Military lessons learned - Essay Example

Military Lessons Learned Military Lessons Learned Nurses are very important in the society as they help other health professionals in providing the best medical and health care to patients. In the same way, nurses are needed in mission-driven organizations to aid the injured and sick crews. They may not only play as a health support staff but they may assume other positions as well. One of those organizations is the army which requires not only combat men with heavy arms and artilleries but also tactical planners, logisticians and strategic thinkers.

Tactical planners focus on the now or the present and make certain steps toward achievement. They focus on operating plans and details to go one step further at a time (Harris and White, 1987, p. 110). They are also more focused on little things than the generalized point-of-view. Logisticians are different from tactical planners since they are the ones responsible for inventories and knowing the use of resources and their whereabouts. They do that to achieve the objectives. Their works include combining and application of information, material transfer, storage and protection.

They may use equipment or computers to easily store and retrieve the data regarding the analysis and predictions on resource use (Kane, 2001). Strategic thinkers are the ones responsible for the general direction of the organization like armed forces. They try to answer the questions why and how instead of what. They are concerned with wider arrays of methods to reach the desired future. Their works are then supported by both the logisticians and tactical planners. Strategic thinkers are not conventional type of people as they make use of odd and different ways to create opportunities that sometimes can be provocative regarding the direction of a group.

They perform the operation called strategic thinking wherein it serves as the precursor of strategic planning (Heuser, 2010, p. 456). Since the armed forces always engage in defense and sometimes go to war, they really needed the thinkers and planners on how to use their armed members to the fullest to achieve the objective. Leadership may be proven to be handy in the case of armed forces since planning is part of the function of leaders. They should be able to delegate the works toward the achievement of their goals.

In addition, leadership skills serve as the binding agent of an organization and traverse the same direction toward growth. In the process, big and small plans are needed and can be categorized as short-term and long-term plans. They contain deadlines, procedures and delegated tasks to successfully operate the group (Barber, 2004). The leadership and the three job positions mentioned in the military group can be applied in learning the lessons from Vietnam War. After all, the war had military forces that battled against one another using planes, gun, tanks and bombs.

They need tactics, strategies and logistics to become successful in the battlefield. Some lessons that can be learned from Vietnam War are related to the actions done by United States. If US Armed Forces had an immediate action and large forces to deal with the communists, it should have extinguished the enemies early on. The opponents should not have the chance for building up their group into a surmountable barricade. Another lesson relates the failures from intelligence that had been used by South Vietnamese and American forces against the North Vietnamese and Viet Congs.

Maybe the culture and linguistics had become barriers for the success of getting leads and making plans but if they had necessary actions to overcome both, there would be no problem. Lastly, the USA had interceded with the war for its own purpose and not primarily for helping (McNamara, 1995, p. 319) ReferencesBarber, B. (2004). No excuse leadership: Lessons from the U.S. Army’s Elite Rangers. USA: John Wiley and Sons.Harris, C. and White, I. (1987). Advances in command, control & communication systems.

London: Peter Peregrinus.Heuser, B. (2010). The evolution of strategy: Thinking war from antiquity to the present. USA: Cambridge University Press.Kane, T. (2001). Military logistics and strategic performance. USA: Taylor and Francis.McNamara, R. (1995). In retrospect: The tragedy and lessons of Vietnam. USA: Random House.