Field Order Follow-on

Everyone thinks of changing the world,
but no one thinks of changing himself
--Leo Tolstoy
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Ranger has also been thinking about operations orders at higher levels -- Battalion and above, leading to some speculation.

Since he was a pre-computer era soldier, all operations orders at all levels of command were hand-written by the operations officer. Often, they were cut-and-paste operations, but every order was given the consideration of human thought. He guesses (stress, guesses) that computer-generated orders may short-circuit these troop leading considerations, leaving glitches in the planning process.

If this is true (and even if not), all orders should be war-gamed before they are finalized and issued. War-gaming orders was a SOP advocated in Command and General Staff College in the 1980's. Ranger reckons this is still a truism.

When one understands the troop leading procedures that spawn an operation order, it is a simple matter to dissect and military action. For the sake of Ranger-simplicity, I used to use a simplifier for planning activities.

All activity would be divided into the following categories:

• Before

• During

• After

This simplicity put everything into clear perspective for all members of the action. Simply Movement To -- Actions On -- Actions After. This says it all. Being Ranger Simple can make things fun and easy.

Ranger hopes the Field Order exercise helped. It was a little trip down memory lane.