Watching the system for a number of years
and subscribing off and on to periodicals covering all four services, my observation has been that there always are a few flag officers who actually encourage writing and don't object to some controversial stuff as long as it isn't overboard. A few of them will actually protect junior folks who write.
There are more of them who discourage such writing for several reasons, largely that it may reflect on them or the institutions they see themselves as guarding -- and the majority are sort of neutral and take no position unless, as Wilf says:
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"...if you write supporting a well liked or fashionable agenda, then you will be rewarded. - all about timing and use of language.
If you frighten or injure the Sacred Herd, you will suffer.
The good news is that it seems to me there is, as a result of more and better communication and openness, a slight trend to less restriction and persecution on writers.
A probability if said POI is seen as too
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Originally Posted by
CR6
If it is indeed a sham (and I don't know either way), is it a concept problem or an issue with execution? Any POI, regardless of how brilliant, can become mediocre through indifferent implementation.
far away from the party line. Not necessarily an accusation of malfeasance though that has certainly occurred and will again. It also sometimes happens even if the boss(es) support it but the worker bees, rightly or wrongly, have a gut feel it is wrong or too different from their experience -- or that the product will be too good...
Jealousy is a really stupid vice and emotion but it's out there and take strange forms.
In the early 80s, Benning ran a select Cadre operated IOBC, picked a super CPT and two great SFCs for Cadre who'd be responsible for a large percentage of the training for one OBC Company. In 12 weeks they produced what everyone acknowledged was the best class in memory. Benning tried to expand it and asked for more water walkers -- HRC (then MilPerCen) said forget it; they'd take what the pipeline spewed forth. Benning did, tried to expand the Cadre system with routine fill; quality plummeted and another good idea died at the hands of the Personnel system.
As you say:
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"Any POI, regardless of how brilliant, can become mediocre through indifferent implementation."
You cannot get great results from mediocrity...
I keep getting ideas for a blog topic and you smart guys keep scuffing them...
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Originally Posted by
RTK
...To be honest, I'd like to have another 40 days at BOLC III to focus in on the basics and fundamentals of mounted maneuver with my students. Realistically, that will never happen.
Not in the current environment -- but if we get smart, it will. Shy Meyer tried to get a year long Basic course; HRC (then MilPerCen),TRADOC and the Schools didn't want it because it adversely impacted officer distribution and instructor contact hours --which BTW is a dumb way to staff schools and TCs. We need to fully train new entrants and we do not do it -- that literally kills people as the untrained and partly trained make bad mistakes. Plus the partly trained require considerable watching so that contributes to micromanagement.
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In all fairness, I would say that the benefits of having those young lieutenants in BOLC II probably allows those in other branches the benefit of having a tactically proficient individual to learn from who probably already knows land navigation, basic rifle platoon tactics, and leadership because their success rate for failing to exemplify those traits in combat arms will find them jobless rather quickly.
True; the solution to that used to be to require Officers in other branches to do two years combat arms duty. That provided a lot of LTs as PltLdrs and gave them some great training. The civilian educators hired in the 70s told the Army that was wasteful -- it was not. Hard to do now because the Army is over-officered. Cut back from the current O:EM ratio of 1:6 or thereabouts to a more realistic 1:12 and everyone would be better off. Then we could return to 2 yrs CA duty...
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I think we should also revisit the branching system where performance during BOLC II impacts branch selection more that a board during the senior year of college or the "I picked my branch" method like at USMA. I think BOLC II should have branch representatives that have a draft and select BOLC II students based off their college credentials, ROTC or USMA military education, and performance at BOLC II.
Good idea.
I'm aware of all that but disagree with much of it
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Originally Posted by
Hacksaw
...maybe just maybe you could stock the schoolhouse with enough studs to effectively implement, but then the CTCs would suffer... we were, for very good reasons, a CTC-centric Army pre-2003...
Been there, saw that, scheduled rotations for it. I understand but do not totally agree all the reasons -- or the results -- were good (at least up to my DAC retirement in '95, lost track after that). The CTC like any other training evolution has good and bad points.
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there is a far better arguement to staff studs at IN/AR-BOLC III given the reality that new LTs are as likely as not to be thrown into the meat grinder prior to his first unit rotation through a CTC.
That sounds like an acknowledgment that combat is more important than a CTC rotation... :D
We can agree on that.
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The universal AAR comment from SAMS is "this is what should be taught at ILE" -- problem is you have to have the faculty to actually make it happen...
True but that elides the point of my earlier comment to RTK -- the Personnel system is flawed AND all persons are not equally competent even though that system likes to / is forced to pretend that is the case. Horses for courses and all that...
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Wasn't this thread about impact of professional writing :D
Still is, minor digressions only bother the conformists. ;)
Compel Subordinates to Write!
This was a terrific thread. Some of the comments made me flash back to experiences at OBC, too, which was scary!
