Marshall Was Molded Into Iconic Leader
The Making of a Leader: The Formative Years of George C. Marshall. Josiah Bunting III. Knopf. 272 pages. $30
By Lt. Col. Joe Byerly
When reflecting on the achievements of the U.S. Army’s iconic leaders throughout history, it is common to focus solely on the achievements themselves or the way the leaders led after they reached the rank of general officer. While examining the character and leadership qualities of these senior Army leaders is valuable for today’s practitioners, it is even more beneficial to study the experiences, individuals and events that molded them into the leaders they became.
In Josiah Bunting III’s The Making of a Leader: The Formative Years of George C. Marshall, the author accomplishes this goal. He specifically examines Gen. George Marshall’s career before his tenure as Army chief of staff during World War II, focusing on the individuals, events and experiences that contributed to Marshall’s distinction in both military skill and leadership of ordinary people. The book traces Marshall’s journey from his time at Virginia Military Institute, through his early years as a junior officer in the Philippines, his service on staff during World War I and his leadership roles with civilians across the country.
One of the strengths of this book is that Bunting explicitly states the benefits Marshall gained through his relationships with his mentors and his assignments. For example, one of the many lessons Marshall gained from his interactions with Gen. John Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I, was his ability to accept honest feedback from subordinates.
As Bunting writes, “[Marshall] always singled out Pershing’s willingness to entertain vigorous and forthright criticism, provided it was (however vigorous in expression) disinterested; he never allowed it to prejudice him against the soldier who had spoken out.”
The role of timing and luck is another key theme in this biography. As an example, less than a year after 1st Lt. Marshall earned a place at the Infantry and Cavalry School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the chief of staff of the Army issued guidance that no one under the rank of captain would be accepted. Marshall had slipped in under the wire, and he began to build his reputation at the school. He ranked first in his class, learned planning on the same maps he would use during World War I and stayed on to cut his teeth as an instructor.
The Making of a Leader is an excellent book for junior officers in today’s Army who may not appreciate the importance of staff time or feel discouraged about their career prospects due to not receiving certain assignments or jobs.
Marshall’s career paints a different picture. It demonstrates that even the least desirable assignments can offer valuable lessons that will benefit those who are tasked with preparing the Army for future conflicts.
Lt. Col. Joe Byerly is an armor officer and commander of the 4th Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, Rose Barracks, Germany. He is the founder of the website From the Green Notebook and host of the From the Green Notebook podcast.
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Action in Vietnam Was a Fleeting Success
The Battle of Bong Son: Operation Masher/White Wing 1966. Kenneth White. Casemate (An AUSA Title). 288 pages. $34.95
By Lt. Col. James Willbanks, U.S. Army retired
Operation Masher/White Wing began on Jan. 24, 1966. It was the largest offensive operation of the Vietnam War to date, taking place just two months after the famous air cavalry action in the Ia Drang Valley.
In The Battle of Bong Son: Operation Masher/White Wing 1966, author Kenneth White provides a detailed narrative of the operation and its outcomes. White does that from a unique position, having served 18 months in Vietnam as an infantryman in the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)’s long-range reconnaissance patrol unit.
While the author’s experience gives him a unique perspective on the operation, this book is not a memoir. Drawing on extensive research from first-person accounts and official records, White provides an objective and comprehensive study of the operation and all its complexities.
Binh Dinh Province and the Bong Son Plain in the central lowlands along the coast of South Vietnam were communist strongholds in 1966. The 1st Cavalry Division commander, Maj. Gen. Harry Kinnard, launched Operation Masher/White Wing to force the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong to abandon their formerly “secure” base areas, thus laying the groundwork for the restoration of Saigon’s control of the population in the rich coastal plain.
To accomplish this, the operation would employ ground and air assaults, utilizing the firepower and mobility of U.S. forces to find, fix and finish the enemy.
After initial preparation and deception actions, newly promoted Col. Harold “Hal” Moore led a series of airmobile hammer-and-anvil operations against the North Vietnamese Army’s Sao Vang (“Yellow Star”) Division. For 41 days, U.S. and South Vietnamese troops were inserted into landing zones around the plain to flush the communists toward strong blocking positions established by the Marines in the northern end of An Lao Valley and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam in the southern end.
White notes that the operation was considered a success, resulting in enemy losses of more than 3,000 killed in action. To many at the time, the outcome of the operation proved that a heliborne force like the 1st Cavalry Division had the unique capability to conduct sustained operations against the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong across a wide area of operations.
However, White points out that any success was fleeting, because once allied troops withdrew, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops returned to Bong Son and reestablished strong positions in the area. Operation Masher/White Wing proved to be only the beginning of a long and bloody contest for control of Binh Dinh Province.
Operation Masher/White Wing set the pattern for many operations that followed, in which allied forces prevailed against enemy forces, only to depart the area once the operation was completed and allowing the enemy to reoccupy the areas just cleared. Therein lay the difficulty with prosecuting clearing operations with no intent to hold those same areas, a problem not unlike that which confronted coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Battle of Bong Son is an excellent account of an important operation that had an impact on how the war was fought by U.S. and South Vietnamese forces. White’s day-by-day and, in many cases, hour-by-hour, account of the fighting is well constructed and easy to follow.
This book is strongly recommended for readers who want a better appreciation of U.S. strategy and tactics in the Vietnam War.
Lt. Col. James Willbanks, U.S. Army retired, is professor emeritus of military history at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He served 23 years as an infantry officer, including a tour in Vietnam. He holds a doctorate in history from the University of Kansas and is the author or editor of 20 books, including Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War and A Raid Too Far: Operation Lam Son 719 and Vietnamization in Laos.
