by Matt Rasmussen
There’s an old adage you’ve likely heard, “The Army is not about people, it is people.” Army leaders and soldiers pay attention to endstrength more than any other service because people are the power behind everything the Army does. And because people are so critical to the Army, leadership is the fundamental action that Army leaders must understand and master in the course of their career. Leadership provides soldiers and junior leaders the purpose, direction, and motivation to execute the tasks to fulfill the mission, large or small.
If the Army is people, the Army is also family…and I’d like to tell you about mine. My family is an Army family. We count at least twenty of us who have served and most of those are combat veterans of World War I, World War Two, the Cold War, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Since 2001, between two uncles, myself, and three cousins, our family has almost continually had at least one member deployed. This rich history of mostly Army service was impressed on us mainly by my grandfather, BG (retired) Jim Shelton.
Matt Rasmussen has been a US Army Infantry Officer since 2001. He has served from platoon to division level in operational assignments and has had broadening assignments as a Small Group Instructor, Infantry Branch Assignment Officer, and ARCIC Staff Officer.
My grandfather was an infantryman whose career stretched from graduation from the University of Delaware in 1957 to his retirement in 1983. During that time he and my grandmother raised eight children and moved numerous times. He commanded at every level from company to brigade and retired as a Brigadier General after commanding the 4th ROTC Region at Ft Lewis, WA and serving as an Assistant Division Commander of the 8th Infantry Division in Germany. In Vietnam, he was a battalion S3 for 2nd Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division from 1967-68. My grandfather is a big guy, a former college football player, and has a big personality – one of those people who always runs into someone he knows and has never met a stranger.
I’ve often wondered what it would be like to go back in time to when my grandfather was a captain or major or lieutenant colonel and hear and see who he was and how he acted while doing the jobs I’ve done. I’ve heard much about his career and the things he did, but from the perspective of 20 or 30 years after the fact. Having now experienced many of the same experiences – key staff and command positions, combat, a growing family – I’ve always wondered how our outlook on Army life compares to one another.
A Voice from the Past
Imagine my surprise when digging into the archives of Infantry Magazine on the topic of combat vehicles, I stumbled across an article written by my grandfather in January 1990 on leadership. After sharing it with my family and rereading it a few times, I was struck how his insights on leadership corresponded with mine as I prepare for a command in the next year or so.
He writes about the power of a commander’s narrative, using the idea of a unit motto which communicates the vision of the commander and leaders. He uses the phrase “capture the imaginations of their men” as the goal for a commander. Imagine looking at unit leadership this way – how do I capture the imagination of my soldiers? Rather than looking at a list of tasks to complete in a day or writing a pages long command philosophy, what if you focused on trying to capture the imagination of your soldiers. If the soldiers are bought into the commander’s vision for the unit, imagine how powerful a team can become. Mission command becomes easy when the unit internalizes the commanders vision and intent.
But it is not enough to write a vision or say a vision and leave it at that. The commander and leaders must continue the drumbeat of the vision ALL THE TIME!
“This effort must be continuously reinforced-at the initial unit orientation, payday talks, training critiques, and every opportunity commanders have to talk to their men in groups.”
I once had a leader tell me, “Never forego the opportunity to talk to your formation. If the First Sergeant says, ’Sir, you got anything to add?’, you’d better take the opportunity to talk about what’s important.” And I’ve seen in numerous assignments now that simply saying a vision and intent once and then focusing on other things pretty much guarentees that no one will remember the guidance. Commanders have to get out, walk around, and spread their vision and intent by talking direct to soldiers and junior leaders.
Finally, I’d ask you to think about a larger aspect of this story and this article. Think about the generations of service that have been inspired by one man’s example – how this echo from the past highlights how the Army is its people. Generations of service have been inspired by one leader who left his mark not only on the units he led, but the family that grew from his example.
With permission from Infantry Magazine, I am happy to share my grandfather’s article from 1990:
“Esprit: Making It Work for You”
Brigadier General James E. Shelton, U.S. Army Retired,
Infantry Magazine, January – February 1990
As long as military units are made up of people, people will be their most important ingredient. What a unit commander must do is capture the imaginations of those people, harness their energies, and focus their actions on the unit’s mission. It is that focus – combining desired actions – that will provide the teamwork necessary to the unit’s success.
Many techniques can be used to capture the imaginations of the soldiers in a unit, such as stories from the unit history, battle streamers, or examples of heroism and self-sacrifice. The commander must believe in his examples and make his presentations convincing and sincere. This effort must be continuously reinforced – at the initial unit orientation, payday talks, training critiques, and every opportunity commanders have to talk to their men in groups.
Soldiers like to be reminded of their organization, because it is through the organization that they receive most of their personal recognition. They want to “have a home” and be proud of their unit; and they enjoy it most when their leaders talk to them face to face about their organization.
