As a senior Army warrant officer and leader the study of military history has innumerable benefits. It gives us an in-depth background of past military operations and a potential gold mine of knowledge if harvested correctly. As an Army officer it is my responsibility to understand the successes and failures of past operations to make sure that they are not repeated. George Santayana a philosopher, essayist, poet and novelist was credited with saying “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." We cannot allow ourselves as a profession of arms and stewards of resources to make mistakes that have already been made; this is where the study of military history as a self-imposed task and discipline comes into its own. At every opportunity we must expand our knowledge of past conflicts to help us write updated doctrine, train to meet evolving threats and lead soldiers on today’s battlefields. Warrant officers serve as mission …show more content…
This required me and my team to read through and digest mountains of written documentation from past assessment AAR’s that spanned up to ten years and formulate a pattern. This pattern of successes and short comings were analyzed and formulated into a training plan to ensure the battalions success for the recent deployment. Successes were measured in the pass rate of Operational Readiness Evaluations (ORE’s). Taking past successes and shortcomings, conduct a comparison, see if the same mistakes are being made and write training plans to correct such deficiencies. This was the approach taken and we saw marketable increases in crew proficiency and knowledge, not only their knowledge of individual tasks but an overall increase in knowing what the Patriot weapon system can or can’t