In article ,
(ArtKramr) wrote:

Subject: Instructors: is no combat better?
From: "Jim Baker"
Date: 3/9/04 9:32 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:


"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
.. .
On 09 Mar 2004 14:46:26 GMT, (ArtKramr) wrote:

Since I started this thread on instructors who have have combat
experience
versus those who have not, 100% of the replies were in favor of
instructors who
have never been to combat. Many state that they would rather have an
instructor
who was skilled at instructing suggesting that once you have been to
combat
you were automatically a bad instructor. Hard to buy.

That isn't what has been said. No one has suggested that having been
to combat made you a bad instructor. Some points that have been made
include:

1. Some course (such as UPT) are taught at a level that doesn't
require operational experience, let alone combat. Take-offs and
landings, basic formation, and instrument flying skills can be taught
by almost any graduate.

2. While combat experience might be good at the operational training
courses it isn't always available--long periods between wars have
often left a shortage of combat experienced folks.

3. Combat survival does not equate with instructional skill. Some
folks make good teachers and some make good warriors. Sometimes both
skills exist in the same person, but not always.

4. A mix of some combat vets and some non-combat experienced
instructors is more than adequate to inculcate the necessary combat
skills.

5. Technology has advanced since WW II. I know that is hard to
believe, but sixty years has resulted in some increased complexity in
war-fighting beyond the Browning .50 and the Norden bombsight. In some
training courses, the instructors are civilian contractors rather than
operational military.

There is another factor. when you have an instructor who has never
fought and
probably never will, and you know that you damn well will, he goes
down a
notch
in respect because he is in a job that "protects": him from combat
while
you
will soon be sent into the thick of it.. So when we all talk of
combat
experiences and one among us says " well I wasn't there, I was an
instructor
in the states" he is now out of the loop.. Not that his job wasn't
critically important. It sure was. . At any rate things sure have
changed
since
WW II. We considered a combat veteran as an instructor a gift from
the
gods.
Your mileage may vary.

Tactics are today. Doctrine is yesterday. Do the same thing more than
twice in combat and you are stereotyped and predictable. Survival
depends upon unpredictability and tactical creativity. Quite often
training by combat experienced instructors from last year or last war
might be counter-productive.

The intangible of demonstrated courage lends credibility, but it
doesn't equate with best training.

My mileage has most definitely varied--and there's been a lot more of
it.


Ed Rasimus

Bravo. Spot on point for point.

JB



Except that not much of it applies to WW II.

I don't disagree with you in that exception. Where I disagree is when
you appear to make accusations of cowardice or shirking against people
that were not in WWII, and thus operated in different, valid
environments.