Compass Points - Preparing for War

Warriors need both real and vicarious experience.

Compass Points - Preparing for War

Warriors need both real and vicarious experience.

July 25, 2025

.

With opening day in the spring each year, Major League Baseball begins 162 regular season games for each of the 30 teams in the American League and National League, played over approximately six months – a total of 2,430 games, plus the postseason. During each season, pro baseball players get constant real experience in actual games. In addition to their constant real experience, pro players spend countless hours on vicarious experience, studying game film, hitting in the batting cage, and shagging ground balls. It takes both real and vicarious experience for pro baseball players to learn their craft.

In a new Compass Points series, reader and contributor, Muddy Boots, looks at the subject of preparing for war. For warriors, actual experience is limited, making vicarious experience even more important.

Included below are the first two parts in a multi-part series on preparing for war.

.

Part I - Combat Experience - Real and Vicarious

Part II - Using Knowledge and Skill to Prepare for the Next War

.

Compass Points thanks Muddy Boots for his ongoing series on preparing for war.

.

--------------------

--------------------

.

Preparing for War

The Current State of Marine Corps Combat Leadership

By “Muddy Boots”

.

--------------------

--------------------

.

Part I - Combat Experience—Real and Vicarious

When I take my car to the local garage for repairs, I expect the mechanic to be competent, to have the knowledge and skill to fix the car’s problem. I have the same expectation when I go to see my doctor with an aliment; in fact, because my health depends on his or her knowledge and skill, I want that doctor to be medically well-schooled and practiced. If I find myself in need of a lawyer, I want him or her also to be well-schooled and practiced.

Military leaders must have the knowledge and skill to plan and execute combat operations. Though we speak of a profession of arms that profession is much different than the medical or legal professions. Where members of the latter two routinely practice their professions in exam and operating rooms or in courtrooms, military leaders seldom practice the profession of arms on battlefields.

This is good news because for a military leader to routinely practice on battlefields would mean expending the treasure of our nation and the loss of lives and limbs of many of our nation’s sons and daughters.

Thus, the vast majority of the knowledge and skill a military leader acquires will come from vicarious practice, not real practice. What does vicarious practice entail. At its most realistic it consists of live-fire field exercises. At its most remote it is reading and study. Between these extremes are map exercises, war games, staff rides, simulations, and so forth.

Obviously, the opportunities to read and study far exceed those of participation in live-fire exercises. Interestingly, some cognitive psychologists tell us that repetition is more important to the development of knowledge and skill than fidelity. In other words, a leader may learn more from twenty tactical decisions games than one field exercise.

Nevertheless, good leaders will want to go to the “sound of the guns” whenever war occurs and not the classroom, for very seldom will vicarious experience outdo the real.

But a leader must be careful not to overrate real combat experience for it will be the experience of one person on one part of the battlefield in one war; the recorded history of war extends back to the Egyptian Pharo, King Thutmose III, at the Battle of Megiddo around 1457 BCE. So, as the British historian, Basil Liddell Hart, noted, “There is no excuse for any literate person if he is less than three thousand years old in the mind.”

Without doubt, there is much to learn from wars recent and past. Note, however, that few Marines will have the opportunity to experience combat more than once or twice over a career, even a lengthy one. For this reason, Marine leaders must not extrapolate their experience as the norm for all wars, especially future wars. What proved successful in the jungle might not work in the desert and vice versa. Similarly, fire and maneuver of a large, combined arms force may be of little value in a fight against insurgents.

As numerous observers have said, “History is the only guide to the future” and “History is the school of the soldier.” This is true if for no other reason than because the terms we use to describe the future and the concepts to understand it all come from the past. History provides context for understanding the future. Thus, it is incumbent upon Marine leaders to study past wars if they are to prepare the Corps’ operating forces for future wars.

In summary, Marine leaders acquire their professional knowledge and skill from a combination of real and vicarious experience. While valuing real experience leaders must not come to believe they have seen war in all its permutations. As Clausewitz observed, “War is more than a true chameleon that slightly adapts its characteristics to a given case.” Therefore, leaders must be diligent in their pursuit of vicarious experience while recognizing it limitations; cost and time for field exercises and large wargames will cause most of that experience to come from reading and study. It is only through the merging of this real and vicarious experience that Marine leaders can truly become masters of the profession of arms.

How and how well have the Corps’ leaders integrated and incorporated learning from real and vicarious experiences over the last 100-plus years will be the subject of a series of Compass Points posts, this being the first one.

.

--------------------

--------------------

Part II - Using Knowledge and Skill to Prepare for the Next War

Historians generally consider that the modern Marine Corps had its birth during World War I, which means since then Marine leaders have had eight opportunities to gain real combat experience—World War I, Banana Wars, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Operation Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom. This series will examine all eight, beginning with World War I. Background information on World War I is drawn primarily from, General Pershing and U.S. Marines, Peter T. Underwood, Marine Corps University Press.

.

— Warfighting Experience example #1 - World War I

In 1916 when the possibility that the United States might enter the fighting in Europe became apparent, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Major General George Barnett, met with the Secretary of War and offered to provide a brigade of two Marine regiments if the nation did go to war. At the time he agreed that the regiments would be organized and equipped as US Army regiments so they could be more easily integrated into an Army division.

On 6 April 1917 the United States declared war on Germany. On 10 May 1917 General Pershing was appointed as the commander of the American Expeditionary Force, the AEF. On 29 May 1917 the Marine Corps was ordered to form the 5^th Regiment; that regiment was ready to deploy five weeks later. Soon the Corps organized the 6^th Marine Regiment, and it followed the 5^th to Europe where on 23 October 1917 along with the 6^th Machine Gun Battalion all were assembled under the 4^th Marine Brigade headquarters, which became part of the US Army’s 2^nd Division.

The Brigade engaged in a series of major battles including Belleau Wood, Soissons, and the Meuse Argonne beginning in late May 1918. During the five months the Marines were in action they earned a reputation as fierce fighters causing the Germans to call them “Devil Dogs.”

The Commandant wanted the Marines to form their own division, but General Pershing would not approve that request. He held to this position because the Marines had no supporting arms or logistics capabilities and he did not want to divert such capabilities from the Army divisions then in the process of organizing. As the war progressed the Marine Corps would not have been able to provide the additional infantry regiments needed to form a division because it struggled just to replace casualties and maintain the strength of the 4^th Brigade. During the war 2,461 Marines were killed and 9,520 were wounded.

Marine leaders derived two important lessons from the Corps’ World War I experience. First and foremost, was the need for what today we identify as combat support and combat service support units. Among these were artillery, armor, engineers, motor transport, supply, and maintenance units. In addition, they saw the need for better intelligence collection and analysis and the lengthening and improvement of training. Finally, though Marine air was not employed in direct support of the 4^th Brigade, its increasing importance was apparent. Second, was a recognition of the challenges of rapidly expanding the Corps in time of war.

That Marine leaders were able to incorporate these lessons is clearly demonstrated by the fact that a little over two decades later the Corps was able to form the 1^st Marine Division and five additional divisions, five aircraft wings, two corps-level headquarters and the necessary supporting units in a little more than three years.

How were the Marines able to make such a significant adaptation? I will offer an answer in Part III.