In commanding two rifle companies, an infantry battalion, and an infantry brigade, I found that unit slogans helped capture the soldiers’ imaginations and focus their behavior. The first unit was Company D, 1st Battle Group, 7th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, in the late 1950s after the Korean War. At that time in Korea, the rifle company had about 80 U.S. soldiers and 120 Koreans (under the Korean Augmentation to the U.S. Army, or KATUSA)
Since most of the Americans in the unit, including the leaders, felt sorry for themselves for being there, we had serious morale problems. Consequently, very little was done well. In particular, the physical conditioning of the soldiers was poor, and no one seemed to care.
Additionally, the most challenging tactical problem a commander faced in Korea was climbing the hills. The only way to be in good physical condition was to practice climbing them. Normal physical training would not do it.
So I tried to capture the imagination of the troops by adopting the slogan “None Too Big” for our company. And every day for PT, we climbed a mountain we called “Charlie Block.” The first day, it took us two hours, but within four months we were doing it in 40 minutes.
During the annual Army Training Tests (ATTS, which are now called ARTEPs), our company finished the attack phase – seizing a series of hills – an hour ahead of any other company in the division. The other leaders and I hated to climb those hills, too, but after we were able to capture the imaginations of our men, we had to run to catch up with them.
The second slogan I used was while commanding Company D, 2d Battle Group, 501st Airborne Infantry, 82d Airborne Division in the early 1960s. At that time the Army was rebuilding itself from the throes of the strategy of ”massive retaliation,” the days when most of the defense budget had gone to bombers and missiles.
The early 1960s were an exciting time, and the 82d Airborne Division had filled itself with a large number of gung ho young paratroopers. We also had an excellent crop of career NCOs. It was a time when most of the senior NCOs lived in the barracks, few if any soldiers were married, and few soldiers had cars. Our biggest problem was that some of the men would go on pass and stay away – many times for 29 days, or just before they would have been dropped from the rolls as deserters. These men were good soldiers when they were soldiering, but I needed to capture their imaginations. The company adopted the slogan “We’ll Be There.”
This meant we (all of us) would always be where we were supposed to be, and on time. At reveille, at work formations, seizing an objective, carrying out a work detail – “We’ll Be There.” One of our platoon sergeants wrote a “jody” cadence to it and we sang “We’ll be there” on our daily runs. The platoons posted the slogan on their wall lockers. As a result, Company D was the first rifle company in the division at that time to go 30 days with no AWOLs and no delinquency reports. It wasn’t the commander or the leaders who did it. We simply captured the imaginations of the men in the unit and focused their behavior. They didn’t do everything perfectly, but they did kick the AWOL habit.
In the early 1970s, I commanded the 1st Battalion, 505th Infantry, 82d Airborne Division for two years. It as a hard time for the Army. The Vietnam War had just ended, and enthusiasm was at a low ebb. The Army was practically out of control, including the division. It was the time of “do your own thing,” drugs, nighttime terror, and racial problems. The men did not look or act like soldiers, and many of our professional NCOs had been ground out in the Vietnam mill.
The slogan we chose was “Get It Together.” We were the 505th Panthers and we had a unit history that wouldn’t quit; our most serious problem was a lack of trust and faith in each other. The lack of discipline manifested itself in drug use and racial problems. The slogan “Get It Together” had a definite appeal, because no man-white, black, Hispanic, or any other wanted to be in a unit where the soldiers had no trust or respect for each other.
We were not perfect, but the slogan had meaning to the key leaders and men of the unit, and it helped us at a time when we desperately needed help.
In the late 1970s, I found myself commanding a mechanized infantry brigade – two mechanized battalions and one tank battalion – in the newly activated 24th Infantry Division at Fort Stewart. My predecessor in the 2d Brigade had built and trained a solid mechanized infantry brigade. Now I wanted to capture the imaginations of its soldiers.
When the division received its high priority mission for rapid deployment as part of the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF), we decided to call our brigade the “Vanguard” Brigade – out in front of the rest. And since the 24th Infantry Division was the “Victory” Division, our slogan was “Vanguard to Victory.”
I believe the 3,000 men who were in the “Vanguard” Brigade remember it because we were able to capture their imaginations, harness their energies, and focus their behavior on the unit’s mission.
The leaders of each brigade, battalion, and company should always be trying to capture the imaginations of their men. They should not overlook meaningful and sincere slogans that can help focus the unit on its predominant problem or effort at a given time.
The power of people – combined and focused on desirable behavior – can make any unit a winner. And in the infantry, what it takes is weapon system proficiency, physical conditioning, and focused leaders and soldiers.
Brigadier General James E. Shelton, who retired in 1983, served in eight divisions and the Berlin Brigade. He is a Combat infantryman and a Master Parachutist.
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