The Chesty Puller Paragon: Leadership Dogma Or Model Doctrine?
()
About this ebook
The Marine Corps tactical leadership criteria and what the Corps expected of its commanders during World War II and the Korean War is the starting point. There was not much written leadership guidance then, but there was accepted leadership doctrine, nonetheless. Today, several United States Marines are recognized as setting the contemporary paragon for the ideal tactical battlefield leader. Among them, is World War II and Korean War Marine Lewis “Chesty” Burwell Puller. Chesty Puller not only set a courageous combat example, he trained his men hard, respected his men’s fearlessness, and worked hard to build unit comradeship.
Service parochialism and cultural turmoil through the Vietnam War set the stage for a rocky period in the history of the Corps, leading up to the Commandant’s re-focus on a new Marine followership-leadership ethos. The Marine Corps’ recent efforts to “Transform” their Marines into a new breed is an attempt to transform leadership dogma to leadership-followership doctrine. His fresh approach is thought to better inculcate the Marine culture with loyalty and commitment to the Corps, similar to what was experienced within World War II Marine Corps.
The thrust of the monograph pursues the question: Does Chesty Puller provide the right contemporary leadership example, or does he perpetuate dogma?
Major Mickey L. Quintrall USAF
See Book Description
Related to The Chesty Puller Paragon
Related ebooks
Stonewall Jackson At Chancellorsville: The Principles Of War And The Horns Of A Dilemma At The Burton Farm Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCoral And Brass Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGeneral Roy S. Geiger, USMC Marine Aviator, Joint Force Commander Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Regiment Like No Other: The 6th Marine Regiment At Belleau Wood Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEvolution Of Artillery Tactics In General J. Lawton Collins’ US VII Corps In World War II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpecial Marine Corps Units Of World War II [Illustrated Edition] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Green Beret: The Story Of The Commandos, 1940-1945 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWarfare in the Enemy’s Rear Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFire Support In The Pusan Perimeter Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIsland Victory: The Battle Of Kwajalein Atoll Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBand Of Brothers: The 2d Marine Division And The Tiger Brigade In The Persian Gulf War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMarine Close Air Support In World War II Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDevil Dogs: Fighting Marines of World War I Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGeneral William E. DePuy: Preparing the Army for Modern War Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEstablishing a Legacy: The History of the Royal Canadian Regiment 1883-1953 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsU.S. Marines: Rapid Response Force Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsU.S. Coast Guard Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStirling Work: The Story of the SAS During WWII Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5A Platoon Leader's Tour Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsU.S. Marines In Battle: An-Nasiriyah, 23 March-2 April 2003 [Illustrated Edition] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThree Block War: Phantom Fury Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJack of All Trades: An American Advisor's War in Vietnam, 1969-70 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Air Cav: History of the 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam 1965-1969 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBacktracking in Brown Water: Retracing Life on Mekong Delta River Patrols Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLeJeune: A Marine's Life, 1867-1942 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThree Block War: Darkside Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTime in the Barrel: A Marine's Account of the Battle for Con Thien Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStrength and Drive: The West Point Class of 1965 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsU.S. Marines In Iraq, 2003: Basrah, Baghdad And Beyond:: U.S. Marines in the Global War on Terrorism [Illustrated Edition] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
European History For You
A Short History of the World: The Story of Mankind From Prehistory to the Modern Day Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mein Kampf: The Original, Accurate, and Complete English Translation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOld English Medical Remedies: Mandrake, Wormwood and Raven's Eye Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mein Kampf: English Translation of Mein Kamphf - Mein Kampt - Mein Kamphf Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Victorian Lady's Guide to Fashion and Beauty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Violent Abuse of Women: In 17th and 18th Century Britain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Very Secret Sex Lives of Medieval Women Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Negro Rulers of Scotland and the British Isles Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Celtic Mythology: A Concise Guide to the Gods, Sagas and Beliefs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quite Nice and Fairly Accurate Good Omens Script Book: The Script Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Forgotten Slave Trade: The White European Slaves of Islam Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 – 1066 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Origins Of Totalitarianism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A History of Magic and Witchcraft: Sabbats, Satan & Superstitions in the West Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Psychedelic Gospels: The Secret History of Hallucinogens in Christianity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of English Magic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Swingtime for Hitler: Goebbels’s Jazzmen, Tokyo Rose, and Propaganda That Carries a Tune Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Six Wives of Henry VIII Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Discovery of Pasta: A History in Ten Dishes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related categories
Reviews for The Chesty Puller Paragon
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Chesty Puller Paragon - Major Mickey L. Quintrall USAF
This edition is published by PICKLE PARTNERS PUBLISHING—www.picklepartnerspublishing.com
To join our mailing list for new titles or for issues with our books – picklepublishing@gmail.com
Or on Facebook
Text originally published in 1997 under the same title.
