Alone and Unafraid: Mission Command in INDOPACOM
Most Cadets commission as Second Lieutenants, expecting to go to their first units leading under the guidance and presence of their Company and Battalion Commanders. The presence of senior leaders often serves as a lifeline when problems arise because they bring far more experience than a brand-new lieutenant. As a junior officer, I thought my Commander would almost always be physically present to help make decisions when needed and guide me through challenging situations, right?
Wrong.
My Platoon Leader time would be marked by a series of deployments across the Pacific Theater, where my platoon and I traveled alone and unafraid—no Commander, no First Sergeant, no XO. More than 5,000 miles of the Pacific Ocean separated me from my leadership. During my Pacific Pathways deployments as a junior lieutenant, I was the senior engineer officer on the ground in my unit, responsible for completing a total of eight construction projects in the Philippines and Indonesia. Our role as Engineers during Pacific Pathways was to build critical infrastructure to increase readiness and enhance interoperability with partner nations in the Indo-Pacific region. The 84th Engineer Battalion has been a vital component of Pacific Pathways, showcasing the multifaceted capabilities of Army engineers and their crucial role in advancing U.S. interests in the region.
With my Command team in the rear, I realized I needed to use mission command as a young lieutenant to accomplish these missions. ADP 6-0 defines mission command as “the Army’s approach to command and control that empowers subordinate decision making and decentralized execution appropriate to the situation.” As a former PACOM leader and Commanding General of I Corps, Lieutenant General Xavier Brunson believes the future fight in the Indo-Pacific will require “purpose-built command and control with capabilities that allow us to operate as small defined groups.” There will likely be many other junior officers in the near future, like me, who will find themselves having to solve complex problems while leading a platoon alone and unafraid. During these deployments, I found three distinct applications of mission command that led to my platoon’s success.
Create a Shared Understanding of the Operational Environment.
The first thing you must do to successfully accomplish any mission is establish clear lines of communication to ensure everyone up and down your chain of command has a shared understanding of the operational environment. ADP 6-0 states, “An important source of shared understanding is open and clear communications between leaders and Soldiers.” Prior to deploying, I conducted a mission brief to my Brigade, Battalion, and Company Commanders to ensure we had a shared understanding of my platoon’s mission. I briefed my entire platoon on the same mission brief to confirm that every Soldier down to the lowest level understood the commander’s intent and our plan for accomplishing it.
During each Pacific Pathways mission, it was critical that I established routine touchpoints with my higher headquarters to guarantee they were always updated on our progress, points of friction, and any drastic changes. During our initial phases of the deployment, my platoon received orders to construct a 300m rifle range and a 30m pistol range. The intelligence provided before the mission indicated that the area we were supposed to excavate was relatively flat with minimal vegetation, so we did not expect the project to take very long. However, when we arrived at the site, we discovered the area was actually a large hill with various trees and large boulders that needed to be removed. My platoon and I immediately had to adjust our timeline and plan while communicating these changes to our leadership because the scope of the project became drastically more complex.
While we were working tirelessly to level the “mountain of boulders,” as my Soldiers liked to call it, we received new orders to send a squad of personnel and equipment eight hours away to construct gravel pads and a road in preparation for a strategic air defense exercise in the Northern Philippines. Our effective lines of communication allowed us to act quickly on the FRAGO, establish a shared understanding of the new mission, and communicate the updated plan to our platoon. My Platoon Sergeant and I decided to send our best Squad Leader with his Soldiers to accomplish these tasks because we knew that he would take disciplined initiative to complete the mission—which he executed flawlessly.
Throughout every mission, I sent daily SITREPs and held weekly meetings where I could present recommended courses of action for a required decision point and/or communicate requests for assistance with the Company or Battalion staff. I required the same touchpoints for my subordinate leaders who were executing missions physically separated from the rest of our platoon. As high-speed as they were, maintaining a shared understanding was still a must.
