Neal Bunkum

Brother, you're absolutely right, and the frustrating part is that many of these same principles were still SOP when I was working with the Scorpion team at the National Training Center during the 2010s and into the 2020s. We always taught this stuff, especially when working with mechanized units. We'd tell these guys, hey, look, you've got M577s. Those vehicles have a tremendous amount of combat potential. You've got radios, digital text communications, BFT (Blue Force Tracker), and all kinds of other digital communications systems that can be installed in these vehicles. They've got the battery power, electrical capacity, and combat potential to support these systems. So why aren't we taking full advantage of that? You've got laptop computers, digital battlefield tracking systems, radios, communications equipment, and all this other technology that can be integrated into these vehicles. You've also got antenna systems that can be raised and retracted with the push of a button. All of these capabilities can support a functional command post without requiring an entire tent city. And here's another thing. If you position these vehicles within approximately 50 meters of one another, depending on the tactical situation, you can maintain the synergy of the command team and the command post. Your S1, S2, S3, and S4 can coordinate directly, exchange information, and maintain a common understanding of what's happening. You can literally say, "Attention in the TOC!" and everybody understands what's going on. Everybody hears the important information, understands the commander's priorities, and knows what's happening across the staff sections. You've got your laptop computers, digital communications, Blue Force Tracker, battlefield maps, and all these other capabilities working together. You can establish a command table in the middle, connect the necessary communications equipment, and give the battalion commander the ability to monitor the battlefield and make decisions. Throw camouflage over those vehicles, establish your communications, and you've got a functional command post that can still relocate when necessary. The whole point was to have a command post that was functional, mobile, and survivable while maintaining the coordination and effectiveness of the command team. But once these units started getting DRASH tents, DRASH systems, and all this other equipment, things started changing. They began wiring everything together, expanding their headquarters, and before long, these command posts started looking like mobile homes. It was just like, damn, what are we doing here? And then you had a lot of OCs assessing these units based on their ability to establish these elaborate tent cities. How quickly could they set everything up? How well was all the equipment functioning? How were the staff sections organized? How was the command team operating together with all their functional equipment? It became about who had the nicest looking command post and how well everything worked once it was established. Meanwhile, the mobility aspect was disappearing. We went from evaluating whether a command post was functional, mobile, and survivable to evaluating how effectively a headquarters could operate while sitting in one place. And here's something else people need to understand. A lot of the OCs who brought these concerns to the attention of leadership were ostracized for it. Why? Because the U.S. government had invested all this money into these systems and equipment, and they wanted to see that equipment being used. They wanted to see these capabilities demonstrated during training. But just because the government purchases a piece of equipment doesn't automatically mean that equipment is appropriate for every operational environment. And at that point, we were coming out of years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan against adversaries who generally didn't possess the same reconnaissance, electronic warfare, counterbattery, and precision strike capabilities that a peer adversary would have. We were fighting opponents who couldn't necessarily identify and destroy these large command posts the way a modern military could. So we became comfortable. We started building these elaborate headquarters because we could get away with it in those environments. But that doesn't mean those practices would survive against Russia, China, or another technologically capable adversary. We allowed the operational environment of the wars we were fighting to influence how we prepared for wars we might eventually have to fight. And here's the part that really bothers me. I still communicate with some of my buddies who are working at the National Training Center right now. I also stay in contact with guys back home, and we regularly discuss the lessons we're learning here in Ukraine. I'm telling these guys what we're seeing. We're discussing command post survivability, electronic warfare, drone threats, communications, mobility, dispersion, and all the other things that have fundamentally changed the modern battlefield. And from the conversations I'm having, many of these problems still aren't being adequately addressed. They're not changing enough, and that's what concerns me. For me, this is something I take personally. As a retired senior leader of the United States Army, it genuinely troubles me to see this happening. We're talking about failures that can be corrected. We're talking about lessons that can be incorporated into doctrine, training programs, standard operating procedures, and professional military education. These are things we can change. And making those changes could save the lives of American soldiers, NCOs, and officers in a future conflict. That's what makes this so frustrating. We're not talking about some theoretical future battlefield that nobody understands. I've spent four years here in Ukraine witnessing firsthand what happens when military formations operate under persistent drone surveillance, electronic warfare, and modern precision strike threats. We're seeing the consequences of these vulnerabilities every single day. And yet, we're still having to explain why large, static headquarters with concentrated personnel, vehicles, antennas, and communications equipment are dangerous. How many more lessons do we need before we actually start changing the way we train and operate? And I'll tell you something else. I'm very happy I stumbled across the Raised to Black page. I really am. Because we're finally having realistic conversations about these issues. We're bringing together people with experience from different generations of military service, different operational environments, and different conflicts. You've got people like yourself who served in the Fulda Gap during the Cold War, people who worked at our Combat Training Centers, and people like me who have spent years here in Ukraine. And we're all discussing many of the same fundamental problems. That should tell us something. I hope people are reading these conversations and understanding why they're important. We need to have these discussions. We need to challenge outdated assumptions. And we need to stop treating criticism of our training methods and doctrine as some kind of personal attack against the institution. Pointing out a problem isn't disloyalty. Ignoring a problem that could cost soldiers their lives is what should concern us. We need to have a serious sit down with the senior command teams of the United States Army and our joint forces. We need to bring together the people responsible for doctrine, training, force development, professional military education, and operational planning. And we need to tell them, look, we have to change things. We cannot keep doing things simply because that's how we've always done them. We cannot keep evaluating units based on their ability to establish elaborate headquarters while failing to adequately test whether those headquarters could survive against a modern adversary. We cannot keep ignoring lessons that are being demonstrated in Ukraine every single day. And we certainly cannot afford to wait until American soldiers start dying before we decide these problems deserve serious attention. We're running out of time, brother. That's the reality of it. So that's just my opinion, based on my experience working with the Scorpion team at NTC and what I've witnessed during four years here in Ukraine. And I sincerely thank you for your comments, my friend. Your experience with the 11th ACR and V Corps during the Cold War reinforces something that really needs to be understood. A lot of these lessons aren't new. We knew them decades ago. We taught them at our Combat Training Centers. Somewhere along the way, we stopped making them a priority. God bless you, brother, and thank you for contributing to this conversation.

