but it seems that many of the terrible consequences we can expect to face are themselves extrapolated from a single set of data, the expected temperatures determined by the climate models. And that is what causes me the most concern.

A very passing and abstract understanding of Chaos Theory and a slightly more nuanced understanding of human experience in conflict has made me very suspicious of linear thinking, which is what those climate models appear to be (in essence). Linear thinking establishes direct relationships between things, such as causes and effects. It works very well, too, in what scientists call a "closed system." We use it with great success in everyday life, when we travel places, cook food, conduct our daily work, and the like. After all, most of us know that if we leave our house at for a familiar destination, it takes a well-known amount of time. For me, it takes 30 minutes, give or take, to get to work. If I set the stove dial to "8" instead of "Hi," my bacon cooks quickly without burning. If my daughter does not have much of a nap, she will have a hard time sleeping at night.

In fact, I would posit that linear thinking is essential to our lives. Almost anything we do which is complicated needs a linear explanation--perhaps in a checklist--that helps us achieve the task. Hunters learn and understand complicated details about their spears, bows, or firearms; parents develop complicated sets of procedures for their children, businesses develop strategic plans (not to mention floor procedures, sales protocols, and marketing campaigns), and individuals come up with life plans that may include college, a specific job, a relationship, and so on.

The success of this mindset, and the almost unconscious way which we collectively apply it, tends to obscure the fact that such linear thinking is partially inadequate. But instinctively we know it. We know that an unexpected traffic jam, or a suddenly malfunctioning burner, or a child's unexpected whim, or a new product (or service), or the weather, or any number of other things can disrupt a linear procedure. We recognize it so easily that we have birthed uncounted idioms describing it: "that's life," "expect the unexpected," "murphy's law," and others.

In fact, in my former profession, there was a great deal of debate about whether a battlefield could be treated linearly. That was, of course, the great dream of the American military starting in the 1960s: as weapons became more and more advanced, and more control was possible via computer systems and advanced radios, military thinkers began to wonder if the terrible uncertainty of war could be avoided. They imagined a great army, with all weapon systems and theaters coordinated and controlled from a central location. Armed (literally) with that dream, and with advanced Command and Control (C2) systems developed at ruinous taxpayer expense, all designed by extrapolating past experience into future conflicts, the American military strode confidently into Vietnam, then into the Persian Gulf, then into Afghanistan, and finally again into the Persian Gulf.

Of course, with the possible exception of Desert Storm (1991), history teaches us that our military confidence was misplaced. Vietnam became a bloody, protracted war confused results and our forays into Iraq and Afghanistan look little different. And yet how, with the most advanced weapons and control technology that humanity has ever developed, did we end up with such debatable success?

One proposed answer is in non-linear thinking. Called in different disciplines Chaos Theory, or "Complex System Dynamics," the short story is that our world is inherently unpredictable. It does not behave according to cause and effect, or set rules. It is subject to "emergent factors," which is a verbally precise way to say that new, unexpected things occur. That accident on the way to work, or the new product that destroys a marketing plan, or the new behavior of a child or an entity. Something that is totally unexpected.

Let me take three examples. The first is falling in love. A great many people fall in love with someone unexpected, for an unexpected reason. Perhaps they knew the person before, and weren't romantically or sexually interested, then something occurred that changed their perception. Perhaps they were surprised by a new person they met. Either way, the encounter and the complex emotions that followed--joy, care, desire, excitement, need, contentment--was unexpected. It was emergent. Though we could try to explain it as cause and effect ("I was always attracted to blondes," or "It happened when I stopped looking"), those causes are not, in fact, causes. They are woefully inadequate causes. If it was blonde hair, or the fact that a person has stopped "looking for love," then what about all the other blondes, or all the other people one meets when they stop looking? Even trying to articulate it aloud is beyond the capacity of our language, and most people in love finally resort to phrases like, "it was just different," or "I just knew." They are recognizing that in their love, there was something new. New about them, new about the other person, new about their life, perceptions, and perspective, literally new about the world.

This example also tells us a lot about our relationship to non-linear thinking. We humans seek love inescapably, if we are to believe the evidence of adolescent behavior, the enduring institution of marriage (whatever it's relevance now), the preponderance of our art and media, and the time-honored tradition of matchmaking (now updated to websites like eHarmony and Match.com). In fact, we don't collectively consider love authentic unless it is non-linear. We are contemptuous of arranged marriages, for example. We expect love to be exciting and unscripted. Spontaneous. There is a deep need for and understanding of dynamic, unpredictable relationships that is at the core of who we are and how we relate.

The second example lies in the twentieth-century conflicts already described. Linear thinking, cause-and-effect perspective taught that a disciplined, advanced military such as our own would protect the Republic of Viet Nam (RVN, or South Vietnam). That proved inadequate because the Soviets armed and trained the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) to a much greater extent. That was an emergent event. So we thought up a linear pretext to accomplish our goal of supporting the allied RVN--we sent our own disciplined, advanced military. Unfortunately, the NVA changed tactics. They allied with the Viet Cong guerrillas and began avoiding open conflict. Even so, they were defeated in every major military engagement, but what Americans did not suspect was that such defeats, which crippled their ability to fight, in fact advanced their cause. They were behaving unexpectedly. They didn't attempt to beat the American military on the battlefield, they attempted to make America as a whole tired and ashamed of the conflict. That was an emergent behavior to which the Americans couldn't adapt, and it dynamically interrelated to other emergent qualities such as the "counterculture" social movement occurring in American universities, the increasing prevalence and social acceptance of drugs, and the increased media access to the world which was provided by Americans themselves, through embedded TV reporters. The true relationship and origin of all these events is (I argue) too complex to comprehend, which is why it is non-linear. But their unexpected, frustrating effect is well-documented in history.

