"Creative Thinking" Training for the Military

Lt. Colonel Jim Channon, US Army (ret.) narrates a portion of his Vietnam story as it relates to 21st century training methods for soldiers. This video was created for the men and women of the 524th Combat Service Support Battalion.
Edited by David Lakota

Below is the narrative:

I want to speak to you as the soldier at the front the soldier at the end of the supply chain.

I commanded five rifle platoons and two of them in combat.

I am the end of the line for all that you can provide my infantry soldiers.

My soldiers are the reason you have a job. In Vietnam I ate thirty year old food in a steel can and smoked lucky strike greens. These were packed during world war two.

When I got two small loafs of local bread and an onion to go with it everything changed.

My supply chain guys were creative.

They went the extra mile.

We had to use substandard ammunition that jammed our rifles because it wasnt made with the same care for the rounds were that sold the M-16 rifle to the government.

Someone was looking out for their profit margin and not our lives.

My supply guys advised use to clean our weapons in a special way and clean them more often because thery found out about the situation.

They thought outside the box.

They combed the woodwork looking for that creative something else. Then they remembered who they were serving and that our lives were also their business.

There was real heart in the supply chain and it came from caring and creative people. The most important thing we all need to remember is that in combat the checklists and the SOPs are important but they are not what counts. Getting the job done at the front is the overall deep calling.

On my first day in combat fourteen situations presented themselves to me I had never heard of any solutions for twelve of them in my previous five years of training. I delivered easily on the two that I had trained for. The others haunted me all night. I had to think fast or my soldiers would be ground up before the month was over. The people above me had their hands full with their own wake up calls.

After that first day where I lost PFC Shaw we changed everything. We became the stealthiest platoon in the AO. And for the next 319 days of walking into the valley of the shadow of death we lost not another man.

We went from a screaming pumped up bunch of airborne infantrymen into the most invisible and psychically aware group of predators you could imagine. We sniffed and prowled our way into War Zone Delta and the Iron Triangle.

Our number one mindset was total awareness to the situation and how to make it work for us. We got very creative. We were nowhere close to the proverbial box. We got out and stayed out.

Thank you.

Go planet

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[murielchester]

great job I just lost my father who I cared for for years who was a World War 2 and Korean War Vet. Take Care

[crazycoyotie]

he learned fast an there 4 helped many 2 live longer

[psiops56]

great work.

[CAT101st]

(S)

[HurricaneHeidi]

This is MAGNIFICENT

COME Cousin Jim, and GO Planet <3