Due to some technical issues provided by Glassboard (the online platform we WERE using for A Summer with Grant), this post is a week later than intended. Once we moved over to Google’s much more user-friendly — and dependable — Communities, we provided our participants an extra week to post their comments and join in the conversation on chapters 3-5 of Grant’s Memoirs. Like last week, this post will wrap up some overall themes generated across the groups…but to begin, here’s the opening thought/question we posed to the #GrantSummer crew for Week 2:

This week’s reading discussed Grant’s time as a new officer in the US Army before the Mexican War. He seems to spend significant time describing a peacetime army, as well as his thoughts about the causes of, and underlying reasons for, the Mexican War…from the Army of Occupation to the Army of Invasion. He also discusses many aspects of good (and bad) leaders. These few chapters are a great example of Grant’s ability to discuss everything from the administrative to the tactical, operational to the political. For example, in Chapter IV, U.S. Grant writes the following about the Army of Occupation:

“The rank and file were composed of men who had enlisted in time of peace, to serve for seven dollars a month, and were necessarily inferior as material to the average volunteers enlisted later in the war expressly to fight, and also to the volunteers in the war for the perseveration of the Union.” (p.49)

In this sentence, he alludes to the difference between a “peace-time” and a “war-time” military. Some would argue that a peace-time military tends to develop bad habits that degrade combat effectiveness, because as time marches forward, units lose combat experience within the ranks and training doesn’t necessarily reflect the realities of war. With a decrease in the operational tempo of forces, sequestration budgets, and a reduction of the size of the military, we may quickly become a “peace-time” military.

What are some of the traits that you would say characterize a peace-time military that we must guard against and what can we do to avoid them while we still have combat experience in the ranks?

The most prevalent themes this week included:

Change During War vs. Peacetime

A topic that is frequent in discussions about the last decade of conflict is how quickly things changed and how our military forces adapted (as well as how the enemy adapted). It has almost become cliché to say “necessity is the father of invention” in context to tactical adaptations during war. But our participants, looking at Grant’s time prior to entering Mexico and leading up to entering the conflict, had many discussions on whether it is easier (or better) to change during war or peace. One of the responses took what was a tactical discussion and quickly moved it up to a political and strategic level (which I greatly appreciate, given my present function in the military profession):

“we should understand that quality personnel will likely be affected by the legitimacy in which we fight (military domain) and deploy (political). I don’t have a perfect answer for making a peace-time military better, but at least we should know that politics can affect each service’s desire to train, deploy, and become the ablest they can be.”

Another great comment took on the idea that the institutional and/or organizational aspects of change could even happen outside of war, with the participant coming down squarely in the camp that peacetime change is the BEST time for military reform:

“Peacetime, outside of its obvious benefits, is not a time when a military degrades. It is a time when a military has an opportunity to reform. During war, militaries gain scaled efficiencies in the combat environments they are operating in. Their ability to fight other wars atrophies.”

“Professionals” vs. Volunteers

Another great theme that was discussed — and I’ll admit was one that I spent the most time bandying about — was that of the view of his contemporary “professional” or “regular” soldiers and those that volunteered after the outbreak of war. What would surprise most folks today is that he was more positive about volunteer (or temporary) soldiers over those that chose it as a profession. There are many societal and economic reasons for this in the mid-19th century, but as one participant mentioned:

“What surprised me was Grant’s estimation of “professional” soldiers versus those that volunteered once war with Mexico broke out (and he alludes to the same dynamic later in the War of Rebellion). On page 114, “The rank and file [professional soldiers] were probably inferior, as material out of which to make an army, to the volunteers that participated in all the later battles of the war; but they were brave men, and then drill and discipline brought out all there was in them…The volunteers who followed were of better material, but without drill or discipline at the start.” I’m not sure most people would be able to say the same of the demographics of today.”

Overall, there was quite a bit of give-and-take around what it means to be a soldier and whether such views are applicable to today’s military.

Wartime Operational Leaders vs. Peacetime Managers

As Grant moved into, experienced, and then moved beyond the war with Mexico, he discussed the qualities of the leaders around him (as well as his own leadership failures and successes). This led to discussion about the qualities of wartime versus peacetime leaders. Are there qualities that succeed in one environment but not the other? Is there a difference between good leadership traits for wartime leaders and peacetime leaders?

If so, which should we promote and educate? How does wartime experiences effect peacetime, and peacetime experiences effect wartime? One such probing question by a participant provided a great synopsis of the dichotomy:

“I think that as we move further away from an experience (combat), militaries tend to over focus on the “What” and “How” and lose focus of the “Why”. Everyone learns the practice without understanding the theory behind it.”

Additionally, someone mentioned possible self-selection by soldiers themselves:

“The peacetime Army seems to draw more administrative leaders and the wartime Army brings out the operational leader.”

Week 3 — Leaders at War (Chapters 6-15)

The upcoming week will be one many of our participants are quite familiar with — the anxiousness, excitement, and lessons to be gained in war. Even more than that, Grant provides amazing leadership lessons in his analysis and descriptions of the military giants he serves under once crossing the Rio Grande. Here’s the prompt we’ll be providing our participants for this week:

At this point we’re 16% through the book — with only have 5 weeks left in the program! There have been amazing discussions on leadership and the changing nature of professionalism and the military the last few weeks. We appreciate those that have stuck with it and provided great content for thought and discussion.

This week we’ll be digging into the portion of Grant’s Memoirs that focus on his experiences in the Mexican War…a war that he both personally disagreed with and that set up the war he will soon (in our mind) successfully close at Appomattox. Not surprisingly, Grant continues to provide us with snapshots of war and leadership from the tactical through strategic levels. Pay close attention to his assessments of Worth, Taylor, Scott, and his own leadership abilities — as well as their failures. For example, when analyzing Taylor, Grant says, “No soldier could face either danger or responsibility more calmly than he. These are the qualities more rarely found than genius or physical courage.” I think many who have analyzed his command style — one we will be getting to later in his Memoirs — see this trait in Grant himself. Lessons learned when a young officer, possibly…

Don’t get bogged down in the tactical actions and place names. If you read closely, you’ll find many of the same themes we’ve touched on before — and will likely find as we continue on. Pay particular attention to the closing few chapters in this section; Grant does a masterful job closing out his lessons from the Mexican War and preparing for the opening of the “War of Rebellion,” including the relationship dynamics that will play such a crucial role on both sides.

This week we’ll not constrain you with a question. Instead, select one of the passages on leadership in war that resonates the most with you. Discuss why you think it’s important and if it is applicable today.

Also, just a reminder, in two weeks there is a heavy reading load (about 200 pages), so plan accordingly!