But those first two articles deal with human phenomena. What about "natural" phenomena? The third example of dynamism and emergent behavior is evolution. The theory of evolution has long been lauded as a rigorously scientific perspective. Because it stands at odds with the biblical story of the world's beginning, many rationalists have used it to debunk Christianity (and in a broader context, all religion) despite the fact that many scientists who have contributed to the theory were practicing religious men and women. And there is a nice, apparently linear path from single-celled organisms in vast primordial seas to breathtaking biological complexity in the form of mammals and reptiles (including humans and dinosaurs). Charles Darwin, the scientist who first proposed this theory in The Origin of the Species, explained simply that evolution occurred as a result of "natural selection," positing that organisms best suited for their environment survived, while those more poorly suited were eventually killed off through competition (or by the environment itself.

But "natural selection" is an explanation with many facets. It has been reduced to "survival of the fittest," where evolution occurs to cope with changing environments and the species who are less capable of survival and procreation become extinct. Darwin himself, however, became a household name in the Western world due to his idea of "sexual selection," claiming that sexual desirability was responsible for evolution (a titillating idea, especially in Victorian England). In fact, Darwin's work seems to focus on sexual selection, making me wonder as I read it whether or not he departed a bit from the path of rigorous scientific research and began publishing explanations that continued to draw more attention and publicity. Yet no matter how we choose to define "natural selection," the troubling fact remains that we don't really know how it happened, or why it happened. We can explain that this species became extinct, while that species evolved. But excepting a few instances of evolution or extinction we were collectively fortunate enough to observe (such as antibiotic-resistant bacteria), the natural mechanism of evolution is pure speculation. We cannot explain coherently the cause and effect of it all, we can only guess.

For example, if evolution was driven by the need to survive, why then have traits evolved in species that have no apparent effect on survival whatsoever? Evolution certainly caused humans to have different eye colors, but it's unclear as to how that was "naturally selected." And why is the absence of a tail (when the tailbone is present) more efficacious to survival? Why have some species become extinct, while others survived. It is not satisfactory to say that somehow such traits must have aided survival, because if we can't explain something then we have no right to believe it (else we make science the same as religion). Sharks and crocodiles, organisms that have survived the dinosaurs, the ice age, and untold other environmental changes--not to mention the evolution of creatures that share their environments--make a mockery of evolution as a response to "natural selection." And "sexual selection" makes no more sense, because the mating patterns of bygone creatures are forever a mystery, absent time travel. We observe that sexual behavior tends to "breed out" weakness within a species, but it certainly doesn't explain the extinction or development of various species.

Further reinforcing the non-linear characteristics of evolution are the the philosophical implications it has inspired. Evolution is random and follows no single discernible pattern, therefore we humans are an accident (with all our art and science and other achievement as well). And while that is a wonderful overarching expression of the unknowability of this great process of biology, geology, and atmospherics that has been the story of this planet's life, it points inescapably at dynamic, emergent behavior. Literally every evolutionary step has been emergent, something new, whether it was the asteroid that supposedly began the extinction of the dinosaurs or the increasing brain size that characterized the transition from ancient apes to our modern human. Evolution may in fact be the most confidently non-linear perspective in the modern world, and evolutionary biologists have by and large ceased offering conventional cause-and-effect linear explanations for the developments they discover; instead they focus on explaining the apparent facts, which in detail continue to be frustrating obscure. For example, evidence suggests that Neanderthals may have used speech and tools, and probably interbred with both Cro-Magnons and Anatomically Modern Humans (AMHs). Was their extinction then "bred out," or did they become extinct through some other evolutionary mechanism, such as persecution and genocide at the hands of more advanced evolutionary cousins (which would itself be an emergent event)? It's not even clear whether they were more or less intelligent, since they appear to have had more voluminous brains than AMHs, which is a crude indicator of intelligence in organisms.

For some reason, it appears that science has given humans the illusion that there is a finite amount of information in the world, and once all information is known--once science and research has plumbed the depths of all mysteries and revealed all--then there will be no more surprises. That attitude is most concretely seen in the repeated, futile attempts by militaries in the last half-century to bring all aspects of the battlefield under control. But with people and with the world, experience teaches that emergent behaviors occur, without precedent and unpredictable by any cause-and-effect extrapolation. And any attempt to neatly package emergent behavior with a linear explanation is pure speculation. No one will ever know why the North Vietnamese martyred themselves militarily, or how why such martyrdom, if carried on long enough, would result in American war fatigue. Certainly the Americans, who ought to have known best, did not predict it; while it might be fashionable to say that Ho Chi Minh and Giap were smarter than Americans, the fact is that their emergent tactic itself occurred to them through a result of unexpected effects and opportunities. Likewise, no one will ever know what happened to Neanderthals. And a guess, even one made by a scientist, is still a guess.

Eastern thought deals with this reality much better than our contemporary Western thought. Since the renaissance, Westerners have undergone a half millennium of constant progress and living improvement. We have mastered agriculture, distance travel, flight, and medicine. To a certain extent we have even mastered weather--hurricanes no longer slam against ships and shores with 36 hour warnings; our satellites allow us to evacuate days before landfall. But for all this mastery, we can't predict. Eastern disciplines such as Buddhism or the way of Lao Tzu take what is to Western minds a curiously fatalistic approach to life, but I argue that there is wisdom in recognizing one's inability to control one's surroundings. The Marine Corps General James Mattis recognized how little he could control a battlefield, despite commanding whole divisions, because of the violent and highly dynamic environment. He took the radio handle "Chaos" to illustrate that he did not seek to control the battlefield but rather to thrive in the unpredictable environment. That is a military tenet perhaps first articulated by Sun Tzu, an eastern thinker.

And speaking of weather, our weather "predictions" are merely speculations based on observed data. The path of a hurricane is projected, and large swathes of coastline are put on alert. Why? Because we simply don't know where it's going. Half the time a hurricane deviates by hundreds of miles from it's projected path. Other weather developments are guesses at what might happen over, say Chicago when system A intersects system B--never minding that weather systems, like hurricanes, are projected in the future with poor accuracy. And the results of weather systems which intersect are unpredictable, too. These systems are emergent, dynamic, and probably respond to variables that are as of yet uncomprehended. Such as land use, as in cities (which tend to be warmer than surrounding countryside).

