Staff & Admin Aids

The five-paragraph format exists so that a leader receiving an order always knows where to look for what they need. Its power is predictability: a platoon sergeant hunting for the casualty evacuation plan goes to paragraph 4 without reading the rest. Break the format and you break that.

1. 1

   1. Situation

   The operational environment, the enemy, friendly forces, other organizations in the area, civil considerations, attachments and detachments, and any assumptions. Everything the receiver needs to understand the problem.

2. 2

   2. Mission

   One paragraph, no subparagraphs. Who, what, when, where, and why. The why is the purpose and it is the part subordinates fall back on when the plan breaks.

3. 3

   3. Execution

   Commander's intent, the concept of operations, scheme of movement and maneuver, scheme of fires, tasks to subordinate units, and coordinating instructions. The largest paragraph and the one that carries the plan.

4. 4

   4. Sustainment

   Logistics, personnel services, and health service support. Supply, maintenance, transportation, casualty evacuation, and how a unit gets resupplied when the plan changes.

5. 5

   5. Command and signal

   Where the commander will be, succession of command, command post locations, and the communications plan including a primary, alternate, contingency, and emergency method.

Task

What the unit is to do. Use approved doctrinal tactical tasks so the receiver knows exactly what is being asked.

Purpose

Why the unit is doing it, expressed in relation to the higher unit's plan. This is what allows disciplined initiative when the task becomes impossible.

Coordinating instructions

Anything that applies to two or more subordinate units: timeline, CCIR, rules of engagement, risk reduction control measures, reporting requirements.

Concept of operations

The commander's description of how the operation unfolds from start to end state. It should read as a narrative a subordinate can visualize.

MDMP is the staff's planning process. It is deliberate, it consumes time, and it requires a staff -- which is why it lives at battalion and above while small units use troop leading procedures. Each step has an output the next step needs, so skipping one does not save time, it just moves the work later.

1. 1

   1. Receipt of mission

   Alert the staff, gather the tools, do an initial assessment of time and resources, and issue the first warning order.

2. 2

   2. Mission analysis

   The heaviest step. Analyze the higher order, identify specified, implied, and essential tasks, constraints, and assumptions; conduct intelligence preparation of the operational environment; produce a restated mission and initial commander's intent. Ends with the mission analysis brief and approved planning guidance.

3. 3

   3. Course of action development

   Build distinguishable courses of action that are feasible, acceptable, suitable, distinguishable, and complete.

4. 4

   4. Course of action analysis

   Wargame each COA against enemy action, action by action. Produces the synchronization matrix, decision points, and the refined event template.

5. 5

   5. Course of action comparison

   Compare COAs against criteria the commander approved, usually with a decision matrix, and identify the staff recommendation.

6. 6

   6. Course of action approval

   The commander decides, refines the intent, and issues any final guidance. Another warning order follows.

7. 7

   7. Orders production, dissemination, and transition

   Write the order, brief it, and transition to the units that will execute it. Rehearsals begin here.

Specified task

Stated in the higher order. Read it off the page.

Implied task

Must be done to accomplish a specified task but is not stated. Routine unit activity does not count.

Essential task

An implied or specified task that must be executed for mission success. Essential tasks go into the restated mission.

Constraint

A restriction from higher that either requires an action or prohibits one.

There are three combat orders. Which one you issue is a function of where you are in planning and how much of the previous order still stands. Sending the wrong one wastes the most limited resource a subordinate has, which is time.

• What is known about the situation and the enemy.
• The mission or the higher unit's mission, as far as it is understood.
• Timeline, including the earliest movement time and time of the order.
• Movement or reconnaissance instructions that can start now.
• Specific tasks and preparation that subordinates can begin without waiting.
• The time and place the full order will be issued.

That is the useful content of a warning order. It follows the five-paragraph headings so the receiver can slot it into the same mental structure, but it carries only what is known and any subparagraph with nothing in it says so.

Troop leading procedures are how a leader without a staff plans. Company and below, the leader is the staff, which changes both the sequence and the amount of parallel work. The steps are not strictly sequential -- steps 3 through 6 overlap and get revisited as information arrives.

