Warriors in Peace Operations - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

teamwork I felt we could generate by retaining the identity
of the battalion was more important than the convenience
and symbolism of relocating to the brigade Headquarters.
Also, I anticipated that in the long term, we needed to
remain a combat battalion, continuing to train and
maintain, and not take on the identity (and image) of a rear
operations type unit. Colonel Fontenot allowed me to make
the call.
About this time, the really difficult problems began for
the battalion. As I stated before, we had made a great effort
to get our tentage and stoves squared away. We began to be
levied for this and other equipment to fill the shortages of
deploying units. We also had to begin reassigning some of
our people to deploying units. We had cross-leveled
personnel to A Company to fill their shortages, and that had
created second and third order effects in the other
companies. Now we began to get levies for low-density
specialties and other special needs. We had to give up our
mortar platoon leader and about half of the already short
platoon, and we had to create a Brigade S-5 section. These
and other personnel changes created domino effects
throughout the battalion.
All these changes left me with essentially a new team of
new teams. Although most of my key leaders stayed in
place, most of their units and sections underwent extensive
changes in personnel and roles. Our battalion’s mission had
changed, and we modified our organization to take on the
role of deploying the brigade and running the rear
detachment.
Given the situation, I felt I needed to do some significant
team development and decided a method I could use would
be assigning missions and tasks to allow my company
commanders and staffs to rebuild their teams. Therefore,
we gave each company a railhead to run, upload site to
conduct, installation to secure, or some other important
mission, thus exercising troop leading procedures and
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