All of this calls the predicted outcomes of global warming into serious question. While empirical data over the last 200 years has clearly shown a warming trend, and glaciers melting, and growing holes in the ozone layer, the effect of such facts is unpredictable. It is essentially dynamic and emergent. The "El Nino" phenomenon was hailed as a manifestation of the consequences of global warming, but evidence suggests that it has been occurring at two to seven year intervals for 300 years, and perhaps even further back. So we can't be sure if the extreme weather caused by El Nino is due to AGW or not. In fact, while NOAA has identified that the number of anomalous weather/ocean systems regarding temperature has increased, nobody is sure whether that's a new development or not. And the fact that within the broad warming trend of the last 200 years there existed a 30-year cooling trend from 1940-1970 clouds the issue even further.

Because "the environment" is such a complex system, with emergent, non-linear, dynamic developments, I think that all the trouble and fuss about predicting climate change is a mistake. The simple fact is that we can't predict anything--we can only guess. Perhaps a guess or two will be correct, but that will itself be an emergent effect from the whole. Besides, the use of terrifying predictions to stimulate more attention on the issue of AGW strikes me as manipulative, a way for AGW apologists and researchers to increase their support, especially financially. I certainly have no illusions that scientists, like everyone else, are susceptible to stretching the truth to get their way. After all, bankers, businessmen, and priests have done it for years. Ultimately, I think our resources are better spent learning to thrive in this emergent environment, which starts by understanding it. Computer models apply linear thought to a non-linear system, which makes them nearly useless. Rigorous research aimed at knowing instead of predicting is much more helpful.

It is perhaps tempting to think that if our world is so dynamic and emergent, then what use is there for linear, scientific thought at all? What can we possibly do to make a difference if we have no way of knowing or predicting what the effects of our action will be? The fact is that we live in relation to this world, and we always have. Native Americans burned forests and fields to flush game and make the land into something more congenial to them. We have farmed for thousands of years. We have learned to thrive by taking our environment and adapting to it in a way that is advantageous to us. This doesn't just apply to the natural world, either--businesses do it in the marketplace, governments do it in political spheres, and we individuals have done it with every single aspect of our lives. It is a survival mechanism. And if our environment is changing now, I think it's a good bet that we have something to do with it--but simply reversing the processes is unlikely to reverse the effects we've seen to date. The world will continue to evolve, dynamically. That is why I think it is so foolish to think that we can control the "environment" to such a degree that...what? What is the desired solution to AGW? Make the world as it was in 1930? 1830? Does anybody really know when the world was healthier? What about in the Jurassic period (200-150 million years ago), when there was more oxygen in the air (and more carbon dioxide as well), not to mention warmer temperatures?

We should "pick up" after ourselves, of course. We should not destroy if we can help it. Demanding greater energy efficiency is virtuous, and certainly will mitigate the effects of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not to mention the deleterious smog that existed in Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s, which we have successfully cleaned up, and which exists today in developing cities like Shanghai. Finding better ways to use land than mass deforestation and urban development might slow the warming effect, since scientists point to land use as a major factor in the present warming trend. Of course, that entails a behavioral change, as by and large the population of the world continues to concentrate in the cities. And contamination of water and land with industrial by-products including hormonal, radioactive, and corrosives is still a major threat, and ought be combatted to the maximum extent possible. But whatever steps we take, we should be mindful that they will birth their own emergent effects, and almost certainly will not have the effects that we expect (or not entirely).

Keeping that in mind, we should be careful not to impose restrictions on developing societies that do not have the luxury of guilt over a theory of projected environmental behavior, and struggle daily with poverty. The science behind AGW does not account for the human cost of change, except where it predicts catastrophic results for humanity. That fact is the most suspicious of all.

To thrive in this world, as we have done so far, we must remember that science does not tell us what to do; rather it tells us what is. And that information may help us discern what to do about things, but there is no blueprint. The climate is certainly changing, and the reasons for that change are probably much more complex than industrialization and land use. After all, the earth has already been through three atmospheres and many geologic periods already, and likely will go through more as the earth's evolution continues. How that evolution will be affected by warming, carbon dioxide, or anything else attributed to us is unknowable.

And our evolutionary business is to remain, as the sharks and the crocodiles have. We must learn to thrive.

My Farewell to Arms

I stood on the steel staircase landing and looked out over the river, which had seemed impossibly big when I first saw it. The brackish, heavy air stirred around me and carried with it the scents of heat, of humidity, of mud and gently decomposing vegetation. It was, for me, the smell of the Corps.

A trivial errand had brought me to DMO, which stands for "Distribution Management Office." It was one of those ever-changing acronyms in the Marine Corps--it had been TMO, or "Traffic Management Office" for as long as I could remember. It had the same function now as it did before, which was taking your military orders and translating them into a government contract for a moving company, so you could be moved as painlessly as possible. Perhaps at one time it was staffed by Marines, and moderately efficient. Now it was staffed mostly by civilians, which I viewed with a healthy distrust. Most, I'm sure, were diligent and hard-working...but the Marine spouse who I'd spoken to earlier, and who set up my move, had received me like a bad cold and lectured me in a voice both whiny and severe about the limitations of my particular move.

Unfortunately, I didn't have my check-out sheet--on which I was required to get her signature--when I had first seen her, which meant today's trip to this dilapidated brick building. The steel staircase felt like a patch, added recently to cover some defect in the original building. An apt metaphor for DMO itself: a sad, uneasy hybrid of the Marine Corps and the vast, suffocating apparatus of support that grows like fungus on the military organization.

The first time I saw the river, I stood on sweltering asphalt outside Bobo Hall. I had just stuffed some 1500 calories in my face while Drill Instructors screamed and strutted all around me. Terrified of their attention, I bolted my food and ran outside to the comparative safety of my place in formation and my "knowledge," the little read handbook I had to read in every spare moment not occupied by instruction. As I meditated intently on Lieutenant Bobo, who to cover the retreat of his Marines had jammed the severed stump of his leg into the dirt of Vietnam to stop the bleeding, and who won the medal of honor for it, I noticed that this "river" flowing past was tremendously wide. Wider than the Columbia River, by far. Nearly as wide as Lake Washington.

