military executive summary
Please look at the examples, the executive summary should be on the charge of the light bridage
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NCO LEADERSHIP CENTER of EXCELLENCE
Master Leader Course (MLC)
The Charge of the Light Brigade
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
I
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
II
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
III
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred.
I
V
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre stroke
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Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
V
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell.
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
VI
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Poetry Foundation
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45319/the-charge-of-the-light-brigade
The Charge of the Light Brigade
A major conflict of the 19th century, the Crimean War claimed at least 750,000 lives, more than
even the American Civil War, and had a profound impact on such renowned personalities as
British nurse Florence Nightingale and Russian author Leo Tolstoy. It got its start in and around
Jerusalem, then part of the Ottoman Empire, where Orthodox Christian and Catholic monks had
been engaging in fierce, sometimes deadly brawls for years over who would control various holy
sites. Following one such violent squabble in 1852, Czar Nicholas I of Russia, a self-proclaimed
defender of Orthodox Christianity, demanded the right to exercise protection over the Ottoman
Empire’s millions of Christian subjects. Upon being rejected, he then sent his army, the largest
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45319/the-charge-of-the-light-brigade
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in the world, to occupy two Ottoman principalities in present-day Romania. The czar also
purportedly had his eyes on Constantinople, the Ottoman capital, which if taken would give his
navy unfettered access to the Mediterranean Sea. Unnerved by this expansionism, Britain and
France sent their own warships to the area and vowed to defend Ottoman sovereignty.
Fighting officially broke out in October 1853, and the following month the Russians decimated
the Ottoman fleet in a surprise attack. But although Nicholas referred to the declining Ottoman
Empire as the “sick man of Europe,” his land forces made little progress in their push south,
underscored by the failed siege of a fortress in present-day Bulgaria. Meanwhile, in March 1854,
Britain and France declared war and immediately bombarded the then-Russian city of Odessa.
With Austria likewise threatening to jump into the fray, Nicholas withdrew from Romania.
Rather than declare victory, however, Britain and France decided to punitively target the Russian
naval base in Sevastopol, located on the Crimean Peninsula. On September 13, 1854, a joint
allied force of over 60,000 troops sailed into Kalamita Bay, about 33 miles north of their
objective. Due to stormy weather, it took five days for them to fully disembark. Believing the
conflict would be over quickly, they brought neither winter clothing nor medical supplies. They
moreover lacked accurate maps, had little idea how many Russian troops opposed them and
flouted the dietary restrictions of the Muslim Ottoman soldiers within their ranks. To make
matters worse, a cholera outbreak erupted.
Nonetheless, the British and French defeated the Russians in their first run-in near the Alma
River, causing a panicked retreat with the help of their long-range Minié rifles. They then
commenced a roundabout march to Sevastopol, where they spent two-and-a-half weeks digging
trenches and lugging artillery into position prior to initiating a bombardment of the city on
October 17. By that time, however, the Russians had significantly strengthened their defenses.
After holding out for eight days, they tried to break the siege with a dawn attack on Britain’s
supply base in the nearby fishing village of Balaclava. That morning, having forced Ottoman
troops to abandon four defensive redoubts, they were able to occupy the Causeway Heights just
outside town. But they failed to progress any further thanks to a regiment of Scottish
highlanders and the Heavy Brigade, each of which repelled a Russian advance.
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With Balaclava now safe, Lord Fitzroy Somerset Raglan, the British commander-in-chief in
Crimea, turned his attention back to the Causeway Heights, where he believed the Russians were
attempting to make off with some of his artillery guns. He ordered the cavalry, consisting of
both the Heavy and Light brigades, to advance with infantry support “and take advantage of any
opportunity to recover” the lost ground. Lord Raglan expected the cavalrymen to move
immediately, with the infantry to come later. But George Bingham, the earl of Lucan, who
commanded the cavalry, thought he wanted them to attack together. As a result, Lucan’s men sat
around for 45 minutes waiting for the infantry to arrive. At that point, Raglan issued a new
order, telling the cavalry to “advance rapidly to the front … and try to prevent the enemy
carrying away the guns.” From his vantage point, however, Lucan could not see any guns being
removed. Confused, he asked Raglan’s aide-de-camp where to attack, but instead of pointing to
the Causeway Heights, the aide allegedly waved his arm in the direction of a Russian artillery
battery at the far end of an exposed valley.
