Opinion: There's no delegating responsibility

During the past two years, five Marine recruits have died during boot camp at Parris Island, S.C.

These deaths were caused by a variety of reasons and some of them remain under investigation to determine the cause. As a result of one of these deaths, the drill instructor involved is facing trial for negligent homicide.

In addition, the commanding officer of the 1st Recruit Training Regiment and his sergeant major were relieved of their leadership positions “for loss of trust and confidence.”

Many Americans have no knowledge of military structure, so I’ll try to put this in context.

Between the CO of the regiment and the recruit, there are several levels of supervision. The recruit has a drill instructor, who is under a senior drill instructor.

They have a platoon commander who is a commissioned officer, usually a lieutenant. These Marines have a company commander, usually a captain, who reports to a battalion commander, usually a major or lieutenant colonel.

And then you get to the regimental commander, who was a colonel.

So, you had at least six layers of command. That makes no difference to the colonel who was relieved. It’s his responsibility.

Training accidents happen regularly across all branches of the military, and serve as a reminder that service to the country in the uniformed armed forces is a dangerous business. I retired from the Marine Corps 43 years ago, and I imagine there have been many changes since then. What follows is a simplified infantry organization chart.

The span of control, or the number of people one leader has to control is three. There are three men in a fire team with a fire team leader, three fire teams in a squad with a squad leader, three squads in a platoon with a platoon commander, three platoons in a company with a company commander, three companies in a battalion with a battalion commander, three battalions in a regiment with a regimental commander and three regiments in a division with a division commander. Three infantry divisions in a Corps.

In theory, the commander only has to speak to three people; realistically there’s usually more than that, but you can see that the chain of supervision is not something that is willy-nilly or haphazard.

We were taught from day one, you can delegate authority, you can’t delegate responsibility. I wish politicians had the same rule.

Rube Render is a former Clovis city commissioner and former chair of the Curry County Republican Party. Contact him:

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