> > Forget the people, shoot the antennas. > > https://www.mca-marines.org/files/The%20Attritionist%20Letters%20Anthology_0.pdf
Go to The Attritionist Letters (#11): My tour continued at an infantry regiment combat operations center (COC). We flew in at night, guided by the tactical support wide area network with the red flashing light that could be seen from miles away. Urban sprawl emerged from the desert floor. There were cavernous UOC tents with airconditioning so cold that fleeces and watchcaps were the personal protective equipment of choice; not a flack jacket or Kevlar was to be found. The COC was alive with command post of the future (CPOF), command and control personal computers, and the common operating picture; charts and laminated matrices hung so neatly from the UOC walls. With two maneuver battalions in the midst of simultaneous attacks up their respective corridors, all seemed to be going well. Suddenly, a dust storm blew up and threatened the very UOC that represented the regiment’s command and control. Walls flew open, papers and mission cards were strewn about, and soon enough the UOC itself was blown over exposing the entrails to the mercy of the wind. Marines sullenly grabbed broken and bent bars from the crumpled UOC as if they had not a purpose except to mourn the loss of their command and control fortress. I witnessed a foolish young lieutenant try to convince the Marines (both senior and junior) to leave the UOC alone and “get the radio nets back up” in order to continue monitoring the fight. The fool! Does he not realize that the CPOF and the UOC are the true manifestations of command and control, not simple communications with the maneuver battalions? How can we have a regimental commander coordinate the fight from a vehicle and a radio? Perhaps a decade ago, but no longer Command and control is now only attainable by “stuff” like command and control systems, big intimidating tents, air-conditioning, plasma screens, and video teleconferencing. The poor lieutenant . . . he has no future in our Corps! -- tor-talk mailing list - [email protected] To unsubscribe or change other settings go to https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk
