The linked article is about a 500 page report that was written following an investigation into 5-2 SBCT (now 2-2 SBCT) and that brigade's actions in Afghanistan in 09-10, specifically the actions of a squad of soldiers who blatantly killed civilians and took human body parts as war trophies. I wrote about this situation here and I placed most of the blame on the brigade commander, COL Harry Tunnell.
The report is not being released by the Army yet (shocking), but was given to defense attorneys representing the soldiers currently being court martialed. One of the defense witnesses, Stjepan Mestrovic a Texas A&M sociology professor, who saw the report discussed the results of the investigation in the article.
A few quotes jumped out at me:
"The brigade was dysfunctional."
"Mestrovic said the brigade nearly failed to gain approval to go to
Afghanistan after it completed its pre-deployment training in Fort Irwin, Calif.
He said Tunnell’s aggressive style created an environment that enabled the
misconduct that allegedly occurred under his command."
"Mestrovic said the review of the Stryker brigade concluded that the
strategy of former brigade commander Col. Harry Tunnell was fundamentally at
odds with the one articulated by the war’s top commander at the time, Gen.
Stanley McChrystal."
COL Tunnell's leadership style and over-aggressiveness led to the incidents involving soldiers at the platoon level. That's exactly what I said back in October. I was also not surprised to learn from this article that the alleged "ringleader" of the killings, SSG Calvin Gibbs, served as part of COL Tunnell's security detail (PSD) before he joined the platoon involved in the incident.
What I would like to know is, why did GEN McChrystal allow COL Tunnell to remain in command when it likely was apparent that 5-2 wasn't in line with GEN McChrystal's strategy and was doing its own thing? Or hell, why wasn't COL Tunnell relieved prior to the deployment when 5-2 failed, or nearly failed, its NTC rotation (something I didn't think was even possible)?
After 3-2 SBCT's NTC rotation prior to our 09-10 Iraq trip I removed two NCO's from my section who made it obvious that they could not perform to my expectations or at the capacity 1-14 CAV needed them to. One of the NCO's was an extremely intelligent individual but would not have been able to handle the leadership requirements that would have been placed on him while deployed. The other NCO was just a shitbag.
Both NCO's were placed in other units in the brigade where, in case number one, be better supervised and not have the pressure of being the lone intel NCO on a combat outpost due to our split operations; or in case number two, not fuck anything up that wasn't vital to the mission. Looking back, moving those two NCO's was one of the best decisions I have ever made and in return I received an outstanding NCO and and outstanding soldier who both did great things during the deployment.
If a captain in a battalion level intelligence section has the willingness to remove underperforming or mismatched personnel, then a general in charge of a theater of operations better have that willingness as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment