On Friday, December 10th, 1999, two of my fellow platoon leaders and I swept the 3rd Squadron 4th Cavalry hangar and properly secured our 16 × OH-58D Kiowa Warriors for the weekend. As we transitioned from the hangar and into the gym, we reached for our "dumb lieutenant handbook" and quickly turned to page #2. Within seconds, we executed the time honored lieutenant tradition of "committing to an extremely demanding physical activity with little or no training." Approximately forty-eight hours later, I realized there are two asymmetric halves to a marathon - the first 20 miles and the most difficult 10km you will ever run in your life. Crossing the finish line that Sunday morning was a great moment for us; a moment borne from a unique opportunity for active duty soldiers to run the Honolulu Marathon for the affordable price of two dollars. Those same lieutenants (now colonels), have been asked to run a much more important race - Design, Develop and Deliver an affordable Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) for the Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) Capable Force in 2028 to close the aerial reconnaissance and security gap on the battlefield. From that mission statement, our primary implied task is to provide next generation air-ground integration capability to America's most prized weapon system - the Soldier. Army Aviation exists to support the Soldier - that is our "why." Although I agree with the popular communication theory presented by author Simon Sinek that "the most successful teams transmit in "why-how-what" order; this piece presents its ideas in reverse while assuming an intrinsic understanding of "why" across every level within the formation. Delivering the fully qualified FARA weapons system in 2028 requires an expert understanding of "what" PEO Aviation does and enterprise agreement of "how" we must run this eight year marathon.
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