I don't know if I am demoralized but I did become aware that there is a lot more complexity to the world than many of us believe and there is a lot of information that we aren't privy to. Just sitting through one our daily ops/intel briefs is eye opening and that isn't super secret shit. I have probably become less tolerant of the layman who likes to Monday morning quarterback and say stuff like "My 18 year old nephew is a private and he could have come up with a better withdrawal plan." People have no concept of the logistics involved with moving a mere battalion of Marines with their gear and equipment from point A to point B. I am a staff officer not a line officer so can't speak to the transition from tactical to operational to strategic. I am sure some people make the transition more smoothly than others. Some are gifted in one area and not in others. Some may even be brilliant in an area but can't help but trip themselves up (John Boyd perhaps?) and lessen their potential impact.white belt wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 4:23 pmI'm curious if you have ever grown more cynical after seeing things from different levels? Maybe this was/is just a military thing for me, but I'd say that there were times when seeing things from a higher leader's perspective was more demoralizing than anything else because I realized that the incompetence/rot runs all the way up, or that issues at their core would never be resolved because they were structural in nature. Sometimes, I think my perspective on certain topics was better when I knew less because then I could at least pretend the things higher leaders were talking about behind closed doors were actually important. YMMV because I am someone who really enjoyed the tactical world and felt myself losing my mind in the strategic world.
But I feel like I am imposing on someone else's journal so shall leave it at that.