© Pickle Partners Publishing 2014, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.
Publisher’s Note
Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.
We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.
THE CHESTY PULLER PARAGON: LEADERSHIP DOGMA OR MODEL DOCTRINE
By
Mickey L. Quintrall, USAF
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS 3
ABSTRACT 4
BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION 5
II. THE LEADERSHIP DOCTRINE OF THE UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS BETWEEN 1942 AND 1952 10
III. THE CHESTY PULLER LEADERSHIP PARAGON 16
IV. CONTEMPORARY MARINE CORPS LEADERSHIP: DOGMA TO DOCTRINE 24
V. FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS 31
EPILOGUE 34
APPENDIX A — [Marine] Battle Doctrine For Front Line Leaders 36
Foreword 36
Introduction 36
APPENDIX B — The (1950) Armed Forces Officer Propositions 40
REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 45
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 46
Books 46
Government Publications 47
Miscellaneous Publications 47
ABSTRACT
In this study, I examine whether or not the United States Marine Corps senior warrior-leaders should continue to use heroic-warriors from the 1942-52 era as contemporary paragons of tactical leadership. Additionally, I compare the Marine tactical leadership models between 1942-52, and their relevance within the cultivated and refocused leadership doctrine of today’s Marine Corps. Then, I examine whether or not there is a gap created using an earlier era’s tactical leadership example to model contemporary tactical battlefield leadership.
The Marine Corps tactical leadership criteria and what the Corps expected of its commanders during World War II and the Korean War is the starting point. There was not much written leadership guidance then, but there was accepted leadership doctrine, nonetheless. Today, several United States Marines are recognized as setting the contemporary paragon for the ideal tactical battlefield leader. Among them, is World War II and Korean War Marine Lewis Chesty
Burwell Puller. Chesty Puller not only set a courageous combat example, he trained his men hard, respected his men’s fearlessness, and worked hard to build unit comradeship.
Service parochialism and cultural turmoil through the Vietnam War set the stage for a rocky period in the history of the Corps, leading up to the Commandant’s re-focus on a new Marine followership-leadership ethos. The Marine Corps’ recent efforts to Transform
their Marines into a new breed is an attempt to transform leadership dogma to leadership-followership doctrine. His fresh approach is thought to better inculcate the Marine culture with loyalty and commitment to the Corps, similar to what was experienced within World War II Marine Corps.
The thrust of the monograph pursues the question: Does Chesty Puller provide the right contemporary leadership example, or does he perpetuate dogma?
BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION
When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us.
{1}—Alexander Graham Bell
Referred to as The Invincible,
by both his men and his enemies, Alexander the Great had what Carl von Clausewitz called the inward eye
or coup d’œil. His courage on the battlefield, fighting and commanding along-side his men, fired their imagination and awoke in them the mystical faith that led them to accept, without question, that there was nothing he would not dare; nothing he could not do in the pursuit of victory.{2} The warrior-leadership he displayed worked for the battles during his era. Similarly, historians write that Caesar, Napoleon and other Great Captains led armies with personal versions of an inward eye.
Their warrior-leadership was shown to produce superior armies that dominated the battlefields of their time. Time, however, has also proven that their elite warrior-leadership has not kept pace with the technological and doctrinal changes of the evolving battlefield.
The personality and the character of the tactical commander has always played a key role on the battlefield. Whereas emperors, kings, and commanders-in-chief once led men into battle, the warrior ethos and warrior-leadership continues to change. During the American Civil War generals continued to lead the tactical battle from the front, but the commander-in-chief led and managed the operational battle from the rear. Some say is was a lack of courage, history however suggests that their position, short of the kill line, better served the force. John Keegan, in his book, Mask of Command, weighed General Ulysses S. Grant’s battlefield leadership during the American Civil War. Keegan’s study determined that the General Grant often refused to lead by example
onto the tactical battlefield and would rather command from behind musket range.
{3} Nonetheless, history rightfully paints Grant as one the great military strategic and operational leaders. Grant’s Personal Memoirs certainly provide a clear discussion of war-time leadership amid chaos, confusion, and ravage of battle. Indeed, for the Civil War, Grant’s idea of tactical warrior-leadership made sense. The ilk of a tactical battlefield commander, however, continues to change with