Drill and Ceremonies. Should we start bringing this back into the ranks?

Maj John Bell - But every Soldier has been to Basic AND AIT by the time I get them. By the time they come to USASOC, the training wheels are off. You advocate going back to training wheels when they've already passed that stage by the time they arrive at their permanent units.

I'll bet you that I've prepared to fight a near-peer adversary more recently than you have sir.

Russian and Chinese proxies are not "near-peer" and would likely engage us in unconventional means so as to avoid dying quickly. And embarrassingly.

And frankly, your Cold War roots are showing. Russia was not capable of engaging the US decisively for at least the last decade of the USSR's existence, and you almost certainly know that. China stands to lose more than it gains from open conventional conflict and everyone except the late Tom Clancy knows this as well.

And with regards to what the Pentagon is planning for, I previously asked you that if Battalion and Brigade level commanders were letting the skill atrophy, it was likely because they saw no need for it, or at the very least, low return on investment. And further, the Pentagon has typically been woefully UNprepared for any war the US itself didn't initiate, so to that point, the only way we will be prepared to fight Russia or China is if we start the fight.

Again and finally: tactical movement is good. Drill and Ceremony is moire than useless, it's wasteful.

Take it easy and God bless!

1LT William Clardy - And how often do we need to march anyone anywhere? To the DFAC? No. To the Motor Pool? Too far. From the barracks to the office? Not practical.

SFC Marcus Belt, motor pools and classrooms are not always "too far" to walk (or march). It never hurts to remember how to use the tools in your belt.
Does your silence on my second point mean you don't disagree with the notion that military ceremony still has practical value?

1LT William Clardy - Soldiers tend to fall into one of two groups, I think of them as "Military Focused" and "Mission Focused". Military focused Soldiers tend to enjoy the ceremony, the tradition, the folderol associated with military service in addition to accomplishing missions.

Mission focused Soldiers tend to see the traditions and ceremonies as distractions.

I'm in the latter camp. When we go to work, people die. It's the most serious business on earth. I feel that the profession of arms should be the most pragmatic, most ruthlessly reductionist in our lines of effort, most results-oriented profession in the world. Warfare isn't getting simpler or easier, and even when we get it right, our Nation spends very very precious blood and treasure.

My experiences lead me to conclude that per-Soldier, the most lethal formations in our Army spend the least time on ceremonies. Many of our traditions and ceremonies are rooted in a time when armies spent most of their time NOT at war. That ship has long since sailed. Maybe it sailed in 1914, perhaps as late as 1945, but certainly post-Vietnam. Peacetime is an animal that doesn't exist.

To sum: if the tradition or ceremony, or tactic or procedure makes sense, makes us more lethal or more likely to survive combat, then we keep it. If not, it goes away.

The strength of the Nation is its Army: the Army's mission is to deter war and win in combat, when called upon. That which is tangential to that must be relegated to the ever-growing-but-still-not-big-enough pile of "stuff we used to do".

And in the interest of full disclosure, I was a Battalion Color Sergeant for two years and enjoyed it a great deal.

Didn't do much to make the enemies of the United States tremble though.