Shortly thereafter, we received word that Task Unit Bruiser had been
chosen to deploy to Iraq. It was the news we had been waiting for. That
set us on a path that led a few months later to the city of Ar Ramadi and
through some of the toughest sustained urban combat in the history of
the SEAL Teams. In that challenging environment, detailed mission
planning and briefing played a critical role in our success. We planned
and briefed hundreds of combat operations in Task Unit Bruiser and
executed them with precision. We participated in the mission plans and
OPORD briefs with U.S. Army and Marines for dozens of large-scale
battalion and brigade-size operations, some involving as many as a
thousand U.S. Soldiers and Marines on the ground and nearly one
hundred tanks and armored vehicles.
We owned our planning process. After each combat operation, we
pulled our platoon together and talked through the details in a post-
operational debrief. In a concise and to-the-point format, we analyzed
what had worked and what hadn’t, how we might refine our standard
operating procedures, and how we could do it better. As a result, we
constantly learned and grew more effective. That ensured we performed
at the highest levels and enabled our success. In such a dangerous
environment, it helped us maintain an edge and allowed us to effectively
mitigate some risks, which meant more of our guys came home alive.
Mission planning played an integral part in our success on the
battlefield. The right process mattered. Disciplined planning procedures
mattered. Without them, we would have never been successful.
* * *With that lengthy story of how I learned to properly plan as a SEAL
leader, I addressed how the emerging-markets VP and his regional