The Road to Safwan: The 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry in the 1991 ...

244 The Road to Safwan
forces) Tracking System, and an array of sophisticated communication
systems ensured that, in theory, the officer of Operation
Iraqi Freedom was never far from his superior’s observation
and direction. At the Army’s Command and General Staff College
this idea of centralized control was reinforced. An emphasis
on educating staff officers and future commanders in the theory
of war and ideas such as initiative and agility, taught in the
late 1980s, gave way to mind-numbing repetitions of the “military
decision making model,” a process guaranteed to insure
that creativity and flexibility would not find their way into military
operations. In reality, as the United States Army rediscovered
in Iraq in 2005, this centralized approach to military operations
was impossible. Whether leading small patrols in Baghdad
or negotiating with a village leader in a distant province, competent
leaders had to confront unanticipated situations and
make decisions based only on their own judgment, the mission,
and their senior commander’s intent. By 2006, sophisticated observers
were describing the “imperial corporal and lieutenant”
who had to make far-reaching decisions on the ground without
electronic supervision by leaders many miles away. The command
styles of Tom Rhame, Robert Wilson, Mike Bills, and Ken
Pope are those that the United States Army should emulate in its
increasingly active period of decentralized operations.
After his return from Desert Storm, Bob Wilson continued
to rise through the ranks. He was selected as the 1st Infantry Division’s
G3 and subsequently studied at the Army War College.
He returned to combat arms as commander of the 3rd Armored
Cavalry Regiment at Fort Bliss, Texas, and supervised its move
to Fort Carson, Colorado. He then served as the executive officer
to the commander of Training and Doctrine Command at
Fort Monroe, Virginia. Promoted to brigadier general in 1997,
he headed back to Fort Knox and served as the deputy Commanding
General and Commandant of the Armor School and
Center, followed by an assignment with Recruiting Command.
In 2000, the army promoted him to major general and assigned
him to the Middle East as Director of the Office of Military Cooperation-Egypt.
Working for the Commander of Central Command
and the American Ambassador in Cairo, he coordinated
U.S., coalition, and Egyptian training exercises as well as the ex-