The pungency of the air contained many memories. There is a particular smell to Virginia--maybe just to Quantico--that is known to every Marine Corps officer. A smell that reminds of early mornings and aching chests after a run, or the slimy cool of the Quigley, or the itch and suppression of a flak jacket, vest, and pack in the treeline. It reminds of Drill Instructors with massive arms and veins popping out all over their neck and face as they scream, of taciturn Captains exuding contempt and disappointment at another failed attack, of the heavy numbness of pack and rifle and road and the back of the Marine in front of you, which sets in and carries you through the hours of a forced march.

The overwhelming feeling of being yanked back to the very beginning, of returning to where it all started, is gone. I am back in my car, and irritably searching for a parking spot near the IPAC (Installation Personnel Administration Center, a sweatshop of administration Marines struggling to handle all the administration problems of tens of thousands of other Marines assigned to Quantico). In the back of my mind, I'm wondering what other memories I've buried.

I'm trying to control my astonished wonder at the ghostly green nearness of the mountains. They slide by, fast and deadly, invisible unless I swing my goggles at them. Then they are dangerously close. But I'm conscious that it is my friend in the other jet, struggling to earn his qualification, and we need these attacks to go well. So I drop my gaze under my goggles, watching the displays. Weapons page, set. HUD to the left DDI. I glance to my left and see the other aircraft zip through two small mounds, level with us. I frown. I know we, the wingman, are supposed to stay above our lead for safety. But my pilot is also the flight evaluator, an experienced and outstanding pilot. I wonder, as I nervously flick my eyes between the HUD, the approaching desert floor, and the lead aircraft slowly rising above us, if my pilot is maneuvering to look at something, or to test the other aircraft, or simply is holding a more disciplined altitude than the relatively inexperienced lead. Am I imagining, or is the ground getting closer? How close are we? Wait, I can't tell. The altimeter says 2,160 feet. Without thinking I say, "RADALT to the HUD." Suddenly G-forces come on, and we angle upwards. The RADALT alarm sounds our proximity to the ground as the pilot adjusts it. The altimeter, showing 2,230, instantly shows 240. There's an instant of nausea, as I marvel that we were flying less than 300 feet above the deck with absolutely none of the safety precautions in place to a collision with the ground, if for but a few seconds we fail to pay attention. Then I realize we're coming up on the target, and I hurriedly bring up the Litening Pod display on the right. Over the ICS, I hear my pilot say, "RADALT to the HUD. Thanks."

I joined the Marine Corps chiefly to be free of my parents' financial support. But a latent streak of romantic adventurism awakened as I arrived on that hot, humid asphalt in the summer of 2003. There was the icy, nauseating fear of the drill instructors, but also this strange exhilaration in the company of my fellow candidates. We were doing great things, in our own way--hiking distances, and performing tasks, and learning things that only days before had been unimaginable. And the sea stories of the prior-enlisted, or the drill instructors (delivered in the form of harsh instruction) made me hunger to travel and take this wonderful, small world of right and wrong, good and bad, of exertion and mission to exotic places. There was the middle east, where the battle of An Nasiriyah had concluded. There were stories of the DMZ in Korea, the Central Training Area of Okinawa, and rumors of Afghanistan. There was more heat in Camp Lejeune, and mountains in Camp Pendleton, and I wanted to see it all. I was in love--and I have remained so until the very end.

One thing true of Marines everywhere is their consciousness of history and tradition, from leathernecks to cake ceremonies, Belleau Wood to Frozen Chosin, and always the revered names of our antecedents like Bobo and Barnum and Chesty. Marines, when prompted, will talk for hours on the lineage of the "blood stripe" on their trousers or the origin of the phrase "Gee-Dunk." I know all the old histories, too, and will no doubt repeat them more often as an veteran than I ever did as a Marine Officer. But I think the real well-spring and deposit of tradition lies in the time-honored Marine institutions that remain, virtually unchanged, into our modern times.

I shivered. The biting wind mocked both the desert-pattern windbreaker I wore as a "warming layer" and the magnificent desert mountains rearing all around. It was just before dawn, and the sky was beginning to lighten behind the ridges. Twenty-five yards in front of me, a row of man-shaped targets quivered, and between them and me strutted the campaign-covered marksmanship instructors. We waited for the sunrise, which promised warmth and would allow us to begin shooting. I wasn't looking forward, however, because there was something oddly familiar about this situation. It wasn't deja vu, but something more like finally seeing a building you've only before seen in pictures. I recognized this.

Then suddenly I remembered. E. B. Sledge had been here, had described it in his World War II memoir With the Old Breed. He had described this whole institution: the unspoken expectation of marksmanship, the cold, the weapons, the instructors, the targets, the pits. He might have been to this range, actually, for he described the remote Camp Eliot which still existed, a mountainous wilderness of hiking trails now sitting under the approach path to Miramar Marine Corps Air Station. Before the modern Marine Corps, before helicopter flight, before Iwo Jima and his own battles of Peleliu and Okinawa, before and Khe Sanh and "The March Up" in 1991, Private Sledge had qualified on the timeless ranges of the Marine Corps. Just as I was doing.

A study of history, too, shows that this legacy runs further back than 1942. The two regiments of Marines who went to France in 1918 were reluctantly included by the Army because Congress knew they were already basically qualified soldiers--they had essential marksmanship training, essential training that was reduced for the Army's conscripts in order to more quickly field combat units. It's likely that the Marine doughboys of Chateau-Thierry and Belleau Wood knelt on the same hard ground with their Springfield rifles, re-fought their grandfather's civil war battles just as today's Marines re-fight Vietnam and the early battles of the long war in the Middle East.