1. 1

   1. Receive the mission

   Take the order or the alert, do an initial time analysis, and start the clock.

2. 2

   2. Issue a warning order

   Get subordinates moving on preparation before you have a plan. Do not wait.

3. 3

   3. Make a tentative plan

   Analyze the mission using METT-TC (I), develop and analyze a course of action, and decide.

4. 4

   4. Initiate movement

   Move the unit, or a part of it, toward the objective or a staging area while planning continues.

5. 5

   5. Conduct reconnaissance

   Confirm or deny the assumptions in the tentative plan. Map reconnaissance is the minimum; physical reconnaissance is the standard.

6. 6

   6. Complete the plan

   Refine the tentative plan with what reconnaissance and coordination produced.

7. 7

   7. Issue the order

   Five-paragraph format, on a terrain model or with a sand table if at all possible.

8. 8

   8. Supervise and refine

   Rehearse, conduct precombat checks and inspections, and keep adjusting. This step never ends.

METT-TC (I)

Mission, enemy, terrain and weather, troops and support available, time available, civil considerations, and informational considerations. The mission variables a leader analyzes in step 3.

OAKOC

Observation and fields of fire, avenues of approach, key and decisive terrain, obstacles, cover and concealment. The military aspects of terrain. Older references use OCOKA.

AR 25-50 is the standard for Army correspondence. The memorandum is the ordinary form of internal Army correspondence, and the regulation exists so that a document written in one unit reads the same way in another. The October 2024 edition supersedes the October 2020 version.

1. 1

   Letterhead and office symbol

   Unit letterhead at the top, then the office symbol of the originating office on the left.

2. 2

   Date

   On the same line as the office symbol, aligned right. Use the day-month-year form the regulation prescribes.

3. 3

   MEMORANDUM FOR line

   The addressee. Use MEMORANDUM THRU when it routes through an intermediate headquarters, listing each THRU in order before the FOR.

4. 4

   SUBJECT line

   Short and specific enough that a reader knows the topic without opening the body.

5. 5

   Body

   State the purpose in the first paragraph. Put the requirement or the request before the background, not after it.

6. 6

   Point of contact paragraph

   The last paragraph names the point of contact with rank, name, and telephone or email.

7. 7

   Signature block

   Three lines: name, rank and branch of service, and duty title. It sits on the right side of the page.

• A memorandum with only one paragraph is not numbered.
• Two or more paragraphs are numbered 1., 2., 3.
• Subparagraphs run a., b., then (1), (2), then (a), (b).
• If you create a subparagraph you must create at least two at that level. A lone subparagraph a. with no b. is a formatting error.
• Continuation pages repeat the office symbol and the SUBJECT line at the top.

Knowing which section owns a problem is most of what makes a staff officer or NCO useful. At brigade and below the sections carry an S prefix; at division and above they carry a G. Joint staffs use J. The numbering means the same thing at every echelon.

Coordinating staff

The numbered sections above. They coordinate and integrate the commander's areas of interest and speak with the commander's authority within their lanes.

Special staff

Officers with a functional specialty who advise and support the coordinating staff -- surgeon, chaplain, engineer, chemical, provost marshal, safety, public affairs.

Personal staff

Officers who work directly for the commander because of a legal requirement or the nature of the advice -- inspector general, staff judge advocate, chaplain, command sergeant major.

The executive officer at brigade and below, or the chief of staff at division and above, runs the staff on the commander's behalf: sets the battle rhythm, enforces suspenses, and integrates the sections. Staff sections do not coordinate directly with the commander around that person as a matter of routine.

Running estimate

A staff section's continuously updated assessment of the current situation in its functional area and of whether the current or planned operation can be supported.

The word running is the entire point. An estimate built for a single planning session and then filed is not a running estimate, it is a slide. The commander asks the S-4 whether the brigade can support another twelve hours of movement and expects an answer immediately, not after a data call.

• The current situation in the section's area, with facts separated from assumptions.
• The section's assessment of how the operation is going in its functional area.
• Whether the current operation, and the branches and sequels being considered, can be supported.
• Shortfalls, risks, and the section's recommendations to address them.

