When LT McDonough assumes command of his platoon following the departure of LT Rolfe, he recognized immediately that he has a substantial amount of work that he must accomplish. First off, LT Rolfe has managed to completely erode any sort of goodwill between enlisted and officer in this unit. The men do not view their platoon as a unit, but as the enlisted being tasked with carrying out all fighting tasks while their PL hides in the patrol base with his head down. LT McDonough fully understands that he has serious strides to make in order to firstly, assure his men of his own competence as a leader, but then to make them have any sort of trust in him with their lives.

LT McDonough does not attempt to begin ordering his platoon around without any sort of plan. He first begins by observing his platoon, how his men respond with no leadership, and what their actions are. After he has observed this, he then begins to formulate his own plan and the type of approach that he wishes to have with his platoon.

He realizes that the level of trust that his soldiers have in their leadership has been so far degraded that he must take a much more hands-on approach that he may not have been as willing to before. He decides that he will be going beyond the wire, as much as possible to allow himself to get a better understanding of his squad leaders, his soldiers and the tactics and styles being used by his soldiers. He wants to learn the standard operating procedures that his men have established, and whether he thinks they can be tweaked or changed to be better.

When first approaching these new changes with his platoon, LT McDonough takes special care to note the skepticism and look of surprise that many of his soldiers seem to have with his decisions, specifically the decision to go beyond the wire with his soldiers. It was very obvious from this exchange that very few, if any were used to this style of leadership from their officers.

Overall, I commend LT McDonough’s actions and I do believe I would find myself emulating many of his choices. Although it may seem as if he is trying to be a know it all and ignore his men by establishing all of this, I believe that there is a fine line that had to be acknowledged. There is the way of coming off as a bossy PL that has no right telling his soldiers what to do because they have been in country and doing actually fighting while McDonough was still at West Point. However, if LT were to come out and asking many questions, this would immediately give his men the impression that he is a classic butterbar with no actual knowledge and was going to get them all killed.

The notion of being able to train and prepare for fear is to me, not very possible. No matter the individual, they are going to feel fear. It is not whether or not you feel fear that makes you a good leader, but how you react in the face of fear. Either a person can let the fear paralyze them and incapacitate their leadership or acknowledge the fear, but know that there are moments when you have to put the fear aside to accomplish the mission and get all your soldiers home.