Lessons From My Son

My son once told me that the night he was wounded in Iraq taught him much about leadership. Late on Christmas night in 2003 during his first tour of duty in Iraq his unit put together a small convoy of four humvees to deliver Christmas goodies to troops posted throughout their sector. He was in the fourth and last humvee. He was riding in the passengerís side next to the driver with three soldiers in the back. Suddenly an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) went off one meter from where he was riding. Shrapnel and concrete raked his right leg and right side. The soldier behind him was wounded as well and began to fire his weapon. The humvee they are riding in now has two flat tires, the front window is shattered, two soldiers are wounded, everybody is rattled and the convoy has moved on without them. Now would be a good time for some leadership!

I thought of that experience and others as I recently flew to El Paso, Texas to Fort Bliss to witness the change of command ceremony of my son Captain Jon Brooks. After a year of leading a company in one of the toughest Baghdad neighborhoods he was turning over command to another officer. The simple yet profound ceremony was not something I was going to miss.

My son Jon has spent 29 months of his Army career in Iraq in two different tours. He has seen a lot and experienced a lot. His last eight months he spent commanding 2-12 of the 1st Cav at Joint Security Station Thrasher. General Petraeus used the success of JSS Thrasher in his testimony to Congress of the positive effects of the surge. JSS Thrasher was often written about by the press and was a regular stop for not only generals and journalists but politicians. What was learned and achieved there is being put into practice in other places in Iraq in hopes of turning the tide of violence around.

Throughout his career in the Army I have found that my son has taught me more on leadership than I have ever taught him. As I flew back to Atlanta I began to reflect upon some of those lessons. In this issue of The Stewardship Coach I want to share with you the lessons on leadership that I have observed in my son that can make you a better steward of the leadership opportunities God has given you.

Leadership is all about stewardship.

Mention stewardship and immediately people think of money. Yet stewardship entails much more than just money. Before you can raise funds you must first be a good leader. Here are some lessons that can be learned from my sonís experiences.

Leaders must first be good stewards of themselves before they can lead their people. As I watched not only my son but the other officers, NCOs and enlisted men I saw men and women who knew how to utilize the skills and gifts that they had. They had continually trained themselves to be the best they could be for the people they commanded. All of us have opportunities to be better leaders. Some invest the time to get better while others waste the time given them. Without a proper stewardship of the leadership invested in you you will never become a good leader.

Leaders know their people. When Jon said that he learned a lot about leadership the night he was wounded I probed for what he meant by that statement. Here is what he related. He had just taken over the Executive Officer position of Bravo Company of 1-37 Armor a few weeks earlier. His armor unit had an infantry unit attached to it. The infantry unit attached to them was the 1-36th.

On Christmas night he found himself in the Humvee with troopers of 1-36 that he did not know. After the IED went off the driver stopped the Humvee in the intersection. Jon was yelling, "Go, go, go, go," to the driver who was rattled and had stopped. Behind him the other trooper who was wounded was slipping into shock. Jon relates that he turned around and began to talk to the boy to see how he was doing. "I am not doing very good, sir," was his reply. "What is your name," Jon asked. The young man told Jon his rank and last name. ìWhat is your first name?î The boy then told Jon what his first name was. By calling the boys name it served to calm him down until the medics could get to him.

Jon says that he realized then the value of knowing your people so that they would know to trust you in times of crisis. Getting to know his troops was essential, as they would face more combat situations in the days ahead.

Knowing your people and your people knowing you builds confidence and trust to face the worst that life can throw at us. John Maxwell says it this way in his Law of Connection, ìLeaders touch a heart before they ask for a hand.î The military might term it differently but the point is without knowing your people they will never gain the trust needed to follow. Too often in our rush to get the job done we pass over one of our most important tasks as leaders, knowing our people.

Leaders train their people. After Jonís first tour in Iraq someone asked him what he faced that he was unprepared for. Jon said, "When we got to Kuwait before we ever got into Iraq we realized that major combat was over and there would not be any WWII type tank battles." Jon's unit 1-37 Armored is trained for a far different type of mission than what they faced in Baghdad where they were going. "We took the week or so before we left for Iraq and trained our guys for what lay ahead of us." They took advantage of an Infantry unit being nearby and asked questions from their leaders in order to prepare their troops for what might lie ahead.

In todayís ever-changing environment we have to constantly be ready to change our thinking and thus our training to meet new challenges. Tragically many schools and seminaries are cranking out students who are ill equipped to face the issue of this new century. Our job as stewardship consultants is to train him and his people to meet the challenges before him.

Here are some key steps that the leadership of 1-37 took in order to train their people.

They needed to know what training was required. The leadership of 1-37 understood what lay ahead of them and trained accordingly.
They had to be willing to rethink their original training. It would have been easy to simply say we are armored soldiers and thus miss the real need.
They were not afraid to ask for help. Tankers don't usually ask Infantrymen for help but lives were at stake.

Leaders equip their people. Jon once told me about how they were faced with thousands of protesters once who wanted to march towards the coalition headquarters and how his unit stopped them. "A tank is pretty good at breaking up a crowd," he said. An Abrams weighs 63 tons, costs $2.5 million dollars, and has not only the main gun but also several machine guns mounted upon it. However, what they used was the exhaust from the turbine engines to disperse the crowd. They turned the tanks around and revved up the engines. The blasts of heat drove the crowds back.

Jon then related how their replacements had arrived in country without much armored vehicles. Everyone thought the worst of the fighting was over so why bring all their heavy stuff? If you have ever read the book or seen the movie "Black Hawk Down" you know the value of armor to an infantryman. Thus Jon's unit found themselves nightly going out of their sector to hot spots to provide support. The right equipment makes all the difference!

Leaders share the praise they receive with their people. At my sonís change of command ceremony his commanding officer talked about all that was accomplished at JSS Thrasher. He stated that when Jon took command there was a 90% incident rate. At the end of their time at Thrasher incidents were down to 10%. Immediately after the Lt. Colonels remarks my son in his remarks gave credit to the men he commanded. He said, ìAll the accomplishments that the Colonel just listed are a result of your hard work.î Good leaders make sure that praise is filter down and spread around. They recognize that their accomplishments are the results of team work not simply their own ingenuity.

My son once said to me, "People talk about nuclear weapons being the most powerful weapons on earth but I believe that leadership is the most powerful weapon on earth!" Twenty nine months in a combat zone will teach you a few things about leadership. I am looking forward to what other lessons I will learn from my son and the rest of our brave military men and women. Applying these lessons to our own leadership opportunities can and will make us better leaders. These lessons will result in our members believing enough in us and our vision to contribute financially to help that cause.

Keep ever learning in order to better lead!

Mark Brooks

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