#4--Ryan Gilchrist

In this episode, we discuss: *Gunner Gilchrist’s advice to his past self, Private First Class Gilchrist *What Infantry Training Battalion-East was like when Ryan attended as a student in 2003-2004 *What Ryan’s first unit (Fox Company, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines) was like *Ryan’s deployment to Karma, Iraq—what the experience was like and what he learned from it *How Ryan attempted to get his Marines to adopt a population-focused approach to counter-insurgency when he was a squad leader and platoon sergeant *Fox 2/2’s operations in Iraq *Ryan’s experience as a team leader *What makes a first-rate team leader *What every team leader should be doing intellectually to get better *The challenges of leading your peers *Ryan’s first MEU: his expectations and experiences *Ryan’s advice on keeping young Marines engaged on a MEU *What Ryan learned from training with the Kenyan army *His experience at Corporals Course and Drill Instructor School *Ryan’s response to my calls to change recruit training *The one thing Ryan would change about recruit training and why *Ryan’s thoughts on the 4th Phase of recruit training *Ryan’s experience at the Infantry Squad Leaders Course *His deployment to Sangin, Afghanistan, as a squad leader with India Company, Third Battalion, Seventh Marines *What lessons he took away from the deployment *Ryan’s second deployment to Afghanistan, this time as a platoon sergeant, and what he took away from it *What makes a good platoon sergeant *As a platoon sergeant, what Ryan expected of his squad leaders *Ryan’s experiences teaching at the Infantry Small Unit Leaders Course (ISULC) at the School of Infantry-West and how these influenced how he understands and practices maneuver warfare *The challenges associated with running ISULC field exercises *The intellectual shift Ryan experienced teaching at ISULC *Ryan’s initial reaction to seeing me (Damien) at ISULC *Why Ryan finds decision-forcing cases (DFCs) so effective *Ryan’s favorite DFC and why *Ryan’s facilitation of The Hornet’s Nest, a DFC that he built for ISULC *Unexpected themes or uses of DFCs *Ryan’s experience of having the protagonist of a case in the classroom while he’s teaching and his advice to case facilitators interested to employing this technique *Ryan’s time as the operations chief for Weapons Company, Third Battalion, 1st Marines, including his deployment with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit *His experience working with Italy’s San Marco Marine Brigade *Ryan’s time as the tactics chief at Officer Candidate School (OCS) *The one thing Ryan would change about OCS *Ryan’s experiences as a student at The Basic School and in the Infantry Weapons Officer Course *Ryan’s work on reshaping recruit training at Parris Island and how he’s integrated DFCs into The Crucible *The one thing Ryan would change about Marine enlisted professional military education *The one thing he’d changed about how we train Marines *The one thing he’d change about Marine infantry *What maneuver warfare in garrison looks like *Ryan’s thoughts on Force Design 2030 and what a war with China might look like for Marine infantry *His reaction to discussed plans to make Marine infantry more like special operations forces *What concerns Ryan the most about the future direction of the Marine Corps *What excites Ryan the most about the future direction of the Marine Corps Links Tribal Leadership by David Logan et al.: https://amzn.to/3niff9y Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card: https://amzn.to/3opXDrw