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Post by elkslayer on Jul 7, 2012 12:49:03 GMT -6
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Post by AZ Ranger on Jul 7, 2012 14:45:36 GMT -6
He's lucky he didn't have to defend it here.
AZ Ranger
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jul 8, 2012 10:02:41 GMT -6
No kidding. It's depressing to see errors (of not a few in total) in the first paragraph in a very short summation of a battle written as a Master's Thesis for our military academy. No, wait, Louisiana State. The breezy assurance is installed and wrong in ghastly ways. Reminds of stuff we've seen here written at or for West Point, though.
Further, no first hand research and he seems to use the books easily available to the public. This is high school level.
conz loves it, of course.
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Post by quincannon on Jul 8, 2012 13:24:24 GMT -6
DC: I trust there was no surprise in the text after reading the dedication.
I have now read it twice, just to assure myself that I am drawing the proper conclusion. The author is a member of the Class of 91. At the time this was written then in 2002, that would make him a company grade officer, or perhaps a just promoted field grade Now this may be a bit of inside baseball, but my take away was that during the battle narative he had little appreciation of the elevated level of difficulty involved in maneuvering battalions,. He probably thinks, and I think that shows, that they are at the same level of difficulty as in moving platoons. Big mistake I think, but not at all surprising
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Post by montrose on Jul 8, 2012 13:39:46 GMT -6
Well, I wish could get back two hours of my life.
I have been second reader on over 20 theses, and this is a bad product. It puts me in doubt of the judgment and skill of the faculty of LSU.
As a thesis, the theory and analysis are badly flawed. This is a high school quality paper.
For example, he claims that the Keough Bn lost their horses on Nye-Carter ridge, and arrived at Calhoun Hill on foot. He believes that the locations of C, I and L show an integrated defense for dismounted men, which is utter nonsense.
I would expect an officer of the US Army to have some concept of tactics. The author is grossly ignorant of tactics. This is evident in page after page . The weapon system used by the US Army was the 1873 Springfield Carbine, which had an effective range of 300 meters. The author believes units are in supporting distance of one another at ranges of over a mile. Again, utter nonsense.
If this student ever hit the tactical portion of the SFQC, he would have been sent back to mother Army by the second module of the officer's course.
I still can not figure out his explanation of how E anf F Companies ended up at the northern end of Battle Ridge. Remember, he claims that the Yates Bn was on Calhoun Hill, where they rallied the dismounted Keough Bn after their defeat on Nye-Carter.
Evidently, Scotty beamed them up to he Star Ship Enterprise, then beamed them back to LSH Hill and Deep Ravine. He also claims that on LSH the men shot 40 (!) horses in a circle to provide a barricade.
I could go on, this is not worth reading.
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Post by montrose on Jul 8, 2012 13:44:20 GMT -6
His previous assignments
include service as a mechanized infantry platoon leader, company executive officer, and
battalion S-4 with the 2nd Armored Division, Fort Hood, Texas; operations officer for the
XVIII Airborne Corps’ Long Range Surveillance Company at Fort Bragg, North
Carolina; Adjutant for the 1st Brigade, 82d Airborne Division; and commander of Charlie
Company, 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment.
At the time he wrote this he was a MAJ at JRTC as an evaluator. He likely earned his MA while also doing CGSC by correspondence.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jul 8, 2012 14:22:30 GMT -6
Don't you think LSU shrank from contesting a graduate of West Point about something few of them would, reasonably, have any claim of intimate knowledge? I expect so, because who wants to be the mousy liberal arts prof saying a West Point grad and Army officer is full of hooey, especially in war time? It's not like the degree is in Military Macho and Knowledge, but in liberal arts of some sort. God knows what.
Odd Acknowledgment:
I want to thank both Dr. Stanley Hilton and Dr. Karl Roider for their unselfish
commitment to expanding the academic horizons of this country’s military officers: they are true patriots....
I think a case can be made they shrank from the task (and their duty) and for praise from a soldier rolled a log or two for him. Since WWII, hasn't the academic community lusted to get vets into college for various reasons, currently financial and for the diversity issue?
Frankly, I'm annoyed when I read things stated as fact that nobody can prove one way or the other. Could be true, but this mad rush for trivial detail that simply can never be known is weird, to me.
Lining up plausibility and obscure chance is often interesting but pointless. Best to recall Twain. "It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense."
A battle is a strange place to most of us; we don't recognize what the results of a lot of people at the edge of madness, pain, death, and fear might unknowingly construct together, and which would never be believed.
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Post by wild on Jul 8, 2012 21:54:04 GMT -6
A battle is a strange place to most of us; we don't recognize what the results of a lot of people at the edge of madness, pain, death, and fear might unknowingly construct together, and which would never be believed.
