Don’t Move the Foxhole

[February 26, 2017]  It was mid-August in 1983 when my Infantry training class was on maneuvers at Fort Benning, Georgia.  The heat was oppressive and the humidity seemed like we were swimming through the air.  That was when we were told to dig-in and “defend” a hill from the OPFOR¹.  The first task assigned to me was to construct a foxhole near the left flank of our platoon.  After spending three back-breaking hours digging, I was told abruptly to move the foxhole.

You can imagine that I didn’t like being ordered to change the location of my foxhole.  It meant filling in the old one, digging another, re-aligning the sectors of fire, and moving all my equipment; no simple task.  And this was not the first time I was told to re-do something by the Platoon Leader that I had been ordered to do originally.

The lesson for leaders is that caution must be exercised in a decision-making process.  Maybe that’s what my Instructors had in mind and had given the Platoon Leader special orders to mix things up a little to teach us all a good lesson.  I sure learned it the hard way.  Sometime after midnight when I’d completed the new foxhole, I had my best cup of coffee ever after going three weeks without caffeine.

Leaders who are careless with their instructions (e.g., orders, assignments, directives) and their decisions will quickly achieve a reputation for not caring about and mistreating the “little people.”  Watchful and vigilant leaders, especially as it comes to how their decisions affect others, are highly respected, attract the best employees, and will see a better work environment.

This should come as no surprise.  Few of us Second Lieutenants at Fort Benning ever went long before we were told to “move the foxhole” … at least that’s what we called it.  Anytime we were ordered to redo a task we called it moving the foxhole.  The catchphrase became our motto – some inside-platoon humor.

None of us would forget that time in August of ‘83, those hot and humid days where we became trained officers in the U.S. Infantry.  The lessons of those times never left my mental rucksack and today I write about something that happened over 33 years ago as if it happened yesterday.

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1. OPFOR: A common military acronym standing for Opposing Forces, normally used in a training environment. See the Wikipedia link for a more detailed explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposing_force