Success of 'lessons learned' process based on truthfulness.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: Army tactical planning

The U.S. Army is big on "lessons learned." In every conflict, observers are dispatched to interview soldiers and commanders, so that they can document the experience. The reports that they produce often become source material for Army doctrine writers and training developers.

In recent months, the Army decided that the lessons learned also should be shared with the weapons-acquisition bureaucracy. The thinking is that these lessons can help the Army make better spending decisions and figure out how to invest its research and development dollars.

Col. Michael Hiemstra, director of the Center for Army Lessons Learned, said that the CALL now has an "upstart organization" that focuses exclusively on research, development and acquisition. "I have a couple of new folks who came 18 months ago, specifically to develop acquisition lessons learned," he said in an interview.

A subordinate organization to the Army's Training and Doctrine Command, CALL employs 70 people at its headquarters, in Fort Leavenworth, Kan. The majority are government civilians.

"As we do our observations, we feed those lessons into the Army school system and our combat training centers," said Hiemstra.

Two CALL teams were in Afghanistan this year. A group of six went in January, and a team of 17 was there in March. Each spent 30 days in the field.

"We are preparing our report," said Hiemstra. "Once we finish writing and editing, we'll submit it to the chain of command currently in Afghanistan. Once they review it, we'll distribute it to the Army, to units that have been designated as replacement organizations for the ones that are in the theater now, so they can use the insights and lessons to help develop their training programs prior to going to Afghanistan."

Additionally, he said, "We'll send the information to combat training centers so they can take a look and see how they may want to modify their scenarios. We'll submit it to TRADOC schools, to help develop instructor programs. We'll send the information to others involved in materiel development and acquisition.

Of particular interest in the field of acquisition is tactical communications equipment, said Hiemstra. In Afghanistan, he said, "We had a member of the team specifically looking at things relating to the ABCS [Army Battle Command System] program.

Another "equipment lesson" likely to filter into the acquisition process is the popularity in Afghanistan of the John Deere Gator light utility vehicle. The Gator, said a CALL report, was a "highly successful system--used to carry casualties, ammunition, water, etc. It validates the utility of rapidly acquiring off-the-shelf systems for certain tactical applications." (See related story)

CALL officials strive to protect the integrity of the lessons-learned reports and ensure that they reflect what actually happened in an operation, said Hiemstra. But he cannot prevent the CALL findings from becoming politicized, once the reports are released.

"Once I rake lessons and publish them, what people do with them after that is out of my control," he said.

Sometimes, the findings of a CALL team are kept secret, because they may compromise or endanger a unit still fighting the war, he said. "When we went to Afghanistan in January, we were advised to be careful about the lessons that we developed, because things in this operation are so different from things the Army has done in the past."

But Hiemstra stressed that, during his four years as the head of CALL, he has not been censored by higher-ups. "We have never ran into a situation when someone said, 'You can't print that,'" he...