Lucan next approached his brother-in-law James Brudenell, the earl of Cardigan, who
commanded the Light Brigade. The two men loathed each other so much they were barely on
speaking terms. And neither was apparently respected by the troops. One officer in the Light
Brigade went so far as to call them both “fools.” Cardigan, he wrote in a letter home, “has as
much brains as my boot. He is only equaled in want of intellect by his relation the earl of
Lucan.” Though perturbed by Raglan’s order, Lucan and Cardigan obeyed it without first
checking back in to make sure they understood it correctly. At their bidding, the roughly 670
members of the Light Brigade drew their sabers and lances and began their infamous mile-and-a-
quarter-long charge with Russians shooting at them from three directions (though never from all
three at once). The first man to fall was Raglan’s aide-de-camp. Another soldier then had “his
head clean carried off by a round shot, yet for about 30 yards further the headless body kept in
the saddle,” according to a survivor. Other survivors spoke of being splattered with horse blood,
of watching their companions lose limbs, of seeing brains on the ground and of going through
smoke so thick it was like “riding into the mouth of a volcano.”
The Heavy Brigade, which, its name notwithstanding, resembled the Light Brigade except with
regard to uniform color, was supposed to follow in support but only went a short way down the
valley before Lucan directed it to turn back. Somehow, the Light Brigade reached its destination
anyway, crashing into the enemy lines with a vengeance. A few Russians even shot at their own
comrades in a desperate bid to clear an escape route. The Light Brigade’s members didn’t hold
the ground for long, though, before being forced to stagger back from whence they came. En
route, Russian artillery pounded away again from the
Causeway Heights—but not from the other two sides, as the Light Brigade had taken out one
battery itself and the French had taken out another—while Russian cavalrymen attempted to
entrap them. In the end, of the roughly 670 Light Brigade soldiers, about 110 were killed and 160
were wounded, a 40 percent casualty rate. They also lost approximately 375 horses.
Despite failing to overrun Balaclava, the Russians claimed victory in the battle, parading their
captured artillery guns through Sevastopol. Yet they would surrender the city and naval base
nearly a year later, after which they agreed to give up a small chunk of territory and to keep their
warships out of the Black Sea in exchange for peace. Meanwhile, the Light Brigade’s exploits
had already become legendary in Britain, thanks largely to Alfred Tennyson’s poem “The
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Charge of the Light Brigade.” Named poet laureate a few years earlier by Queen Victoria, he
praised the bravery of the men as they rode into the “valley of death.” His poem “The Charge of
the Heavy Brigade at Balaclava,” on the other hand, never quite captured the public’s
imagination.
CLASSIFICATION
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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Executive summaries (EXSUMs) are prepared in Arial 12 with 1-inch margins. The overall classification of the EXSUM, all uppercased and in boldface, is entered 1 inch from the top and bottom of the page. The words EXECUTIVE SUMMARY, all uppercased, are one return below the classification. One return below the words EXECUTIVE SUMMARY, the tasker number (if applicable) is entered, flush right. Directly below that comes the date in the abbreviated format shown above. If the EXSUM is not related to a tasker, enter the date one return below the words EXECUTIVE SUMMARY, flush right. One return below the date is the subject, all uppercased, underlined, and parenthetically marked with the applicable classification. The classification before the subject is the classification of the subject. The classification after the subject is the classification of the paragraph. The overall classification is bold and centered at the top and bottom of each page. The originator’s office symbol is entered in parentheses after the classification of the subject. After entering one return, the body of the EXSUM begins by stating the purpose (self-initiated or to answer a question). Acronyms must be spelled out the first time they appear, followed by the acronym in parentheses.
