The Herbert Sobel Debacle [Part 2] The Chain Reaction (Band of Brothers/Easy Company)

It’s crazy how a miniseries from 25 years ago still makes me want to know as much about that story as possible. Can’t get enough of military documentaries. Just so much respect for the men that made these tales.

My observation based upon 22 years as a Marine infantry officer is that Col .Sink was required by unwritten tradition to relieve the leaders of the complaining soldiers. I have witnessed relief of several executive officers after reporting incompetence of their immediate commander. Subsequent to relief of the XO, the CO is relieved. The idea seems to be that in furtherance of good order and discipline, relief is necessary to avoid rewarding disloyalty and to warn future whistleblowers that the offense complained of must be so unbearable that the whistleblower is willing to give up his career. Similarly, the officer upon which the Caine Mutiny is based is recorded on YouTube speaking at a presentation at which he related that that he was relieved, a new XO replaced him, then the captain was relived, and, lastly, the new XO was appo0inted to command --- all to avoid the whistleblower profiting from his report.

Sobel ran the risk of getting fragged on D-Day had he jumped with Easy Co. IMHO.

No one should be permitted to be an officer until they have absolutely mastered field navigation.

2:28 Lt. Meehan proved that Sobel didn’t have to be an asshole but chose to be one.

As a soldier who went form E1-O4 (and a Soldier who had a "Rendezvous with Destiny" in 2003) I believe COL Sink did the right thing. To uphold the rule of law as a leader is one of the toughest things to do, even when you disagree with the decision. without order there is no cohesiveness, without cohesiveness there's no unit. etc, etc.

Sink waited far too long. His repeated inability to function in a field exercise, from Camp Mackall on to England, as well as his notorious inability to perform land navigation, should have seen him relieved much earlier.

(Army veteran, officer) Meehan got Easy Company (5th company in the regiment) because he had seniority. The 1st Sergeant the men hated died while serving his country; we need to cut those guys some slack - only the survivors were able to present their side of the story. If Winters had been given the company for D-Day, the story might have been about Meehan. In combat, they don't promote the best, they promote who is left. It says something about Winters that even after being promoted out of the company, the men still looked upon him as their leader.

I love Simon Pegg in that role - he's like, "Look at me guys with my American accent. Let's go to a ball game and eat hot dogs and enjoy watered down beer."

Relieving Sobel was the best course of action. Sink probably realized Sobel was not well regarded, but that the other officers of East AND THE NCO's gave the Company a lot of stability, high morale and the ability to function under fire; despite Sobel's incompetence.

It seems to me there are two views of Sobel. 1. He did train Easy Company to be the finest Company in the Regiment. 2. In doing so he also came across as petty and tyrannical. It became clear early on that Winters was well respected by the men, something that didn’t sit well with Sobel. I think Sink made the right decision, even if that cost other lives, he probably saved more by transferring Sobel out.

As a US Marine, 8 years, E5 (Sergeant), spend years combined in Iraq as a pog and earned my place within the grunts. One thing is for certain, MISSION IS KING! Mission first and troop welfare second. All our NCOs that were there prior to our invasion in March of 03, that line between Mission and Welfare IS FLEXIBLE!! You take care of your troops and see to their needs. They will take care of the Mission to the best of their abilities!!
However you can not coddle and pamper your men or you can make them forget that they were training to be warriors. That applies to officers as well. It is easy to blind yourself to the deficiencies of a favored individual and cause more harm than good. That was Col Sinks problem.

There's two types of officers who achieve promotions, and eventually the rank of General/Admiral... those whose performance, competence, and character merit the promotion/rank... and those who obtain their advancements in "other ways". And I'll leave it at that.

Asking if Col Sink “did the right thing” can only be answered by examining what options Sink had at his disposal and what were the likely repercussion of those options.
Sink was pressed for time, and had an invasion looming , its difficult to know IF he had been informed about all of the false claims by sobel (that winters did NOT have a phone at his billet, and that Sobel did NOT send a runner) what had to be obvious to him that the reprimand itself was absurd and thus the motivation for the reprimand had to be suspect. His solution was to separate the commander and executive officer by the most effective way at his disposal, promote the captain out of the company but and then fill the vacancy in the command position from outside of the company. At the same time he solidified Winters position as company XO by finally filling his vacancy as platoon leader of Second platoon, once again by promoting from outside of the company.
Moving on to the NCOs here he had another problem, actually 2
1 the company first sgt…. Its seems pretty clear that he lied to back up his company commander’s lies, BUT when you weigh that with his other problem, the lower NCOS there isnt much he can do about that. The senior NCO may have had just been loyal to his commander, and unable to confidentially dispute the claim
Meanwhile the NCO mutiny left him with a paradox, sure it alerted him to a problem, but military discipline cannot allow a mutiny, even with good intentions, to go unpunished , so he made examples of the leaders of the delegation. ….

I think Sink did the right thing with the limited options he had before D-Day. Can’t predict that the CO’s plane would be hit with a lot of battalion staff. It’s just war, that’s all it is - Hoot - Delta Force Somalia. God bless all those souls and thank you sir for the info

It's like they say in the outfit that I work in regarding management.

Suck up, punch down.

So sobel would have shown one face to the colonel, and an entirely different attitude
Toward his subordinates.

One thing your channel has done is made me realize there's more to peoples stories than we realize or want to admit. It's easy to dismiss Sobel as just a petty tyrant who would been an awful combat leader combat. But he did do some good on D-Day. The same can be said for Norman Dyke. Its easy to see as only Foxhole Norman. But was decorated for bravy. Great video and channel.

I had a commander who was just like Sobel in the marine corps..the man had been an ov10 pilot..passed over twice for major..the single most wired tyrant ive ever met..i had my degree wanting to go to ocs..i was meritorious promoted..finished 2nd in my class at infantry school...he was a good S3..but an absolute tyrant as a commander.

Sobel's own incompetence is what made him so mean. It's not uncommon in any situation. Add in the pressure of military command and you've got a real asshole on your hands.

Decisions have to be made; actions have to be taken. Everything has the Butterfly Effect.