Training and dicipline should mitigate the worst consequences of these natural tendencies;failing this, it is 99% certain that whatever they construct will not be complex;more Renoesque.
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jul 18, 2012 8:14:26 GMT -6
So, who was convinced that Costume Lad just made a 'typo' on the other board regarding the West Point Master's Thesis? A typo is not a mistake or misspelling, it's when a typist hits a wrong key next to the one desired. West Point being typed instead of West Pointer's ain't a typo. This is a typo: tyoo. Although an unlikely one.
This is the guy who tried to pose as a college level instructor once, then denied it.
Although, he reluctantly allowed us to view a photo of himself in a red kerchief, as the demand was so high, so all is forgiven.
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Post by scottbono on Jan 25, 2014 20:51:51 GMT -6
Doing basic research on my own writing project I came across this work done for the Marine Corps Command and Staff College. The theme is military decision making and LBH. I'll present the info here and leave the comments to those who understand such work best. www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a401568.pdfScott |
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Post by tubman13 on Jan 26, 2014 9:22:22 GMT -6
Doing basic research on my own writing project I came across this work done for the Marine Corps Command and Staff College. The theme is military decision making and LBH. I'll present the info here and leave the comments to those who understand such work best. www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a401568.pdfScott Scott, thanks for posting this as it caused me to go back and read the first thesis. I think the difference in the two shows how our public school system is failing not only our youth, but our nation as well. I will not comment on content, of the first as others already have. I just see the standards here are completely different. The first is based on out based education, you get what you ask for and will accept. Even at this level, we see that even professors want their students to feel good about themselves, rather than to strive to a higher level. Or maybe the Army dude was writing down to his audience, much as teams often play down to the competition.
Makes this sorry assed Ret. AF non com want to go back in time and become a Marine!
Regards, Tom
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Post by AZ Ranger on Jan 26, 2014 10:22:09 GMT -6
Semper Fi
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Post by fred on Jan 26, 2014 11:22:10 GMT -6
Doing basic research on my own writing project I came across this work done for the Marine Corps Command and Staff College. The theme is military decision making and LBH. I'll present the info here and leave the comments to those who understand such work best. www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a401568.pdfScott Scott, thanks for posting this as it caused me to go back and read the first thesis. I think the difference in the two shows how our public school system is failing not only our youth, but our nation as well. I will not comment on content, of the first as others already have. I just see the standards here are completely different. The first is based on out based education, you get what you ask for and will accept. Even at this level, we see that even professors want their students to feel good about themselves, rather than to strive to a higher level. Or maybe the Army dude was writing down to his audience, much as teams often play down to the competition.
Makes this sorry assed Ret. AF non com want to go back in time and become a Marine!
Regards, Tom
Scott, Never call yourself "sorry-assed"... you wore the cloth. By the way, I printed out this thesis and began reading. Do typos count? "Lead" for "led," multiple times. "ACION" for "ACTION" and "TRODAY's" for "TODAY's" on the "Report Documentation Page," the second page of the whole deal. Or is it me? Best wishes, Fred. |
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Post by Dark Cloud on Jan 26, 2014 11:28:43 GMT -6
In the second thesis, immeasurably better, a skim read still annoyed me, and I think it should bug others.
First, Connell did not write a character study of Custer, despite this author's claim. That is way misleading. Neither a novel nor an indexed history, SOTMS is a collection of the tales surrounding LBH and Custer where small effort is meant to achieve more than allowing the reader to decide from conflicting options. In that regard, Connell is far more the fair and accurate historian than so many others, but still, he did not do anything like a character study. He's a story teller.
Second, the Army major's summations of both the Washita and Rosebud battles is totally incorrect. Crook was not following a trail of a huge village but was surprised by the attack of the Sioux as he was inching towards general indicators provided by their alert scouts based on their experience. He had four days rations.
The warriors at the Washita were not blithely just killed or driven off and the women and children captured. Women and children were liberally killed as well, some were captured, and few warriors were casualties.
All three of those sections are written with that calm confidence striven for by officers. But these are way misleading if not totally inaccurate summations.
*Although, he corrects those false images later on, it still leaves the impression of inconsistent application of fact. Which embarrasses even me to write, so now I'll have to read the whole damned thing.
Mumble.....
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Post by fred on Jan 26, 2014 12:33:20 GMT -6
I printed it out.
I have already found a complete contradiction... check it out DC, and tell me if I am wrong. Page v, 3rd paragraph, sentence beginning, "Without allowing hindsight..." seems to me to be contradicted on the very next page, page vi, in his "Conclusions" at the bottom of the page. What did I miss?
Best wishes,
Fred.
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