Posted on 04/30/2005 4:10:56 PM PDT by A.A. Cunningham
Pace Passes Along Combat Lessons to West Point Cadets
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, April 28, 2005 – You could hear a pin drop as Marine Gen. Peter Pace told cadets at the U.S. Military Academy here about his experiences during the Vietnam War.
Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, meets with cadets before dinner at the U.S. Military Academy dining facility, West Point, N.Y., on April 27. He visited the academy to share advice and lessons he learned while in combat. Photo by Staff Sgt D. Myles Cullen, USAF
Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was doing more than telling war stories to an appreciative audience on April 27. He was passing along hard-won lessons to young leaders who in all likelihood could find themselves in combat next year.
Pace, whom the president has nominated to be the next chairman, spoke to a class of seniors studying the Constitution and law. The cadets will graduate May 28.
"You have earned the right to start at the bottom," Pace told the cadets.
He told them that it has been 38 years since he was commissioned out of the U.S. Naval Academy. He said he was old enough to be their dad, but he felt more like their running partner. "When I graduated, there was a war going on. As you graduate, there is a war going on," he said.
As his graduation approached in 1967, he said he wondered if he had made the right choice to go into the Marines and worried about how he would perform in battle. "I presume that you are wondering about the same things," he said.
Pace said the cadets who go into combat will know fear. "There were times in my Marine Corps career in Vietnam that I wished that I could've crawled up in my helmet and waited for my mom to call me home from the schoolyard," he said. "If you feel fear, it is natural."
But the cadets must remember they "are in the world's best Army" and will have the best training, equipment and troops in the world. "When you look to your left and your right and you see your soldiers looking back at you for leadership, you will instinctively know exactly what you need to do right then," he said.
Pace said the soldiers want to follow their leaders. "They want you to be good," he said. "They will cling to leaders who care about them."
Pace said the worst thing a new lieutenant in combat can do "is get yourself killed."
He said getting killed "is the easiest thing to do" in combat. "As a leader, you will have to decide who does what in life-and-death situations," he said. It is easy for a new leader to just do it.
"It's easier to do it yourself than to send one of your soldiers out and watch him get killed doing what you told them to do," Pace said. "But you've got to worry about more than one soldier and all of your soldiers are looking to you for leadership.
"They will do whatever you tell them to do," he continued. "They do not want you to do it for them. They need to have you, lieutenant, on the radio calling in the fire support, giving the direction, telling them what to do. They'll go do it. They understand the risks."
If a new lieutenant gets killed then "you have taken away their leadership and in thinking that you were being self-sacrificing, you have really done damage to your unit."
Pace said he has remained on active duty because of the debt he owes to Marines he served with in Vietnam. Pace arrived in Hue City, South Vietnam, and became a platoon leader in Golf Company, 5th Marines. There were only 14 Marines in his platoon. Of the 158 Marines in Golf Company when he arrived, only three - including himself - were not wounded.
Pace said he can still remember the names and see the faces of the Marines whom he served with in Vietnam. "I never want to lose that," he said. "Under the glass on my desk is a picture of Lance Cpl. Guido Farinaro of Bethpage, N.Y., a 19 year-old corporal killed by a sniper. He was the first Marine I lost in combat. I keep his picture as a reminder that he and Lance Cpl. Chubby Hale, and Lance Cpl. Buddy Travers and Cpl. Mike Witt and Staff Sgt. Willie Williams and all the others died following 2nd Lt. Pace's orders. I can never repay that."
Farinaro's death taught Pace another lesson. "We were on patrol and my immediate reaction was one of complete rage," Pace said when the sniper killed his Marine. "I called in an artillery strike on the village from which the fire came."
Between the time he called in the mission and the time the guns were laid and ready to fire, his platoon sergeant, who was on his second tour in Vietnam, said nothing. "He just looked at me," Pace said. "And I knew I was wrong, and he was right, and I called off the artillery barrage."
The unit swept through the village like it should have and found nothing but women and children. "I tell you that because I ask you to think through who you are - check your moral compass - as you get closer and closer to go into combat," Pace said. "The time to decide whether or not you will do what I almost did ... is not when one of your soldiers gets shot.
"Because the waves of emotion that roll over you are so strong, that if you are not holding onto an anchor that you have already thought through, you can get swept away," he said. "Thanks to Sgt. - now Sgt. Maj. Retired - Reed B. Zachary, I did not get swept away."
Finally, the general spoke about the duty and "sacred trust" to take care of soldiers. "As I look back on 38 years, my desire to take care of my Marines was sincere," he said. "I didn't always do as well as I could have, or should have, but I tried."
And his Marines sensed that and responded to it, the vice chairman noted. They knew they could trust him and "because they knew I cared, they performed at a level beyond anything I ever could have demanded from them."
Pace thanked the cadets for their service and congratulated them on their upcoming graduation. He told them there isn't another profession where the chief executive officer or corporate vice president would want to switch places with the newest employees in the company. But in the military, "all of the general officers" would.
Pace told the cadets to take whatever assignments they have received and do the absolute best job they can. "Because on that path are soldiers who are looking to you to be their leader," he said. "And they deserve every ounce of leadership skill that you have, just as much as any other soldiers anywhere else in our Army."