DA Form 4187, Personnel Action, is the general-purpose request a Soldier initiates for something affecting their own record or status, and the form a unit uses to document a duty status change. It is prescribed by AR 600-8-6. When there is no specialized form for an action, the 4187 is usually the vehicle.

• Duty status changes -- present for duty, absent without leave, dropped from rolls, hospitalized, confined.
• Request for separate rations or a change in a basic allowance.
• Request for reclassification or a change to a military occupational specialty.
• Request for school attendance, such as airborne or air assault.
• Request for deletion, deferment, or amendment of assignment instructions.
• Name and record corrections that do not have their own form.

1. 1

   Confirm the 4187 is the right vehicle

   Leave goes on DA Form 31. Awards go on DA Form 638. Counseling goes on DA Form 4856. Many actions are now initiated by the Soldier directly in IPPS-A. Using the wrong path is the most common reason a package is returned.

2. 2

   State the action and the authority

   Say plainly what is requested and cite the regulation that authorizes it. A 4187 that does not name its authority forces the approver to go find it, which means it sits.

3. 3

   Attach the supporting documents

   Whatever the governing regulation requires -- orders, certificates, medical documentation, a memorandum of support. Incomplete packages are the second most common return.

4. 4

   Route it through the chain of command

   The 4187 carries recommendations at each level. A first sergeant and commander recommendation with substance behind it matters more than the block itself.

5. 5

   Track it at the S-1

   Log it, get a suspense, and follow up. Nobody at the S-1 is going to chase a Soldier's action for them.

AR 600-8-10 governs leave and passes. The distinction that matters is simple: leave is charged against a Soldier's accrued balance and a pass is not. Everything else follows from that.

Ordinary leave

Chargeable leave taken against an accrued balance. The normal case.

Advance leave

Chargeable leave granted before it is earned, against leave the Soldier is expected to accrue.

Emergency leave

Leave for a bona fide family emergency. Chargeable. Verification usually runs through the American Red Cross.

Convalescent leave

Non-chargeable absence for recovery, authorized on the recommendation of the attending medical provider.

Permissive TDY

Not leave. Non-chargeable temporary duty for authorized purposes such as house hunting or a job search near separation.

Terminal leave

Ordinary leave taken immediately before separation or retirement, so the Soldier is on leave through their last day of service.

• Leave accrues at two and a half days per month, or thirty days a year.
• The ordinary carryover limit at the end of the fiscal year is sixty days; leave above the limit is lost unless special leave accrual applies.
• Enlisted Soldiers may sell back a limited number of days of leave over a career, generally at reenlistment or separation.
• Leave is requested and authorized on DA Form 31, which also records the sign-out and sign-in.

An appointment memorandum puts a Soldier in a duty in writing. It matters because it establishes who is accountable and on what authority. When an inspector or an investigating officer asks who the key control custodian is, the answer is a signed memorandum, not a name somebody remembers.

• Unit armorer and arms room key control custodian.
• Primary and alternate hand receipt holders.
• Unit supply representative and authorized requesters.
• Additional duty safety officer or NCO.
• Unit prevention leader for the substance abuse program.
• Range officer in charge and range safety officer.
• Investigating officer, financial liability officer, or summary court-martial officer for a specific action.

1. 1

   Use the AR 25-50 memorandum format

   Unit letterhead, office symbol, date, MEMORANDUM FOR the appointee, SUBJECT line naming the duty.

2. 2

   Cite the authority in paragraph 1

   Name the regulation that requires or permits the appointment -- AR 190-11 for arms room duties, AR 710-2 and DA PAM 710-2-1 for supply, AR 385-10 for safety, AR 15-6 for an investigating officer.

3. 3

   Name the person precisely

   Rank, full name, and unit. Do not appoint a position; appoint a person.

4. 4

   State the effective date and the duration

   Either a specific end date or wording that the appointment remains in effect until rescinded or the appointee departs the unit.

5. 5

   State the duties and any prerequisites

   What the appointee is responsible for, and any certification or training that has to be completed first. Keep the completed training certificate with the memorandum.

6. 6

   Signed by the appointing authority

   Usually the commander. Some appointments must be made by a specific level of command -- check the governing regulation before the wrong signature block goes on it.