Exercise Disciplined Initiative within the Commander’s Intent.
Operating across oceans and in uncertain environments means you will not be given step-by-step instructions on how to accomplish a mission. My Commander did not give me a checklist of things to get done in the Philippines and Indonesia. I worked off his intent: the purpose, key tasks, and end state. For example, my platoon was tasked with constructing a 1.4 km road in Indonesia. My Commander communicated his intent, but it was my responsibility to exercise disciplined initiative on the ground to create a schedule, task-organize my personnel, and figure out how to solve problems like sourcing local repair parts for equipment and dealing with delays in material delivery.
Similarly, I had to exercise disciplined initiative when I received a phone call in the middle of the night in the Philippines for another new mission while one of my squads was already detached working on the other FRAGO projects. We now needed to send a team with equipment ten hours away to a new location to construct a UAV landing strip—and we had less than 12 hours to begin movement. Again, my Commander did not tell me exactly how to accomplish this, because he trusted me to exercise disciplined initiative to do whatever I needed to do to make it happen. I quickly worked with the other units on the ground and the local contractors to coordinate line hauls for the equipment and transportation to move my Platoon Sergeant and two of our best operators. My platoon was now executing three different construction missions decentralized, hundreds of miles apart.
Empowering your subordinates to take initiative is key to effective mission command. When I sent my subordinate leaders to the Northern Philippines, I also did not tell them how to construct the gravel pads or UAV landing strip. I gave them the purpose, key tasks, and end state and empowered them to take initiative and apply their judgment to “take actions that they think will best accomplish the mission.” ADP 6-0
Build Cohesive Teams Through Mutual Trust.
The final and most important point I learned was the importance of creating a cohesive team based on the foundation of trust. ADP 6-0 states, “Trust is given by leaders and subordinates and built over time based on common shared experiences.” My platoon spent a lot of time together that year, whether we were training in Hawaii or sharing a tent in another country. Our shared experiences bonded us, and we made sure to get to know one another very well, both personally and professionally.
I learned everyone’s birthday and the names of their kids, along with their tactical and technical proficiencies. ADP 6-0 further explains, “Commanders delegate greater authority to subordinates who have demonstrated tactical and technical competency and whose judgment they trust.” My Platoon Sergeant and I validated our Squad Leaders’ ability to manage a project site during an on-island construction project prior to our deployments. We evaluated their competency and learned we could trust and delegate greater authority to them during our missions. They led with competence during our training, so we knew we could trust them to be responsible for their Soldiers while being far from the command post. Successfully executing decentralized missions throughout the Pacific was only possible due to our competent leaders and the mutual trust we had in one another.
The future fight will have many junior officers who may find themselves operating in small groups apart from their higher headquarters. I will be the first to admit that it can be unsettling to be so far from your leadership, but the experiences I had leading my platoon in the Pacific allowed me to develop critical leadership skills that I will carry on throughout the rest of my career. Even without my Commander’s direct presence, I learned that I could still succeed by embracing mission command—creating a shared understanding of the operating environment, exercising disciplined initiative, and building a cohesive team through mutual trust.
As Army Officers, we must remember that the ability to operate “alone and unafraid” is not about doing it all on our own. It is about making decisions confidently, empowering your subordinates, and trusting your team. By applying mission command, you will be equipped to navigate the challenges of decentralized operations and become the kind of leader who inspires trust and delivers results, no matter where the mission takes you.
Author Biography
1LT Reilly Rudolph graduated from West Point in 2021 and commissioned as an Engineer Officer. She served as a Platoon Leader and Executive Officer in the 523rd Engineer Support Company, 84th Engineer Battalion at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. 1LT Rudolph is the recipient of the 2023 Munson Award for the EN Active-Duty Platoon Leader of the Year. She is currently attending the Engineer Captains Career Course at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and earning a master’s degree in engineering management from Missouri University of Science and Technology.
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