Biography:
Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, talks to cadets at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, N.Y., on April 27. He visited the academy to share advice and lessons he learned while in combat. Photo by Staff Sgt D. Myles Cullen, USAF
I think Pete Pace is going to make a great Commander of the JCOS, but sending any brand new second louie into combat without any training with his platoon is asking for trouble. It takes a few months to build up the trust and coordination needed to make an infantry platoon work right.
It also gives the platoon and the company CO time to see who's a natural, who will grow into the job, and the ones who just aren't cut out for the job.
In my time, I saw all three types. There were some you would run through a brick wall for the first day you met them. The next type were the ones who looked completely out of place, but grew into the job and became good officers. Then you had the ones that made people's fraglists. These were the incompetent and bullheaded ones who didn't have a clue and wouldn't listen to the platoon sergeant or anyone else.
The last classification all had the same thing in common: With stars in their eyes they thought they were the next Patton, when they would have gotten their arses kicked by the most incompetent Russian general.
I was in the navy. But I remember walking a shore patrol beat with the gold-stripe Chief Petty Officer of the sixth fleet. He said that if he had any advice to give to new officers, it was to listen to their noncoms. If they took advice from their LPOs, these gentlemen would bust their tail to make the officers look good.
That must have been an absolute humiliation for the US Army: to have its future leaders lectured on leadership by a Marine Corps general.
Pace might regret the publication of this piece during his confirmation hearings, a la Dems.
If those cadets are smart they'll heed General Paces' advice.
Hyperbole of the day.
Get real..
You didn't tell me he was there....I wanted his autograph.
What future grunt platoon leader wouldn't want to hear a future C,JCS talk about being a grunt platoon leader?
I was lucky enough to get two natural Second Louies and one, during our activation for Desert Shield/Storm, who grew up in a hurry. At first he looked hopeless. But with a little nudging from us non-coms, we got him pointed in the right direction. We never shipped overseas, but by the end of the activation, he was a good platoon leader.
Then there was the platoon leader they brought in for another platoon during my last summer camp for another platoon. I was the CO's Humvee driver and he told me to take this idiot back to the barracks while we were out in the field. He gave the louie a specific time to be back.
So I drive this guy in to the officer barracks at Fort Polk and he proceeds to spend an hour and 20 minutes of the 1:30 time limit we're supposed to be gone doing whatever. Then, we're supposed to pick up 4 guys who were doing sundry things at the CP and bring them back with us(btw: all these guys were in his platoon).
We get there, and the guys are waiting for chow. He orders them to load up and grabs them some MRE's. The Top gets into an argument with him that the chow truck will be back any minute. He doesn't care, he has to get the Humvee back in time. We haven't even gone a block when the chow truck passes us. I offer that we could turn around and give the guys a hotmeal. No!
We get back to our position in the field, and the guys in the back are thinking of various ways to stick a bayonet into this *sshole's back. We run into the XO, who had been one of the "natural" platoon leaders. The butterbar tells him his version, which was a complete lie, of what happened. The XO asked about the hot chow for his own platoon troops. The idiot said he'd gotten MRE's. The XO said it all, "That's **cking over your own troops."
Later, the XO took me aside and I told him what had happened. I respect that man to this day, but the idiot marked me that day. Fortunately, I ETS'd that same year, because he was determined to make my life a living hell if I stayed in the Guard. I got the last laugh though. In my final interview with the First Seargeant and CO, I ripped him to shreds and they both agreed with my argument.
... and why would that be? You think he just came uninvited? ggggeeeeezzzzzzz
And if that PO's some ring-knockers....good.
Humiliation? I don't think so, I think the word you're looking for is appreciation, appreciation for the fact that the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs felt strong enough about the men under his command to relate a story of a moment of weakness as a platoon leader.
I'd follow this guy.
Having zero military experience, I'm not sure what you mean. But, my father-in-law was a Marine pilot and squadron leader, and a best friend did 2 tough Vietnam tours in the Army, after gutting it through West Point. I think they would both find this story encouraging evidence of the status of their respective services. I know I do.
Best wishes to Gen. Pace, and his audience of new officers!
My friend tells the story of how they were ambushed at night and his first reaction was to call in flares so he could see better. The sergeant said "You know those flares that are going to help us see better, Do you think the Viet Cong might see us better too?" my friend didn't ask for the flares.
Roger that, jwalsh07 -- I have followed this guy. Peter Pace is an outstanding officer and a very fine man. He will lead all of the services well, and will continue the Bush/Rumsfeld transformation of the Defense Department.
Like your story. You did well for yourself and your platoon/company- Thanks for your service.
Quadrant, first, the Military Academy invited General Pace to speak. Second, as the current Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and nominee to be the next Chairman, General Pace is not performing duty as a Marine, but rather as a joint service officer who reports to the Secretary of Defense, not the Marine Corps. It is no different than when Army Generals Shelton, Shalikashvili & Powell served as CJCS and gave talks at the Naval Academy, the Air Force Academy, Marine Platoon Commander's courses etc. All the old war-horses get trotted out for such occasions, regardless of service.
"Quadrunt"
humiliating??? You can't be serious. There is so much respect for a true warrior who has served, knows what they're talking about, and is willing to share his/her experience to the betterment of other servicemen/women/warriors.
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