Top Shot Award - View Bug 2022

 

Don't aim for an MRS Degree

 

Cultural arrogance

 

Lessons Learned in the Strangest Places

The central theme of the first book that I wrote on leadership, Things I Learned from My Grandmother About Leadership and Life, was that principles of leadership are not necessarily learned in formal schools. I stressed that most of the leadership training I received after joining the army merely reinforced the principles taught to me by my grandmother, a woman with limited formal education but tons of native wisdom. What I neglected to mention in that book, though, is that life skills and effective leadership techniques can be learned in many other places as well.

     For example, in 1968, shortly before beginning my first tour in Vietnam, I was sent to the US Army School of the Americas in Panama to attend the Jungle Operations Course. The purpose of the course was to prepare military personnel to operate and survive in jungle environments similar to what many faced in Vietnam. I learned a lot during that short three weeks, and as I look back on it, I realize that a lot of it had nothing to do with just surviving in a jungle environment but how to be successful wherever you are.

     On the first day of the course, for example, we were assembled in bleachers and given an introduction to the course and the jungles surrounding the school. Then, several sergeants walked out carrying an anaconda that had to be twenty feet long. They stopped in front of the bleachers and the chief instructor began calling us out several at a time and directing us to line up in front of the snake-holding sergeants. I grew up in East Texas, a place with four different varieties of poisonous snakes and dozens of non-toxic varieties, and I could tell this snake had recently eaten or had been drugged. It appeared to be sound asleep. Not everyone in my class was as observant. So, when we were lined up and asked to take the snake from the sergeants, I complied. Some of my fellow classmates—soon to be ex-classmates—refused. One even fainted. Needless to say, they were immediately disenrolled from the course.

     What was the lesson learned from that incident? Be observant and think a situation through carefully before you react. Logic told me that they wouldn’t do something deadly without having protective measures in place. I could also see that the snake was inert and non-responsive. I’d also read somewhere about anacondas and that they killed their prey by wrapping around it and squeezing. Since it wasn’t trying to squeeze the sergeants, I reasoned it was safe. Those who refused to touch it, and the one who fainted, let their fear of snakes override reason. Another lesson. Don’t let your emotions overrule your reason.

     Later in the course, we were taken out for a two-day exercise to test some of the survival skills we’d been taught up to that point. One of the cautions the instructor emphasized was that when you climbed into your hammock at night, you should wear your boots to enable you to respond quickly in an emergency, but you should ensure that your laces were securely tied so they wouldn’t come loose during the night and slide across your leg. Why? Because there was a particularly poisonous snake that was prone to getting into tents and hammocks and crawling under your pants legs to find a warm place to sleep, and a loose, wandering bootlace might feel like a reptile crawling on you.

     One of our group ignored the instructions and loosened his laces before retiring because he said trying to sleep with laced-up boots was uncomfortable. Later than night, I was awakened by a shriek, followed by the sound of boots hitting the soft jungle earth, the sound of running, then another dull thud followed by screams of pain. When we were finally able to get some flashlights on, one of our party was seen impaled on the trunk of a spiny palm (I believe it’s called a needle palm) from head to crotch. He was gingerly disengaged from the tree and transported to the post hospital where they spent several hours pulling spines from his body. Luckily none of them hit his eyes which could have blinded him. It did, however, result in him having to drop out of training.

     Lesson learned. Know the instructions or SOP, and before you vary from them, make sure you’ve thought it through. Are the risks of not following the instructions less than whatever benefit or comfort you gain from ignoring them? If not, follow the rules.

    
    The final lesson I learned at the jungle school was that sometimes it is necessary to disobey the rules and ignore the instructions. The final exercise of the course was a land navigation exercise that began late one afternoon and was set to run through the night, ending on the banks of the Chagres River where we would be transported back to the fort to prepare for graduation later the next day. The entire course was through thick jungle and we were told that anyone who felt unable to finish could come out to the road that paralleled the course and they would be taken back to the barracks. It wouldn’t keep them from graduating, but they would be ineligible for award of the Jungle Expert patch which went to those who excelled in all aspects of the course. At that point, my entire team was in the running for the patch as we’d excelled in every aspect of training and were considered one of the best teams in that particular session. We were a mixed crew. There was me, a US Army captain and recent graduate of the Army’s Special Forces School, two Naval Academy cadets, a Marine infantryman, and an Air Force sergeant who was being assigned to one of their special operations units in Vietnam.

     We got off to a good start and were making excellent time when it started raining. The ground underfoot turned slick and as luck would have it, the Air Force sergeant, while serving as our point man, slipped on the top of a rise and slid down hill until he was stopped by a small tree that slammed into his crotch with enough force to cause that portion of his anatomy to swell up and made it difficult for him to walk.

     As team leader I was faced with a dilemma. The sergeant, even though he wanted to try, couldn’t complete the exercise in his condition, and was in need of medical attention. If I assigned someone to escort him to the road to get help, I would take him and them out of the running for the Jungle Expert patch. On the other hand, I could not in good conscience allow him to continue to suffer or worse, endanger his health, so I turned the team leadership over to one of the naval cadets, got the sergeant in a fireman’s carry and hiked out to the road.

     Typical of bureaucracies, of which the military is a prime example, the vehicles that were supposed to be patrolling the road to pick up stragglers or dropouts, weren’t there, so I had to hike to the river where luckily I found a Panamanian fisherman and his son who were doing night fishing and talked them into taking us across the river.

     From the river I hiked to the post hospital and turned the sergeant over to the doctors. Exhausted, I then went to the barracks and went to sleep, convinced that I’d just shot my chances at that coveted patch but not really caring.

     To my surprise, at the graduation ceremony that morning, when the patches were awarded, I was one of the first ones called up and the sergeant, still recovering in the hospital, was also named as a recipient. No one made a big deal of it despite everyone knowing that he and I hadn’t completed the navigation course. The members of my team all patted me on the back—they got their patches too, and that was that.

     What was the lesson learned from this incident? I learned that sometimes you have to choose between following the rules and doing what’s right. The rule was if you quit you lose your chance at that particular reward, but the right thing for a leader to do is take care of his or her people.

     Life’s like that. Everything you encounter or experience is a learning opportunity if you’ll only open your mind to it.

Mothers really are saints

 

Dusty Saddle Roundup - Episode 1

 I was honored to be the first author featured on Peter Alan Turner's Dusty Saddle Roundup. You can listen here:  https://www.buzzsprout.com/1967405/10368596

The Implications of Chinese Economic Engagement in Africa

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