Skills needed for the arena...
Courtney, Ken, & Entropy,
As with many things perhaps its six of one and half a dozen of the other.
Having a couple of company commands is a valuable experience in the managing people arena (better if you are lucky and get to work with good 1SGs both times). Malcom Gladwell posits that a specialist, in management or anything else, requires approximately 10,000 hours to become 'good'. Miyamoto Musashi provides some interesting things to think about on this topic as well:
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Musashi spent many years studying Buddhism and swordsmanship. He was an accomplished artist, sculptor, and calligrapher. Records also show that he had architectural skills. Also, he had a rather straightforward approach to combat, with no additional frills or aesthetic considerations. This was probably due to his real-life combat experience.
Especially in his later life Musashi also followed the more artistic side of bushido. He made various Zen brush paintings and calligraphy and sculpted wood and metal. Even in The Book of Five Rings he emphasizes that samurai should understand other professions as well. It should be understood that Musashi's writings were very ambiguous. Translating them into English makes them even more so. That is why we find so many copies of Gorin no Sho. One needs to read this work, Dokkodo and Hyoho Shiji ni Kajo to get a better idea of what he was about and understand his transformation from Setsuninto (the sword that takes life) to Katsujinken (the sword that gives life).
Comparing the results of promotion rates in the bad old zero defect days vs. today's GWOT veterans is a study in contrasts. Many of us bailed from active duty when the door opened after the Berlin Wall fell and in my neck of the woods it seemed to be that many 'careerists' (in the pejorative sense) stayed in. When I came back to active duty for GWOT the ensuing pace of things seemed to have chased out many of the bad ones. It's also very refreshing to see those with combat patches & CIB's/CAB's moving up into positions of responsibility.
When I get too cocky, however, I like to think about one of my dad's favorite sayings: 'old age and treachery will give youth and inexperience a run for its money'. :eek:
Best,
Steve
Obviously, you have never collided with the greater
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Originally Posted by
82redleg
Unless you're a brain surgeon or burn specialist, or something like that, which simply isn't done in Iraq, there is no excuse for a MAJ (or CPT P) to be without a deployment. Not at 8 years into the war. There is just no excuse.
Army Human Resources Command in full cry. :wry:
Without knowing branches involved, it's difficult to refute your generic position with specificity -- but a generic response could and would be that there are stabilized tours which HRC will rarely if ever violate and a person could have been in say the 1st Cav in 2003, moved to the Career Course in 04, stabilized tour 04-07, grad school 08-09. Or Grad school earlier then a utilization tour. Or gone to Korea in 04 returned from a short tour in 05 thus into a three year lock, thence to...
Well, you get the idea.
I hear what you're saying and I don't doubt there are a few who diligently avoided a tour -- but the probability is that everyone who has no deployments did not cheat to do so; it's the luck of the draw in a big, bureaucratic organization whose personnel system does NOT go to war and is emphatically not designed to support small wars; such wars are an unwanted intrusion into its 'orderly processes.' :mad:
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Find a CS branch that isn't in Iraq- they all are, and if you are a MAJ and haven't deployed, you are hiding.
Sweeping statement. What's the net usage ratio in Iraq (or Afghanistan) of Signal Corps types, all modes including Strategic SatCom specialists? Info Systems specialists? How about acquisition types? Strategic MI Specialists? What's the net number of Engineer units and jobs versus the number of elements deployed? Aviation types who are Aeronautical Engineers doing R&D stuff? MI guys on the RC7 / EO5 birds? Or the MI guy who gets credit for no deployment but has been in a sensitive job in an unnamed nation -- and in more danger than all his peers in Iraq? Or the poor Engineer Captain who got stuck at the wrong time in this : LINK or his buddy who was an exchange officer with the Bundeswehr? The airplane driver (or other CS type) assigned to MilGroup Argentina -- or Brazil? The Aviator who was assigned to the DAO in Estonia to ferry Stan about?
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If you don't want to be a combat leader, find another organization.
I strongly agree with that sentiment -- I equally strongly disagree that anyone who has not deployed fits automatically in that category.
As I told both my sons who went to jump school; "Go forth and do great things, I'm proud of you. Do not swallow that airborne mystique foolishness, that stuff will get you killed -- and always remember to take a 2 second think break before acting or speaking." I also told them to be nervous about a combat leader who's prone to sweeping absolutes. I've seen too many of those guys get too many people killed for no good reason.
It's a big Army and it does a lot of things too many in it do not even know it does... :wry:
Some things don't change much. I noticed long ago that seemed to be a fetish
at every Hq above bde; noticing insignia. Really, excessively noting insignia...
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we were ordered to wear it all, since it would prevent weird looks and questions if any of us staff guys had to go to Div HQ.
I had a friend, well traveled, lot of schools, German, Canadian and Viet Namese parachute wings, lot of combat time, been a medic in Korea and and infantryman in Viet Nam, whose favorite game was to wear different stuff to every meeting at Div. Most people noticed but were too polite to say anything, Every now and then, someone would question. Shame I couldn't have sold popcorn on those days... :D