Army Aviator of the Year
12-28-2008 | 06:46 PM
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Army Aviator of the Year
I happened to read an article in the latest issue of Soldier of Fortune that struck me as profound.
The article was about the Army Aviator of the Year (Capt Smith, I believe) who personally racked up 200 kills as an Apache pilot. The profound part was, when asked what made the difference as to why he was so effective, one of the people he attributed was his commander who gave him and his peers the freedom to run their own missions - "to fly them as they were meant to be flown."
Over and over, again, history proves that we win wars when we have centralized command and decentralized execution. We have won every war we have won due to the sum of the contributions of individual soldiers / sailors / airmen / etc. As a matter of fact, we used to brag about that before technology caught up and gave the leadership the opportunity to have centralized execution, also.
Our leadership will brag on Billy Mitchell, Gen Kenney, John Boyd, etc - but they will rarely model their won actions after those of their examples. No, our leadership is too concerned with making sure everyone on Base X wears the same blue uniform on Monday, with making sure our airmen's shirts are tucked in in their PT gear, with making sure that our Airmen wear their reflective belts and they don't wear their leatherman tools on their belts, etc.
If only they could focus on how to lead and develop true warriors. It was refreshing to read about a 25-yr old Capt who was allowed to go out and fully exploit the capabilities of the airpower with which the taxpayers entrusted him.
The article was about the Army Aviator of the Year (Capt Smith, I believe) who personally racked up 200 kills as an Apache pilot. The profound part was, when asked what made the difference as to why he was so effective, one of the people he attributed was his commander who gave him and his peers the freedom to run their own missions - "to fly them as they were meant to be flown."
Over and over, again, history proves that we win wars when we have centralized command and decentralized execution. We have won every war we have won due to the sum of the contributions of individual soldiers / sailors / airmen / etc. As a matter of fact, we used to brag about that before technology caught up and gave the leadership the opportunity to have centralized execution, also.
Our leadership will brag on Billy Mitchell, Gen Kenney, John Boyd, etc - but they will rarely model their won actions after those of their examples. No, our leadership is too concerned with making sure everyone on Base X wears the same blue uniform on Monday, with making sure our airmen's shirts are tucked in in their PT gear, with making sure that our Airmen wear their reflective belts and they don't wear their leatherman tools on their belts, etc.
If only they could focus on how to lead and develop true warriors. It was refreshing to read about a 25-yr old Capt who was allowed to go out and fully exploit the capabilities of the airpower with which the taxpayers entrusted him.
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