The general rubbed his hands briefly together in a nervous gesture that could have been his transition to a new topic, a physical equivalent to saying, "um." But I detected some glee in the movement, and so readied myself for a joke. And I was not disappointed. "When I was a young Lieutenant in the late seventies," he began, "my platoon lived up in Camp Margarita on Pendleton. And we lived in these really crappy barracks. There was a single squad bay, with a partition at one end for me and my platoon sergeant's desks. It was crumbling and dirty, no matter how many times we field day'd the place, and the showers were always backed up and the toilets never worked. And being a conscientious and enterprising lieutenant, I filled out the chit every Friday specifying the discrepancies and requesting maintenance to come to fix the plumbing. One day, as I was dropping the chit off in the Facilities section, the gunny who was there said, 'hey wait a minute, Lieutenant.' I turned back and said, 'yes, gunny?' He motioned me close--" the general made a comical beckoning motion--"and said, 'now I like you, Lieutenant. You seem like you're really trying to do the right thing here. But I gotta say, those barracks you're living in are condemned. They're scheduled to be replaced in the next five years, so nobody's going to spend any money to fix them at all.' And he pointed to a drawer, where I could see every chit I'd ever written neatly filed." The general paused as an appreciative chuckle swept through the Lieutenants. "Well, I went back and continued writing my chits, but I was a little satisfied to know that there would be new buildings soon." He paused for a second. "Fast forward to the early two thousands, when I became the CG of 1st Marine Division. Shortly after I arrived back on Camp Pendleton, I drove up to Camp Margarita to see the new barracks. By then I was wise enough not to be surprised when I saw the same old crappy, crumbling barracks standing there." A muted laugh from the audience. "But I parked my car and headed into the same old squad bay to find a Lieutenant sitting at the same desk behind the same partition, doing some paperwork. He jumped up quick when he saw mygeneral's star, but I calmed him down--" another muted laugh--"and asked him how the Barracks were. 'Well, sir,' he replied, "the toilets don't work and the showers are always backed up! I write a chit every Friday after field day, but I'm told...'" Here the general paused for dramatic effect, with the air of an impending punch line, "'that these buildings are scheduled to be torn down in five years and new ones built in their spot!'" The laughter was loud and long.

The amazing thing about the Marine Corps is this vital continuity of experience, the feeling of being part of something meaningful, with roots in the past and a mission for the future. Generations of Marines have field day'd crumbling buildings and ships, and written chits that were ignored, and felt the lash of a salty, scornful, authoritative tongue on their sincere efforts. Generations of officers have struggled to care for their Marines who are coping with substandard living conditions, and have with secret pride rejoiced in the Corps' preference to spend money on training rounds and field rations rather than cushy barracks with serviceable plumbing. The great work of the Marine Corps, to win battles and make good citizens, continues in the small details and virtues that are comical, and ridiculous, and the very lifeblood of the military.

In the gathering darkness I watched them line up in the LZ. The shouts and complaints, audible in the still air, told of their exhaustion. Steam rose from their necks and faces, and I shivered. Forcing myself to be still, despite the lack of warming layers (which I had conspicuously stripped), I waited until the student platoon commander told me they were ready "to step." Hoisting my pack smoothly I took my spot at the front left of the column, and started walking.

By now it was dark, and large flakes of snow were falling. I could feel their despair behind me. Despair is not too strong a word, because after their first wake-up-and-full day-of attacks in the field, they were beat down. Bad. I knew how they felt--the sweat, clammy and gritty with dirt but now freezing, the shaky legs and ankles, sore from walking up and down and alongside hills all day. It didn't help that I was marching them past their quarters in Graves Hall, whose windows shone with warm light. There was despair dragging behind me as the dark closed in, and the sad and terrible finality of falling snow extinguished any hope of warmth and light. I had been through it all before, and I knew why ancient people worshipped the sun.

But the despair was born of fear, and baseless fear at that. Soon, I knew, we would arrive at our next LZ, and the snow would keep our sleeping bags dry in the freezing air. I knew we soon would be happily bivouacked. And so I strode remoselessly on, swinging off the paved road on to gravel. Here the carefully constructed model officer I projected to the world fell apart, for I tripped on a pothole and face-planted, with 80-odd pounds of pack helping to drive the point home. Almost immediately, the students had picked me up and were asking if I was okay. I growled at them a thanks and continued to stride, angry and embarrassed but otherwise unhurt. After several paces I commented to my student platoon commander that at least I gave them something to use against me at Mess Night.

We tramped across the wooden bridge, and climbed raggedly up Cardiac Hill. As I strode away from the top, I heard murmurings behind me that swelled, slowly, until someone finally yelled, "stop!" I stopped, turned around, and asked who had fallen back. The students, in huddled postures, told me the name of the two Marines who hadn't kept up, and again I felt their despair clutching at me. The night was cold, the woods were close, and two of their peers were lost somewhere behind. Angry at their weakness, I told my student platoon commander to keep the platoon there, and I took a squad leader with me back down the hill. Eventually I found my Marines, struggling and slow, morale as bad as I'd ever seen. They were uninjured, however, so I told them to continue after us and I walked back to the main group.

Some packs were off, the quintessential expression of defeat for students. I ignored the questioning (pleading?) glances, took my place at the head of the column, and began walking. There was a sullen scramble behind me to pick up and begin again. But it was easy going from here, as the road was flat, and soon we'd turned in the treeline.  The slow Marines had caught up. The trail endd at another LZ, where there were other platoons and some vehicles, engines humming comfortably. I had my students take off their packs and sit on them, and talked briefly about the next day's event. Then I let them go make up their sleeping positions. Before lying down, I checked in with my firewatch Marines and chatted briefly with the Marines who were still awake.

From my sleeping bag, slowly warming up with my body's heat, I finally appreciated the beauty and the stillness of snow, delicately outlining every branch and quieting the world. After that night, I never felt any fear or despair in my Marines, and I hoped they learned the lesson: with a Mission to accomplish, and Marines to lead, they can get through anything--or rather, certainly through harder trials than a snowy night hike.