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Diverse ‘Rainbow Division’ Proved Doubters Wrong
Approach to Final Victory: America’s Rainbow Division in the Saint Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensives. Robert Thompson. Westholme Publishing. 296 pages. $35
By Col. Steve Patarcity, U.S. Army retired
It has been more than a century since the end of World War I and the Armistice of Nov. 11, 1918. The involvement of the U.S., although comparatively late in the war, was a decisive factor in the victory of the Allies over the Central Powers. In Approach to Final Victory: America’s Rainbow Division in the Saint Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensives, historian Robert Thompson offers the tale of one unit in the Great War: the famed 42nd Division of America’s Army National Guard and its 164 days in combat that so valiantly contributed to victory.
The division’s diverse population of soldiers from 26 states and Washington, D.C., gave rise to its nickname the “Rainbow Division” due to a remark by then-Maj. Douglas MacArthur that was picked up by American news media. A division consisting of men from across the nation was a calculated decision by Secretary of War Newton Baker, who wanted a division emblematic of the country to ensure that no single state would bear the total cost of war.
Thompson writes that although the performance of the 42nd during the war eventually received deservedly laudatory comments from Allies and the Germans, the initial assessments by American leadership were quite the opposite. Only a minority of the Army General Staff (including MacArthur) had the farsightedness to see that the National Guard would be critical to the war’s promulgation.
Yet even after the U.S. entered the war, doubts continued to be held about the division’s effectiveness due to a lack of combat experience, which generated a perception that its troops could only be used as replacements for Regular Army units. The soldiers of the 42nd, though, proved the doubters wrong.
Thompson’s extensive research—gleaned from after-action reports, personal journals and letters, oral accounts and official histories of the division and its regiments—and his passion for accuracy provide an exacting tale of the division’s battles in the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne campaigns.
This account, measured at times in literal feet and yards gained by the division’s combat and supporting units, detailed down to the company and platoon levels, had me referring frequently to the maps accompanying the narrative of the action to get the full picture of the author’s efforts.
Thompson also is at times brutally frank in his assessment of Allied and American leadership and staff, whose poor planning, coupled with inexperience and a new way of waging war, caused unnecessary and heavy casualties. Despite all this, plus horrific weather and stiff enemy resistance, the Rainbow Division ended up leading in the Saint Mihiel Offensive and making a major contribution in the Meuse-Argonne Campaign.
Approach to Final Victory is a compelling story of a great American unit of citizen-soldiers. It will be a welcome addition to any library collection on the Great War.
Col. Steve Patarcity, U.S. Army retired, is a civilian strategic planner on the staff of the Office of the Chief of Army Reserve, the Pentagon. He retired in 2010 after 33 years of service in the active Army and the U.S. Army Reserve, which included military police and armor assignments in the U.S., Kuwait and Iraq.
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Warrior Shares His Self-Esteem, Missteps
Chop that Sh*t Up!: Leadership and Life Lessons Learned While in the Military. Command Sgt. Maj. Daniel Pinion, USA Ret. Koehler Books. 182 pages. $24.95
By Command Sgt. Maj. Jimmie Spencer, U.S. Army retired
Chop that Sh*t Up!: Leadership and Life Lessons Learned While in the Military, by retired Command Sgt. Maj. Daniel Pinion, is at times scary, thought-provoking, heartbreaking and amusing. It is a no-holds-barred look at life in the post-Cold War U.S. Army through the eyes of a warrior.
Pinion’s adventure began in the fall of 1990 at Fort Knox, Kentucky, where he received his Initial Entry Training. Upon graduation, he received the MOS of cavalry scout and became a member of the New Jersey National Guard. He soon discovered that the military was something he enjoyed. It fit his personality and his strong sense of patriotism.
The next fateful step was to return to the recruiting station and begin the process of moving from the National Guard to active duty. He spent the next 28 years and four months of his life as an active-duty soldier.
Every chapter in the book is a vignette from Pinion’s life as he progresses from young soldier to combat-tested senior leader. He seemingly holds nothing back. His self-esteem comes through loud and clear, as does his ability to admit when he has made a mistake. His missteps are shared with his teammates as lessons learned during leader development sessions.
Pinion served multiple combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan. His tours included working with special mission units conducting bold and dangerous missions. He proved to be a remarkable leader who led from the front and ensured that his soldiers were well prepared for every mission. His outstanding leadership did not go unnoticed. He received awards and was promoted and given leadership positions of increasing responsibility.
As the months of deployments became years of combat, he began to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. The heat, the sleepless nights and the loss of friends and teammates slowly took their toll. Fortunately, Pinion received the help he needed before it was too late. He was able to continue his career. He was able to advance to the highest rank an NCO can attain: command sergeant major.
Tragically, many soldiers and veterans aren’t as fortunate. Two of Pinion’s teammates died by suicide, and this book just may be in response to his therapist once recommending that he “write it down.” Many, too many, are not properly diagnosed or undiagnosed, and are fated to suffer from invisible wounds in silence. They live with depression and recurrent nightmares because of their selfless service to the nation. We collectively and individually need to ensure that help is provided.
Chop that Sh*t Up! is easy to read and hard to put down. It has something for everyone. It is a raw, inside glimpse at the Army in peace and war, as well as an intimate look at the Army’s not-so-secret weapon: the NCO corps. The lessons learned by the author during his time in uniform are important and will stand the test of time.
Did I mention that it is also funny?
Command Sgt. Maj. Jimmie Spencer, U.S. Army retired, held assignments with infantry, Special Forces and Ranger units during his 32 years of active military service. He is the former director of the Association of the U.S. Army’s NCO and Soldier Programs and is an AUSA senior fellow.