"Leadership and Training for the Fight" by MSG Paul Howe

• Boyd's Loop - Observe, Orient, Decide, Act
• "Observe" the enemy and their actions.
• "Orient" yourself or force into a more favorable position.
• "Decide" on your course of action.
• "Act" - take action.
• The first step in accelerating the loop at the individual level is to teach the person to observe, or become conscious of their surroundings.
• The further out we can see, the further out we can engage.
• You must see, before you can shoot.
• Look at the whole person first, see who it is, then collapse to the hands.
• Preemptively assume a tactically superior position.
• During movement try to expose as little of your body as possible for the shortest time possible and make yourself a small/hard target.
• Your team should have a decisive reaction drill to a contact and automatically deploy when taking fire. This should be a type of nonverbal communication.
• Team members must continually scan for cover, both individually and as a team.
• Drills needs to be in sections or modules so they can be easily remembered. The drill should be simple, generally the same each time and easy to execute.
• Develop five worse case core scenarios that are likely to happen and develop tactics to solve these problems.
• ROE should be designed for the lowest member of the element to understand and react to a threat in an efficient manner.
• A page of writing in the mind of a private is too much information.
• The private should have a streamlined ROE that enables him to make a split second decision that will weigh in his favor.
• An individual needs to know when they can pull the trigger and when they cannot.
• If you feel your life or the life of another is in imminent danger of death or serious bodily harm, you can use deadly force to protect yourself or others.
• Decisiveness at the individual level should be rewarded and reinforced, not punished.
• Simulations should not be limited to the individual level, but must also be required of the command personnel.
• Only extraordinary leaders take initiative and seek out leadership training.
• For every time you fire live rounds, you need to practice dry two or three times. You must also understand that muscle memory requires 2,000-3,000 repetitions to help master a single skill.
• Begin with a class on the drill, move to an area where you can dry practice. Once you have the concept down, move to simunitions or paintball and live role players. Then take the drill to live fire.
• Only when a team leader demonstrates their incompetence, should an organizational leader step in and take control.
• Understand Boyd's loop and where you can cut time in an effort to make you more efficient.
• Understand you must see before you can shoot.
• Know when to change from a surgical mindset to a combat mindset. Discuss before you go into harm's way. Otherwise, as a leader let them know when to shoot be setting the example.
• Developing "Controlled aggression" is a key factor in combat mindset. That is, channelizing their fear, anger, and anxiety into a focused mental package.
• Success will require countless rehearsals and constant maintenance training to hone your individual and collective skills.
• Learn to focus and the task at hand and solve one problem at a time.
• You need to go into combat expecting people to shoot at you and not be naive to this danger.
• Develop a "fight through" mentality.
• When training with simunitions or paintball and you get hit, fight through.
• Never allow a soldier to quit on their own.
• Your job as a leader is to "live the example" for all to see and aspire to be.
• Effective combat leaders should require their troops to be aggressive in combat and hold them to it in training.
• Develop one combat mindset for all situations.
• Practice fighting through and never giving up.
• When using combined forces, require all assets to practice movement techniques as a group and not individual elements.
• There are two things in life that one cannot control, where you were born and who your parents are. Everything else, we have influence over. Each of us has the ability to chart our own course. What plays an important part is how much sacrifice and hard work you are willing to do to get there.
• Politicians and military leaders will continue to put our forces in dangerous situations and it is up to the individual and team to ensure their own survival.
• Before you can become leader, you must first learn to influence and master the physical, emotional, technical, and if you will, spiritual side of yourself.
• Life is not fair. Get used to it.
• The real world won't care as much about yourself-esteem as your school does.
• Sorry, you won't make $40K a year right out of high school.
• If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
• Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity.
• If you screw up, you are responsible.
• You are not immortal.
• Realize right now, that you are the only one in control of your life.
• Sometimes you just need to look around and see what progress you're making for the effort you're putting out.
• We get out of life what we put into it.
• In the physical arena, it generally takes 2000-3000 repetitions for muscle memory to refine or instill a desired movement or action.s
• Perfect practice makes perfect.
• Keep your life as simple and efficient as possible.
• Failure is only an opportunity to excel.
• Learn not to worry, but to channelize worry, anxiety, or dread into positive action that will enable you to succeed.
• Failure to put in the desired time and effort will reward you with only middle of the road performance.
• Too many times we look at others with envy for a perceived talent or skill and fail to see the hard work and sacrifice they put toward their success.
• At the individual level, you need to get out of your comfort zone and push your limits.
• Human nature is to seek the status quo.
• Pulling a trigger is easy. Humping the load over the distance is where you find out who will be on the ambush site to pull the trigger with you.
• If you condition yourself to stop when feeling discomfort and not pain, you're setting yourself up for failure. You're not only training your body to stop, but more importantly, it trains your mind to give in.
• By properly planning and rehearsing, you take away all the excuses and realize that you have all that is necessary to succeed or fail.
• The maximum effective range of an excuse is zero meters.
• Sometimes leaders don't know what they don't know.
• You can be aggressive and still be polite.
• When life gets tough and it looks like to gators are going to get you, step back, take a deep breath, and start killing them one at a time, usually the closest one first.
• Plan where you want to go and how you're going to get there.
• Get out of your comfort zone and develop a mental toughness to help you weather the hard times.
• Do not "gaggle", there is always something you and your team can contribute, even if it is only pulling security.
• The team's performance, training, motivation, and attitude are a direct reflection of the team leader's drive and professionalism.
• All members of a tactical team are trigger pullers first.
• The first priority should go to neutralizing the threat and then caring for the injured.
• A pitfall for team leader selection is appointing team leaders for anything other than their performance,
• Live the example for your team to see.
• Continually train your junior leaders to fill the next position.
• A leader must be able to look a subordinate or superior square in the eye and tell them what the problem is and what needs to be fixed.
• Pray before the fight, or after the fight, but during the fight, you fight.
• Effective leaders do their best to ensure that a clear, quick, and efficient communication process is always available.
• My job as a leader is to promote and exploit all the brainpower of my subordinates. No matter where the idea comes from, if it works, use it.
• As a leader, you need to do some serious soul searching and personally establish what price you are willing to pay to bring your men home,
• Ask your leadership a simple question before conducting combat operations, "How many people are you willing to kill to get us out?"
• Ensure religious issues are addressed prior to combat operations.
• Remove leaders who cannot make the hard peacetime decisions. They will fail in combat.
• Develop simple drills or a system that will apply to all the missions with minor changes.
• You must learn to ignore the dead and injured and concentrate on neutralizing the threat or you will have more dead and wounded.
• After action reviews are critical to extracting lessons learned and ensuring that honesty,integrity, and candor are always held to a high standard within the force.
• The key to successful briefings are to keep them professional, sterile, and not allow finger pointing.
• Train as you fight.
• Validate all tactics and drill prior to combat.
• "Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity," -- Patton
• The planning system you choose should be generic, flexible, and fast.
• True leaders don't punch time clocks. They come as early and stay as late as needed to get the job accomplished,
• "Self-service versus selfless-service" This is the simplest way I can describe the difference between the manager and the leader.
• As a leader, surround yourself with competent and aggressive sub-unit leaders and then empower them to do your job.
• If you don't have a good leader, tell them face-to -face.
• Make the hard right choices a leader.
• Put more effort in than less.
• Surround yourself with strong effective leaders.
• Consul regularly both good and bad.
• If someone fails to make the grade after multiple counselings, document and fire them. Don't pass them on and poison the well.
• There are no guarantees in combat.
• Be aggressive.
• Always stay in the fight and never give up.