For nearly nine years (thirteen if you count my time in ROTC, which most don't, but which seemed quite military to me at the time) I have loved and served this institution. I have shivered in wet foxholes, and soaked in coffee to stay awake through the small hours while preparing some report or another. I have honed my skills at air-to-air combat and close air support in readiness for conflict, used some of the same Quonset Huts at Iwakuni as the Marines who occupied Japan in 1945. I have suffered the disappointment of my peers and superiors and (worst of all) my Marines, and have taken joy in our shared successes, and I have grown up. Grown to know that I could truly give to a marriage, truly give to my children, truly face danger and difficulty and uncertainty and yet do something constructive.

I have many sea stories to tell and re-tell in nostalgic moments to come. The Naval Service still holds sway over my heart and the thrill of new, dangerous places is only a memory away. But I have found a greater love in my wife and child, and a hitherto unknown desire for peace and quietude. So it is time to hang up my uniform. I taste, one last time, that particular air of the Marine Corps: brackish water and effort and heat and the joyful burden of scrutiny and responsibility. I look out at that river which started it all, the strange brown river as big as a lake and a visible sign that home was far away and I was, then, somewhere completely different. It was exciting, terribly exciting, and I followed that excitement a lover.

But now, with happy memories, it is time to go home.

Semper Fidelis.

Springtime and Her

It was a magnificent afternoon.

I was freed early from work for a meeting on Mainside with the eternally frustrating IPAC, which is the Installation Personnel Administration Center and commonly experienced as a particular circle of hell in which one's dearest personal information is subjected to the worst bureaucratic treatment by apathetic Marines with no connection to you or your unit, and therefore no motivation or mutually shared esprit to look after you, and where consequently your pay, or orders, or personnel file are treated as nasty intrusive garbage and whose maintenance is a barely tolerable chore.

Fortunately there is a civilian who works there, soft-spoken and incongruously muscular, whose professional sneer conceals a real desire to help out the poor patients who dare enter that sanctuary.

A short stop later to receive a 'counseling' on my pending move, where I was warned in no uncertain terms that I might expect out-of-pocket expenses during my move to Wisconsin, since my home of record is in Bellevue, Washington, and told severely that this was the last move at government expense that I would ever have, which is sort of the point of leaving this Marine Corps anyway, isn't it?

But nevertheless I walked out of there with the promise of movers calling shortly to arrange a date for picking up my stuff at the unusual hour of 2:35 in the afternoon (1435 to those military types). And behold! the sun was shining with the richness of spring down on the wintry world, where the temperature grudgingly lifted itself up above 40 degrees and an inexplicable, delightfully warm breeze cooed among the shriveled boughs.

I drove home on roads crowded, but with little slowing. I listened to some re-discovered and favorite music, happily singing along (a little off-key, as is my wont) and letting the sentiments of the songs wash over me. I and greeted my ecstatic dogs in a sunlit house, for the first time I can remember (though I know objectively it's happened before). A happy mood was upon me, a mood which promised something great. A moment of pure happiness--especially because I had something to accomplish, and so I cheerfully bent to work on a self-imposed 'honey-do' list.

I should note here that my wife is wonderfully competent, and asks very little of me around the house. She will happily paint walls over and over again until she finds the perfect palette of complimenting colors; she tidies up repeatedly after our daughter (and, shamefully, me on occasion) with a ready hand; she steams and scrubs the floors and changes light bulbs and does laundry and generally applies all the ingenuity and dedication she brought so successfully to Television Production to our home. She also lovingly rears our daughter and freelance writes on the side, I might add. Only a very few tasks are left to me--take out the garbage (which she does as well), perhaps, and remove the dead mice from our basement. You might say I am not strictly necessary in a domestic sense.

But as she is currently doing all of that stuff in our wonderful NEW house in Wisconsin, preparing it with her customary industry for our arrival after the move I have just arranged, there are a few things I can do for her. And while such tasks may not be the 'something great' that our collective consciousness has in mind on a sunny day, well, I can say that they are something much greater than I ever did before her. My wife, see, loves a clean house. And I can really give her that today. It is wonderful to clean crusted dog excrement off the odd rug, clean dead mice and their excrement out of the basement, run a few loads of laundry, scrub the floors of the sticky remains of toddler snacks, and air out the house. It's a honey-do list I made, for her. A way to give back to her what she gives to me every day. It's small, but joyful, and it is the metaphorical cherry on top of this day. I can't wait for her to see everything--not so she will comment (though she inevitably will, and with loving gratitude), but so she'll enjoy it. So she'll be able to relax when she arrives and not feel the need to clean, or tidy, or avert her attention from a pressing mess that's just too hard to clean with a curious toddler running around.

Later that evening I pay an all-too-rare visit to the Sacrament in my church. Incense sits heavily upon the pews with the other worshippers, all conspicuously ordinary yet distinct, comfortably anonymous in the dimness and their private prayers. Their normality emphasizes their focus on the monstrance on the altar, and I slide almost effortlessly into a spiritual communion that I can never seem to achieve anywhere else.

Then in the quiet warmth of our house, I make myself dinner. I'm a bachelor with very specific tastes on a night like this, so I indulge not in ramen or a frozen pizza but in eggs, bacon, and cereal. There are tidbits for the dogs, who happily interrupt naps to come and politely beg (mostly by staring longingly with ever the slightest look of accusation at my feast), but when I finally pull away from my book and clean my dishes, I'm struck by how odd it feels without her.

It feels odd because I should be content. Food, comfort, a good book, a feeling spiritual wellness, a sense of accomplishment--I have all I should ever need for happiness. But my heart is restless. My inner St. Augustine rears his head. I know for whom I cry. It is her. My companion. Her sudden smile, her startling plunges into meaningful conversation, her thoughts on the day, the news, the kid, the food, the everything. All that I achieved this day is meaningless except for the clean rugs slowly steaming on the living room floor, with the thermostat set to eighty degrees, and the clean basement for laundry.

And I want to be with her.

I want to drop this magnificent day and barrel into the single-digit, blustery winter of Wisconsin, just to order her a glass of chardonnay at the nearest supper club (or dive bar), to laugh about the singular pleasure of seat-heaters in the car which somehow manage to warm you deeply even while most of your body shivers, to pick out the most unlikeable person in the bar and befriend them instantly (well, she does that. I just tag along).