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APPROVED BY: Name of staff principal,
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
ES20-008-1
11 June 2019
(U) WHAT INSIGHTS ARE DERIVED FROM OPERATION ANACONDA IN REGARDS
TO THE NCO COMMON CORE COMPENTENCY (NCOCCC) OF OPERATIONS?
(U) The NCOCCC of Operations is a combination of operational skill sets that, when
mastered by senior leaders can save lives and ensure effective unified action. Some of
its key tenets include: Large-scale combat operations; understanding operational and
mission variables; resolving complex, ill-structured problems with the use of Mission
Command; and understanding how to integrate the different branches of the military into
successful joint operations (Department of the Army [DA], 2020, pp. 2-3). This final
principle of conducting joint operations becomes increasingly important as
contemporary conflicts continue to venture further into the realm of multi-domain
warfare. (Marr, 2018, pp. 10-11). In order to execute such a complex task, Joint Force
Commanders (JFC) must “integrate, synchronize, and direct joint operations” through
the use of seven Joint Functions (Joint Chiefs of Staff [JCS], 2017, p. III-1). One of
these functions, Command and Control, is how the JFC directs the forces toward
accomplishment of the mission, and its essential task is to “Communicate and ensure
the flow of information across the staff and joint force” (JCS, 2017, p. III-2). This task is
critical to the creation of a shared understanding, which allows the separate branches to
work seamlessly together toward a common goal. The absence of this unifying
component hinders missions and increases casualties. In Operation ANACONDA, JFC
Major General (MG) Hagenbeck failed to create such a shared understanding with his
subordinate Air Force assets, which contributed to increasing the amount of casualties
his forces incurred. Although the warning order was published on 6 January, MG
Hagenbeck did not notify the Combined Force Air Component Commander of Operation
ANACONDA until 23 February, just days before the operation began (Fleri et al., 2003).
This failure to ensure the flow of information across the joint force, caused downstream
effects in planning and preparation that led to diminished air support during the initial
stages of the operation. As noted by Lambeth (2005) in his comprehensive analysis,
“because so little air support had been requested…coalition troops entered the fight
virtually unprotected by any preparatory and suppressive fire” (pp. 204-205). Operation
Anaconda provides a clear case of how proficiency in the realm of Operations can result
in fewer U.S. casualties.
Kenneth P. Mullan/MLC 20-008
kenneth.p.mullan.mil@mail.mil
APPROVED BY: MSG Brian Brown
mailto:kenneth.p.mullan.mil@mail.mil
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Describe: Describe the overall concept of the NCOCCC.
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Explain: Explain the parts and pieces of the NCOCCC. Give extra attention to the one you will highlight from the case study.
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Transition statement: Transition from the NCOCCC description to the case study.
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Example: Give BRIEF synopsis of the case study events with a STRONG tie back to the NCOCCC pieces.
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Summary and Answer: Summarize everything already said and use summary to explicitly answer question.
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EXSUMs follow the format outlined in TRADOC Regulation 1-11 with the following exceptions. Summary paragraph not to exceed 2 pages. Do NOT use footnotes.
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References
Fleri, E., Howard, E., Hulkill, J., & Searle, T. R. (2003). Operation Anaconda case
study. College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education.
Headquarters, Department of the Army. (2020). The Noncommissioned Officer Guide
(TC 7-22.7).
Joint Chiefs of Staff. (2017). Joint Operations (JP 3-0).
https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp3_0ch1 ?ver=2018
-11-27-160457-910
Lambeth, B.S. (2005). Air power against terror: America’s conduct of Operation
Enduring Freedom. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7249/mg166centaf.13?seq=1
Marr, S. (2018). Stability in Multi-Domain Battle. U.S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability
Operations Institute.
https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp3_0ch1 ?ver=2018-11-27-160457-910
https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp3_0ch1 ?ver=2018-11-27-160457-910
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7249/mg166centaf.13?seq=1
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References: References keep single space but formatted and cited in APA for practice. No need to bold heading, EXSUMs do not use bold.