Well, Colonel, I can tell you some of the answers that you're looking for here, and people are not going to like hearing them. There have to be radical changes to the way we do things, or we're going to lose a significant number of senior military personnel in our brigade command posts, along with artillery personnel conducting direct and indirect fire missions. The amount of losses is going to be staggering. And there's one thing I always say: we can always replace a tank, an armored personnel carrier, or a piece of equipment, but there's one thing we cannot replace, and that is experience. Senior NCOs, when they come through the ranks, have anywhere between 12 and 30 years of experience. Senior officers, lieutenant colonels and above, have anywhere between 18 and 30 years of experience as well. We can't replace those individuals when they go down with junior personnel. Experience is invaluable. We need to correct that promotion system so that the proper personnel are actually brought up through the ranks. The zero defect mentality is affecting the ability of our soldiers, NCOs, and officers to perform correctly because they operate in such a risk averse environment that they can't conduct themselves accordingly with our mission command principles, right? Our command posts are another serious problem. We're still putting these antenna farms and massive tent cities in the middle of a combat zone. We're not dispersing them. We're not making them mobile. Listen, against a peer adversary like Russia or China, if they detect one of these command posts, they're going to employ multiple effective means of trying to destroy them, whether through kamikaze drones or, even worse, ballistic missiles with cluster munitions that can affect a large area. Depending on the weapon, we're talking about effects that can extend across hundreds of meters, potentially threatening everything concentrated within that area. And they're going to hit it two or three times if necessary, just to make sure that the personnel, staff, and equipment in that area are completely destroyed. We have to have mobile command posts. If you can't put your critical command post equipment in a goddamn tracked vehicle or another suitable vehicle within a couple of minutes and get a couple hundred meters away from an anticipated impact site, then it's not effective anymore. Another thing is electronic warfare, visual signals, and communications. All of it has to be heavily protected, with strong encryption and appropriate communications security. We have to be able to camouflage and conceal our forces. These vehicles need to be as close to invisible to enemy detection as we can possibly make them. There has to be adequate dispersion so that even if the enemy gets a free shot and takes it, we lose only a small chunk of the command and control structure of a battalion, brigade, corps, or division. We cannot afford to lose the whole thing. These days, the enemy can operate FPV drones and other kinds of unmanned systems far beyond the traditional battlefield. Forty kilometers for a strike is not a conservative estimate anymore. It's a fact under the conditions we're seeing here in Ukraine. And we need to invest in short range air defense to be paired with headquarters and headquarters companies at the battalion and brigade levels. There need to be identified units that actually provide short range air defense and battlefield intelligence for the defense of these command posts. Our artillery should not be operating in any kind of unnecessary cluster because the enemy possesses counterbattery radar, and once we fire, the enemy can fire back. And in some circumstances, we don't even have to fire for the enemy to destroy these assets. If an enemy here in Ukraine sees a battery of 155 mm howitzers or MLRS launchers in a certain position, they can employ FPV drones very effectively. They're not necessarily going to hit one piece of equipment and then wait ten minutes to hit another. No. They're going to look at that position and say, okay, there are five critical pieces of equipment here. Let's launch 15 or 20 drones and try to take out all these targets simultaneously. That's the reality of modern warfare. You bring up a good point here, Colonel, and I hope the chain of command is understanding what you're saying. Because let me tell you, if they don't, we're going to have a lot of casualties in a future war against a peer adversary, and it's going to send shockwaves throughout the chain of command. Thanks for bringing this up, Colonel.