New PL trying to understand the army
Got a platoon 3 months away from a major exercise that's been in the works for around 8 months total (OCONUS property movement, multiple teams in different locations supporting different organizations).
The WHOLE operation was planned through verbal communication. Sure, I can look through my email and maybe find a few emails about changes to DTS, or a calendar that was copied from a BN slide deck, but for the overwhelming majority of the planning needed - all that was given was the CO decreeing something would happen, whenever and wherever it popped into his mind.
Overall, things... worked out okay... Like 2 teams with identical capabilities got their sites swapped, and a container didn't end up where we thought it would. But nothing that resulted in mission failure or needed to be brought to higher leadership.
It makes me concerned because the whole ordeal of planning and getting teams out the door was so incredibly stressful and disorganized. I was hoping that at some point there would be a realization that maybe an OPORD or at least a CONOP would help bring structure to how my company operates. But when I brought up the idea in an AAR the response was "things change too often there would be no point" and "I was too busy to build one and so was BN at their level."
Makes me concerned about my sanity in the long run if this is how the Army operates.