
"General Orders for Sentries" as an operations document - joeyespo
http://sebastianmarshall.com/general-orders-for-sentries-as-perhaps-the-finest-operations-document-of-all-time
======
drblast
This is drilled into you when you join the Navy.

Then you get to an aircraft carrier. You're the in port officer of the deck.
You know the rules. You make sure every sentry is checking ID's.

Then someone tries to get through with a piece of laminated red paper with
their name on it. You turn them away. They say, "Hey, I'm a contractor, I'm
supposed to be here."

You call the Command Duty Officer. He says, "Oh, if it's a contractor, they
have their own ID's, let him through."

You ask, "What do the contractor ID's look like?"

He says, "Oh, they're all different depending on the contracting company."

You ask, "Do we have samples of them, or can anyone just make one up and walk
on board?"

 _crickets_

Then you peek out and stare at the line of about 300 contractors and dock
workers who, if you're doing your job, aren't going to get to work on the ship
that day.

Lesson: rules are great but execution really matters.

~~~
Kluny
Every contractor really is a massive security risk. If it was wartime and
there was any threat to the navy, all the work would be done by navy
technicians. It really shows the extent to which bureaucracy has taken over
the American military.

~~~
Lawtonfogle
Not bureaucracy, corruption. In my own experience, the contractors cost more
(though the individual workers don't see more money) with the extra money
going to the company, which spends some of it lobbying or offering nice jobs
to those who award the contracts. You see this at all different scales.

------
ianso
This reminds me of "two stories of the pistol", some anecdotes where a sentry
actually does almost kill some idiot senior officers:

[http://everything2.com/title/Two+stories+of+the+pistol](http://everything2.com/title/Two+stories+of+the+pistol)

~~~
MichaelCrawford
My father's ship was patrolling off the cost of south vietnam. They were told
that civilian Vietnamese fishing boats traveling east or west were fishing,
whereas those going north or south were running ammunition or troops.

So one day they spotted a sailboat going south. The request permission to
shell it. The permission was granted.

Dad thought it was quite funny, the shower of fish in the air when the shell
detonated.

It never occured to me until many years later, to wonder about the crew aboard
the fishing boat. It was quite common for entire families to live on their
fishing boats for their whole lives.

------
oconnor663
Reminds me a bit of this bit from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality:
[http://hpmor.com/chapter/84](http://hpmor.com/chapter/84)

\---

From his belt, the Auror took a mirror, tapped it once, and then said, "This
is Junior Auror Arjun Altunay, I'm calling in code RJ-L20 on cell three."

"Code RJ-L20?" the mirror said in surprised tones. There was a sound of pages
being flipped, then, "You want to be relieved because a prisoner is attempting
psychological warfare and succeeding?"

(Amelia Bones really is quite intelligent.)

"What'd the prisoner say to you?" said the mirror.

(This question is not part of procedure RJ-L20, but unfortunately Amelia Bones
has failed to include an explicit instruction that the commanding officer
should not ask.)

"He's -" said the Auror, and glanced back at the cell. The Defense Professor
was now leaning in back in his chair, looking quite relaxed. "He was staring
at me! And humming! "

There was a pause.

The mirror spoke again. "And you're calling in an RJ-L20 over that? You're
sure you're not just trying to get out of watching him?"

(Amelia Bones is surrounded by idiots.)

"You don't understand!" yelled Auror Altunay. "It's really awful humming!"

The mirror transmitted a sound of muffled laughter in the background, sounding
like it was coming from more than one person. Then speech again. "Mr. Altunay,
if you don't want to be busted to Junior Auror Second Class, I suggest you
buckle down and get back to work -"

"Strike that," a crisp voice said, sounding slightly remote due to its
distance from the mirror.

(Which is why Amelia Bones often sits in on a coordination center of the
D.M.L.E. while doing her Ministry-required paperwork.)

"Auror Altunay," said the crisp voice, seeming to approach closer to the
mirror, "you will be relieved shortly. Auror Ben Gutierrez, the procedure for
RJ-L20 does _not_ say that you ask why. It says that you relieve the Auror who
calls it in. _If_ I find that Aurors seem to be abusing it, _I_ will modify
the procedure to prevent its abuse -" The mirror cut off abruptly.

~~~
mcherm
Yes, I loved that section.

------
Animats
Some other military practices of interest:

The five paragraph order format: Situation, Mission, Execution, Administrative
and Logistics, Command and Signals. Execution always includes the commander's
intent, even if it's one sentence. The situation may change, and the lower
ranks need to know the goal, not just what to do.

If you like the way the military thinks, read Gen. Krulak's brief memos from
when he was Commandant of the USMC. Typical Krulak: "Marines on riot control
duty will be armed. If the situation does not require weapons, it does not
require a Marine."

Worth reading: "The Defense of Duffer's Drift".[1]

[1]
[http://www.benning.army.mil/infantry/199th/ocs/content/pdf/T...](http://www.benning.army.mil/infantry/199th/ocs/content/pdf/The%20Defence%20of%20Duffers%20Drift.pdf)

~~~
jwhitlark
"Commander's intent" and the idea of familiarization courses were two ideas I
found in the Army that I think apply to Development/operations.

