Bodycount

[couchcommander]

Re: the body counts. The issue I think I see developing on this thread is whether or not these should be reported, and then further what weight should it be given in the reporting.

As a civilian, I personally was struck by a combination of sadness and frustration upon hearing that we had lost another soldier.

Though the death of another human being is never something to be celebrated, in my books at least, I have to say that my negative feelings were ameliorated somewhat (however irrationally) by the news that there was some easily quantifiable effect of the mission that sent this poor lad to the grave.

Of course, as has been pointed out, body bags are no good measure of a counter insurgency operation. However at the same time, from a civilian perspective, we had lost 11 good men, and had peanuts to show for it.

I, myself, know this not to be the case, however in the 20 second sound byte world of the modern media, subtleties are often lost on the casual observer.

Thus, from my perspective, it is beneficial to morale at home to have an easily soundbytable, quantifiable, and recognizable benefit, such as enemy KIA, especially when we are taking losses ourselves. It gives these losses a value that your average joe can grip onto and justify them with; as indeed, we all GREATLY value the lives of our soldiers.

And indeed, as was my purpose in first  pointing them out, good job to those involved.

 

[Old Guy]

DG,

Macnamara and his methods interest me.  I wish I'd known more of this stuff when I was a young soldier -- though it's unlikely I'd have paid proper attention to the issues at the time.

It's appropriate, I think, to evaluate the 'metrics' approach to manufacturing and to evaluation of military performance as practiced in Vietnam.  In the years since I traveled to that exotic land I have earned a bachelor's degree in Business and a Master's in Finance, so the term is now familiar to me.

1.  Metrics, as used at Ford and other places in the late '50s and during the '60s, did achieve outstanding results in improving manufacturing efficiencies.  However, one must consider the context.  At the end of the '50s almost all business was conducted in 'command' environments.  The boss told you what to do and you did it.  He wanted no feedback and you expected to give none.  Obviously, there were exceptions, even then, but I'm talking of the situation in the aggregate, not in the particular.

2.  The introduction of metrics provided an relatively objective way to evaluate business performance, especially in manufacturing.  It's important to understand that metrics were an adjunct to command management and only one step on the road to the myriad management structures used around the world today. 

3.  Thus, Macnamara's accomplishments at Ford were actually incremental improvements in a process that was already underway and is still developing today.  But, neither he nor most of his supporters (and detractors) were aware of that AT THE TIME.  Macnamara himself has made the mistake of evaluating his performance as Defense Secretary in the light of subsequent events, including, in my opinion, a false belief that he held certain reservations about the whole Vietnam affair even as he conducted the war.

4.  Macnamara ran the show with an iron hand.  To him, metrics were a method of evaluating a command management system and were not intended to allow for corrective suggestions and freedom of action by distant subordinates.  If changes are allowed at the 'point of production' then your numbers begin to lose whatever validity they ever had.  His attitudes were backed up by LBJ, of course, and the rigidity in command structures extended down through the Joint Chiefs to theater commanders and right down to operational levels.  Not even in WW2 had such an inability to adapt to changing circumstances so hampered field commanders -- and far too much stupidity occured in all armies during that war, included every Allied force.

5.  The fact that Macnamara did not understand how armies should function in a war like Vietnam is not a major condemnation of the man, because far too many of his generals failed in the same way.

6.  The Army has developed workable metrics in the years since Vietnam.  And because the emphasis, since the early '80s, has been on realism in training (such as the NTC, etc) those metrics have been developed and tested to the point of being reliable performance indicators, to the extent such measures are ever useful in a military context.  I feel more confidence in today's US armed forces to evaluate enemy KIA in context that I ever did in Vietnam, even as an untutored ordinary soldier.

7.  Military operations are properly referred to as an art, not some kind of manufacturing process, though any serious student of warfare knows that the art all too often looks like a mechanical process for producing dead soldiers.  That art has come to include, in Western armies, an honest effort to minimize civilian casualties.  While it's easy to frown on that from a distance -- because much of the effort exposes our own troops to increased danger -- it has worked to make small-scale combat more lethal to our enemies.

8.  Just in the last two years, the US Army and Marines began using technical devices (like small smart bombs) and tactical techniques which safeguard our soldiers, minimize civilian casualties, and maximize damage to the enemy.  Much of this action is directed at the squad level.  In other words, it's more true today than at any time in history that combat is in the hands of sergeants and corporals.

I've gone on too long.  I still like the idea of enemy KIA numbers used as a 'metric', to use the term loosely, but only if those statistics are evaluated in context and with a full understanding that combat is an art form.  Few reporters of any kind have shown anything like that kind of knowledge and ability lately.

Jim

 

[misfit]

First off, you're going to want to use an apostrophe because you want the contraction of "it is", not the possesive indefinite article of "its".

Secondly, you're aware that on September 11th, 2001, there were 1 million Persians in the streets of Iran lighting candles in support of the United States?

And there were probably one billion people elsewhere cheering and applauding the destruction of innocent Americans.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Misfit,
Well, off a verbal warning a half-hour and working towards your recorded warning I see.
"probably"??  Well since it's almost been 5 years now, one might think you would KNOW.....unless of course, your just flying off the cuff?....... ^-^