"Standards of Excellence"
One of the things that has bothered me since around 1980 has been this obsession with "standards of excellence" and being "outstanding" all the time. It's not that I don't thing we shouldn't pursue those goals, it's that we're not there yet, in most cases have not been there, but pretending that we are can lead to a kind of dangerous self-deception and an atmosphere in which even to acknowledge that things could be better can come back on you for saying it in the first place.
We all agree that training in the U.S. Army should be better. But to admit that combat skills and overall efficiency could be better within an element under one's own control can be tantamount to confessing to professional dereliction of duty. Thus you better have a solution to the problem, or better yet, not say anything at all about it to any superiors. Just fix it as best you can, even if the solution is half-a**.
Thus these "standards of excellence" and this "outstanding" phenemonena can turn into a self-winding problem within the command atmosphere that leads to deficiencies not being resolved and things being covered up.
I remember around 1980 when U.S. Army Europe put a big emphasis on individual training in battalions while they were in garrison. The problem is the higher HQs sent so many inspectors around with clipboards with evaluation checklists that our NCOs and junior officers got stage fright and were afraid be torn a new one. Thus this conceit about being excellent all the time can prevent you from being even mediocre.
I agree. Many others do also, I'm sure...
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Originally Posted by
JMA
A good natural leader would be able to guide and channel such people to utilise their abilities to the full... I know I worked for a few ;)
Me, too -- few (unfortunately) being the right word... :mad:
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Not quite. In an earlier post somewhere here I suggested that some seats on aircraft out of Afghanistan should be reserved to take officers/NCOs/soldiers home who failed to perform on ops. I was told that the US does not work that way... they reassign them. There lies the root of another problem...
The US Army would really like to work that way. Unfortunately, the US Congress -- who funds that Army as its whims dictate (and who just orchestrated a down grade of the credit of the US in an absolutely stunning display of their level of competence) do not agree. May be 'unfair', you see; may be based on a whim. Can't have that... :rolleyes:
Whims are apparently okay for the Congroids but not for the Army. Nor is mere competence or experience enough basis for personnel decisions -- they must be totally objective and empirically derived (he said, ROFLHAO...:D ).
Very good source for German officer training 1919-1944
A very good dissertation on the structure, selection, training and expansion of the German officer corps is:
Autor: Richhardt, Dirk
Titel: Auswahl und Ausbildung junger Offiziere 1930-1945
Titel (eng): Selection and trainig of young officers 1930-1945
Erscheinungsjahr: 2002
Fachbereich: Fachbereich Geschichte und Kulturwissenschaften, Philipps-Universität Marburg
Institut: Geschichte und Kulturwissenschaften
Format: Portable Document Format (PDF 2.2M)
URL: http://archiv.ub.uni-marburg.de/diss/z2005/0100/
URN: urn:nbn:de:hebis:04-z2005-01003
DDC-Sachgruppe: 943 Geschichte Deutschlands
This publication (only in German) gives a lot of hard numbers and describes in detail the dramatic chages of the officer training after 1941 due to the high losses at the ostfront. The combination with Muth's "Command Culture" and parts of Crevelt's "Fighting Power" gives a quite complete picture for the Greman side.