A few contributions and responses to comments in here, for what it's worth.
I have never personally seen or experienced someone close to me come under fire for something published in a professional journal. On the flip side, I have never had a commander or superior who encouraged people to write articles, either.
I don't know if that is typical or not, but if it is, it is unfortunate. One of the biggest weaknesses I have observed over the past few years is the military's ability to communicate effectively in writing. At the Battalion and (SF) Group level, I saw poor written communication hamper procurement of critical equipment, impede preparation for deployment, and most critical of all, delay execution of operations. Where I sit now, in the five sided/five rings of hell, a poorly written document could potentially staff until the end of the universe itself, with no action taken.
As a Group XO I directed my entire primary staff to submit a written article based on their respective specialty area. I am now the lowest ranking guy in my office, and luckily I don't have a d*ck boss who is compelling me to write anything :); however, if I am ever in a tactical unit again, I will compel all of my subordinates to submit articles to professional journals once again. As a military, we rely on email and the written word in general to convey critical thoughts; officers need to be adept in this domain, especially as they get older, or they will be at a disadvantage.
Someone wrote about quality control problems at OBCs after the late 1980s; I can attest to that! I went to IOBC 91-92 and it was absolutely terrible. All of the instructors were SFAS failures marking time until they got out of the Army, or people who had gotten in trouble for one thing or the other. I went to IOAC (now the career course) in 96, and we had a Captain in our small group who had trouble READING, and had to redo land nav, the write for life superorder, etc; he was supposed to go to the 25th ID, but they sent him to be an IOBC instructor instead. Awesome! Someone told me that the Infantry School did better with quality control later on, I hope it's true.
Also, someone wrote about the issue with being able to do a SAMS-like POI at CGSC is manpower/human resources; I think that is debatable. It does not take a genius to teach the SAMS POI, and it is more student driven than anything else (readings, driven by discussions); the exercises are student driven as well. The SAMS POI might compel students and instructors to step away from mediocrity, but so be it. The Army would be better served.
SAMS cultivates a mystique about being uber hard, and there are probably leaders who don't think the average field grade could hack it. But come on, how hard is SAMS now, anyway? Back in ought-four, You could do PT in the a.m., attend class, read most of the afternoon in the library, and still have enough go-juice left to drink a few pints of Guinness at that crappy dive bar on 3rd street in the late afternoon. Is it way tougher now or something? It beats working.
Concur about boring articles
Schmedlap,
I agree about your point about the dearth of decent articles in military journals; certainly my mandatory writing program did little to alleviate that. Most of my guys opted to post something on company command dot net, and most of what they wrote did not necc revolutionize military affairs, either.
The main reason I made them submit articles was to enhance their skills at written communication and I believe that a public venue is one of the best ways to do this. As an XO, I was tired of reading the tripe they were sending through my office (I am an editor maybe, but not a damned ghost writer!), so the article thing let them know I was serious. I also kept the local economy going strong by buying red pens by the caseload, too.
I did not review their articles before submissionor assign subjects, either, I just wanted them to write something, and not have it seem totally like a homework assignment (even though it was). Probably a good idea for the future, though, since some of them got by with a 300-400 word p ost.
I laughed at some of the repsonses to my school experiences B.S.; the Ranger School one is classic. Hey, I did lose my patrol cap in Dahlonega in the mountains, and the RIs made me wear a sandbag on my head for about five days; I even had to sew cateyes on it. It was hotter than sh*t, I eventually cut it down and made it more hat-like, so I didn't look like some mutated giant gnome walking through the woods. . .
That bar on 3rd street in Leavenworth rocks, too, I like the middleclassyness of it. I used to chew tobacco back then (in ought four-ought five) and they actually had a spitoon for me. I felt like Bill Doolin or something in that place, and for a guy originally from CT, that is pretty damn good.
Not qualified to enter the debate on SAMS but can enter
a comment on general military education and training. Regardless of the target audience, the process of instruction is in my observation geared to a notch below the lowest common denominator in the course or class and that is geared to keeping the course alive by not having too high a reject rate and not making the staff or faculty look bad. That is not to say said staff and faculty are themselves the cause of this, most are hard working and try to do right -- it is a systemic and design failure
Based on my own experience and in talking to a lot of folks of all ranks who've more recently than I attended everything from initial entry training in several services to the War Colleges -- plural -- and to include a couple of SAMs graduates, the armed forces continue to cram one hour of instruction into two to four hours or more.
There should be a challenge involved and, for most, there is none. One should be able to not pass a course without fear of an execution or the next thing to it. The object of the course should be to impart knowledge or capability, all too often it's a career step and not much more. Sort of bothers me that the former Officer Advanced Course is now called the Career Course. Honesty in advertising? Dunno but I have my suspicions.
I have to suspect that Bob W. is correct on this one...