But she is with a friend tonight, a rare opportunity to see a friend when they are both in the Midwest at the same time. She'd never want me absent, never consider me a third wheel, but I'm secretly glad she has this night to enjoy free from the needs of our new home, or our old home, or anything else. So that she can have something like my afternoon, hopefully with nothing to accomplish but the gladness that comes with renewing an old friendship.

And I will happily keep the light on here, literally and metaphorically. And hope she notices the basement when she gets home.

Cross Country Memories

I woke up today thinking of Phoenix. Perhaps it was the weak, pale February sun streaming in my windows, filtered through gossamer white cirrus clouds. Only in the winter, with the cold sucking humidity out of the air and the thick trees bare, does Virginia ever approach the sheer visibility of the Southwest. And on a morning such as this, my mind went back to the crisp clarity of a Friday evening, the sun all coppery on the darkling sand, when my pilot and I passed a Southwest 737 on the approach path into Phoenix Sky Harbor airport.

I've had some occasion of late to reflect on the past, and one of the things that stands out the most is my need to keep busy. Well, busy is not the right word--distracted, more like. It's stood me in good stead, actually. In college, when I was finally shamed enough about mediocre grades to put in some effort, it drove me to a respectable finish. And when I entered the fleet as a mighty, world-famous Green Knight, it put me up for a lot of working weekends.

Now, the reality of a fighter squadron is, literally, training. Training to kill, in the air and on the ground. In the Marine Corps, the latter is much more important and it is additionally required that fighters be able to kill on the ground only one side of the battle--the enemy--while leaving the friendlies unscathed. Considering the proudly stated mission of the Marine Rifle Squad is "to locate, close with, and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver, or to repel the enemy assault by fire and by close combat," well, some degree of precision in this endeavor is required from us carefree airedales.

So there is a secondary reality, and that is flight hours. As Malcolm Gladwell put it, the path to proficiency lies in hours spent (10,000 hours being the minimum requirement for mastery, and while we all strive for that, who has that much time, I wonder?), and so our individual and collective ability to kill our enemies without fragging that closing and destroying Marine Rifle Squad relied on flight hours.

Flight hours, of course, are expensive. Not just in fuel (2,000 or so gallons of which we used each flight), but more tellingly in maintenance. For it is axiomatic in the realm of physics, whose laws are inexorable for us as those of death and taxes, that maneuvering such as is required to arrive quckly and safely in the right spot of the sky, oriented the correct way, in a slightly negative-G dive (which helps the bomb fall more closely aligned to the aircraft computer-extrapolated ballistic path) to deliver some hundreds of pounds of hate and discontent upon the enemy, accurately, puts some necessary and occasionally violent force on the jet. All the computers, and hydraulic pumps, and hinges and joins and bolts and generators, all the structural fuselage elements--all of them subject to sudden loading and unloading of gravitational forces as we airedales, with joy in our hearts and laughter in our voices (it's true) yank and bank our way up from the safety of terrain masking and roll in aggressively to "the chute," that wonderful and terrifying flight path from which said hate and discontent would shortly be dealt, but also a dangerous prison of principle, for in "the chute" one is "on government time," a nice way of saying we are required by divers oaths, spoken and unspoken, to deliver the fire support so desperately needed by our comrades regardless of personal safety, and a jet scribing a predictable straight path through the sky toward an intended target for some five to ten seconds makes a juicy target for the foes and their air defenses, doesn't it precious?

Which is all to say that the airplanes, designed as they are for the Newtonian toll by wonderful engineers at Boeing, undergo quite a beating in everyday flight. And they are not, therefore, always working.

Now, fear not. Being nothing less than a professional organization, American Naval Aviation has instituted many safeguards to ensure that broken aircraft are diagnosed and healed quickly (for machines so complicated, which carry life in their austere and purposeful cockpits, act more like living things than cold machinery). The fine Marines who crawl all over the jet and learn it's most secret places, in rain and cold and heat and long, deadly sunny days, they diligently diagnose all manner of little issues, and even more diligently repair them. They are Marines, of course, and are deeply invested in doing their job correctly - something to which I've alluded before. And they certainly won't certify a broken aircraft for us airedales to fly.

That means we only have so many aircraft at any one time, and as each aircraft can only fly so many times per day (three), we only have so many flights. And with a squadron of 34 aggressive, type A, red-blooded aviators all clamoring for flight hours (for to reach eventually that 10,000, though I've only ever heard of one gentlemen do it, and he wasn't flying the Hornet's ful 13 tons of twisted steel, sex appeal, fully articulating leading and trailing control surfaces, and hydraulic and electric circuits, so I'll spare him my envy for his piston-engined, single-control-surface monoplanes), and more importantly all 34 needing training for to kill accurately, space on that flight schedule gets pretty precious. When you start factoring in that maybe only 10 of the aviators are qualified tactical instructors, and one of them is needed for every flight with an unqualified aviator trying to get qualified for to become officially more accurate at killing, well, Flight Hours are very precious indeed, and you can probably forget Mr. Gladwell's 10,000.

But. A brilliant solution. The United States having a vast and reliable network of airfields left over from the days they also enjoyed a comfortable technological and economic advantage over the rest of the world, due largely to the vision and enterprise of men and women like that 10,000 flight hour earner (and where did all of that go, we wonder), and airedales being professionals, well, why don't you go seek your 10,000 hours on the weekend, young WSO? However, you must not under any circumstances come back to the home field until you are scheduled to do so. Therefore you must seek your fortune elsewhere--in Las Vegas, or Phoenix, or Long Beach, or Palo Alto. If you can show good reason, you may go farther afield: Seattle, Portland, Boise, Lake Tahoe, Albuquerque.

Well. Unspoken was the fact that I, like many of my fellow "road warriors," was single. And though some were vocal about the "double standard," I had no desire to pull my peers from their families on the weekend. Also, I was conscious of the fact that in the competitive world of fighter aviation, it was rather well looked-upon if one showed uncommon dedication to flying.  And there were real benefits, too. Places to see, bars to visit, new airfields to experience, all while earning per diem getting a free hotel stay. Plus the advantage of progressing in qualifications faster than my peers, if I could entice an instructor along. And I didn't have to go home to my sparsely furnished one-bedroom apartment (seriously, my wife still teases me about my life with only a bed, dresser, and desk) and wonder what to do with my weekends.