~~~
Animats
Another useful concept is the 1/3 rule. If something has to be done, a level
of command can use only 1/3 of the time available - 2/3 of the time belongs to
the lower levels. This repeats downward.

That doesn't leave much lead time at the bottom, but the military also uses
warning orders - "We're going to move out tomorrow, details to follow" \- to
get units ready.

------
JadeNB
I like the author's careful descriptions of what is good about the document,
but it seems like common-sense pragmatism. Surely there are other, equally
pragmatic and sensible, documents? (I admit that I don't have any examples,
but I am not often exposed to good _or_ bad procedures documents.) _Why_ does
this one deserve particularly to be singled out?

EDIT: As dragonwriter
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9682195](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9682195))
correctly points out, it would be wrong to demand that everything written
about be the unique best object in its class, and I do not mean to do so. I
mean instead that the author literally singles out this document as "one of
the finest written processes of all time", which seems to be more than the
analysis demonstrates.

Also, because I am that guy, this:

> there's thousands of permeations of things that can go wrong

should be 'permutations' (or, more likely, probably 'combinations'), not
'permeations'.

~~~
jessaustin
_Surely there are other, equally pragmatic and sensible, documents?_

I was reminded of the Four Rules for Firearms Handling. I think you're selling
this sort of thing short, however. It's not as if some junior officer just sat
down one afternoon and wrote these rules. Rather, they are the end result of a
long process of trial, error, disaster, and rewriting.

~~~
JadeNB
> I think you're selling this sort of thing short, however.

I don't mean to do so!—although I see how "common-sense pragmatism" can sound
derisive. I agree that it is much harder than it might seem for a document not
to get in its own way; sort of the procedural version of Twain's "I would have
written a shorter letter if I had had more time." I didn't in any way mean to
question the _value_ of this document, only its _unicity_.

------
asmithmd1
Tbese rules are so important a lowly sentry fored the superintendent of the
naval academy to resign when the admiral got into a scuffle over showing an
ID.

[http://www.militarycorruption.com/naughton2.htm](http://www.militarycorruption.com/naughton2.htm)

~~~
woodman
I was actually kind of close to that, the incident got added to the long list
of examples provided to the enlisted. It is incredibly stressful for a PFC
when he has to ruin an officer's day, knowing that they'll not be thrown under
the bus lets them do their job. When I was going through the School of
Infantry I witnessed a PFC, guarding an ammo depot, buttstroke a LT who had
ignored the sentry's instructions to leave the secured area. The LT was
discharged and the PFC got promoted pretty much on the spot.

------
USNetizen
Forgot my favorite "unofficial" one: "I will walk my post from flank to flank
and take no sh*t from any rank" ;-)

Ah, brings me back to my Army days and having to memorize variations of these
at every assignment before patrolling some of the most uninviting,
inhospitable places on the planet.

------
fapjacks
Most formal order documents are like this. You can find tons of operations,
warning, and fragmentary orders online, including orders used in combat
theaters previously. But be ready for an increasing amount of entropy as you
move from formal operations orders to warning orders to fragmentary orders.
Often, FRAGOs aren't even typed up in a document, especially in combat arms.

~~~
dragonwriter
While the _exact_ formats may not be appropriate for non-military use cases,
and some details and names of elements may need to be changed in non-military
contexts, familiarity with the standards of reasoning for what goes into
operational, warning, and fragmentary orders and when each is appropriate
wouldn't hurt for people who need to give direction in terms of how to give
good, clear, complete (to the extent situationally appropriate) direction
which makes clear the intent behind the directions and context in which it is
applied.

------
dlitz
This seems like a good argument for well-thought-out codes of conduct at
conferences and whatnot. Sure, "just don't be a dick" _sounds_ like a good
rule on the surface, but spelling out the rules can make things run much more
smoothly in practice.

------
lionhearted
Wow, neat. I'm a little late to the party here: I think I wrote under a dozen
non-announcement blog posts from May 2014 to May 2015... glad this one
resonated and was useful.

------
vacri
> _To salute all officers and all colors and standards not cased._

What does 'not cased' mean in this context?

~~~
dragonwriter
Cased = folded. Very roughly, the distinction is between a flag displayed vs.
one considered to be in storage.

------
MichaelCrawford
It could be said that the radar crew that spotted the Japanese on their way to
the Pearl Harbor attack failed in their duty. I've ready various discussions
as to why; one was that they were expecting US planes in that area, the other
is that the planes they spotted gave such a strong signal that the radar crew
regarded it as malfunctioning equipment.

------
dimino
I wonder if this being posted here is in any way related to the events which
took place on the latest episode of Game of Thrones...

~~~
rosser
First of all, no, it isn't.

Secondly, this could be construed as being on the same continent as a spoiler,
which, well, _don 't do that_.

~~~
dimino
I've spoiled nothing!

For those who've seen it, they know precisely the content to which I refer,
and to those who haven't, I am in no way spoiling because of how vague I
remained.