So I became a consummate road warrior--during one two-month stretch, I did nine weekend cross-countries. Yup, if you're counting--that's every weekend. Plenty of distraction. 

They were days of work and wonder--sitting, hot, in the pits of El Centro with the engines screaming at idle, poring over a chart and scratching fuel and time calculations on my kneeboard to see what sort of Bingo we'd set to safely arrive at our next destination (Bingo being the term for the minimum amount of fuel required to get to base, with a specified safety reserve) while the sweat beaded under my visor and made the mask slippery on my face; knocking off 20 minutes of dogfighting, breathless and panting from the G forces and the strain of keeping one's head turned around and locked on the other aircraft, and keeping my voice aviator cool on the radio with center as I asked for IFR to Phoenix; nervously asking for a lower altitude VFR over the Grand Canyon, and receiving permission, and descending lower into the layered red rock walls while a sparkling blue river winked out of the depths; calling hotels and 1-800-Wx-Brief to file the next flight from the deliciously cool FBO in Palm Springs, giddy with freedom after deciding with the other aircrew that we were NOT going to Long Beach tonight, that we wanted to go to Las Vegas instead, and spending a half an hour 'making it happen;' scrubbing clean an ancient whiteboard with paper towels and the damp sleeve in a crumbling base operations building, wallpapered with squadron stickers, in preparation for a full debrief; and best of all, the sudden quiet at sunset, when the radios magically stop squawking and the light fails and cockpit cools off and the horizons become brilliant streamers of red and pink and orange--when it was time to find a new place, a new hotel and restaurant and bar, and the work is over.

And I remember one winter afternoon, awash in coppery sunset light, when at 18 miles from the field we were directed to turn left and intercept the approach path for runway 07C ('zero-seven-center'), and asked to slow to 130 knots. These instructions are to be followed to the letter, now, because there are many airplanes at any given time trying to get into that small little cone of airspace around Phoenix Sky Harbor, and land--many of them filled with innocent passengers, at that. Having them all moving at more than 100 miles an hour, and climbing and descending on there way out and in, complicates the problem immensely. The hardworking controllers at airports like that deserve a beer next time you meet once in your local watering hole, maybe, and they certainly deserved the utmost professional courtesy from the likes of me, whose ego was often close to writing checks his body couldn't cash, and nor could his airplane, at least not without upsetting the smooth flight of 150 odd southwest passengers, but that fortunately didn't happen but once, and it's a story for another time.

In any case, it was with some trepidation that I tapped the foot pedal, and transmitted back to the controller, "Combat 41 unable. Minimum airspeed 150." Which was putting my pilot and the controller in a pickle, and no mistake. For the former, well, our 13 ton aircraft with two tons of fuel aboard did not like flying at 150 knots, oh no precious, what with finite lift available even with the wings totally reconfigured for maximum lift provision. It requires an exceedingly gentle touch, I'm told, and a high power setting, which the aircraft greatly desires to turn into speed for to gain more lift and stability. A hundred seventy-five knots being preferred. For the latter it became immediately evident why our speed was a problem. Several miles ahead of us, nearly blending in with the desert floor (at 18 miles one is barely seeing the southwestern suburbs of Phoenix below), was a trundling Southwest Airlines 737, placidly and gently gliding in at about 130 knots. Not being designed, see, for the speed of heat, or for eight Gs, or for accurate delivery of death to all comers in the air, on land, and at sea, the Boeing 737 has nice large rigid wings that are uncongenial to the lift or drag requirements of, as one pilot once undelicately put it, "flying through your own a**hole." It is therefore also much more stable at slow speeds.

My pilot answered my radio call over the Intra-Cockpit Communication System (ICS) with a four-letter word unprintable on this family website. The controller, after a pregnant silence, said uncertainly "Combat 41, roger, traffic twelve o'clock, three miles, seven-thirty-seven." Which meant, of course, that he heard me about the 150 knots, and oh by the way there was another aircraft off my nose at three miles. To which my pilot replied via ICS, "Tally," and I was able to say "Combat 41, Tally that traffic," and then quietly wonder whether we'd have to do a turn of holding before we landed.

But this controller was smart and helpful, which made a nice change from all the rude ones who question your omniscience and try to kill you by flying you into either an airplane or a hill, true story, and both also for another day. He hopefully asked over the radio, "Combat 41, can you land on the right?" which of course that Phoenix has two large runways, the right-most one being shorter when landing on runway 07, and perhaps we could land on a different runway than that tortoise of a 737 quite safely. So I hurriedly thumbed to my airfield diagram, saw that the right runway was 7,800 feet long, which was about 200 feet shorter than we'd like but technically quite long enough for the Hornet, and doing a quick calculation on how much I trusted my young pilot's ability to stop from running us off the end of the runway, and exiting the airplane ungraciously through the door that Martin Baker provides, and quickly tapped my foot pedal to transmit cooly, "Combat 41, affirm," and save the day. Which, of course, I did, because the controller happily replied "Roger Combat 41, maintain visual separation that traffic and continue your approach visually to zero-seven-right." It wasn't exactly kosher because under IFR traffic rules he has to give me a heading, but it was quite an expedient solution. My pilot accelerated to a much smoother 175 knots and swung right to offset from the Boeing and line up on the right runway, which looked rather short compared to the two other 10,300-foot-generous runways provided by Sky Harbor. And, having a pilot's generous dose of ego, he batted no eyes at my quick brief about the 7,800 foot runway earmarked for us.

So I found myself with the setting sun at my back, beauty before my eyes and relief in my heart, passing a Southwest Airlines airplane in my hornet. We touched down about 15 seconds before he did, and ended up having to wait a while on the taxiway, worse luck. But it sure made the beers taste good that evening.