Not trying to be flip, Maggie, I've been following
your comments with interest, however, re: what goes on -- or doesn't go on -- within the DoD; most of us (including many working in the Pentagon) are in pretty much the same boat... :o
Having a Navy father (before, during and after WWII) and then myself been in uniform for a long time but in a different era (where, rightly or wrongly, the attitude to all travails was 'suck it up'), having gone to 12 schools (only one DoD) in 12 years and having four kids who hit almost as many (no DoD) with no apparent lasting damage and then having retired and gone to work as a civilian in the midst of large city that hardly knew we had any armed forces, I can see both sides.
I know where you're coming from and I also know where the guys are coming from. I'm not sure there is a way to bridge that divide. Nor am I at all convinced that it is a problem; certainly am not disposed to believe it is a significant problem. Still, discussions like this are the best possible thing for everyone involved.
In any event, thanks for your good posts and stick around -- ping us for some of the things we might take for granted that you do not.
Thanks.
Depends on what ways you want to count
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Maggie
Urk. How shall I count the ways............
I'm not talking about singing Kumbayah together (I hate that song and I was never a flower child even when I was the right age) when I talk about "bridging the gap." I am simply talking about getting past the automatic shutdown that occurs when "Soldier" and "Civilian" meet, all too often. Talking about "Quality of Life" as re the retention issue is what got me interested enough to actually post because there didn't seeem to be many "real" civilians here:rolleyes:
I think. :)
Agree on Kumbayah but I think the shutdown is simply adaptation on the part of both groups. While I was growing up, we lived both on and off base and like all service kids, I quickly discovered the "When in Rome..." rule. Things one did, talked about and the extra curricular activities one engaged in differed depending on where one lived. Some of the on base stuff simply didn't translate to the average civilian; that wasn't arrogance on either part, it was simply reality. Very different frames of reference.
After I entered the service I found the same pattern as an adult. The average civilian had little interest in the things one lived with, the minutia of life was totally different. During most of that time, the very artificial Cold War was ongoing and the draft brought in people who adapted, served well and got out. The armed forces were fairly large, most folks remembered WW II and the services were generally respected an there was some knowledge of service life around the nation.
After Viet Nam, no draft, services generally frowned upon by the vales of academe -- and thus, some inculcation of that in the kids in school -- all led to a lapse in knowledge and acceptance by many civilians. The services got defensive and did not help in some respects. As the services got smaller and as those civilians who were very supportive of the armed forces grew older, the rift grew deeper and wider. :(
Military folks are conservative. Not politically necessarily, my sensing is that the political liberal / conservative mix is broadly reflective of the nation as a whole but conservative in approach to most things. This is caused by a tendency to stick to things that have been proven to work as experimentation with new techniques or gear might fail and thus cause unnecessary deaths; thus 'new' stuff is regarded skeptically until it is proven to work and not be detrimental. Too conservative? Yeah but it's really deeply embedded in the culture. :o
This leads to a perception of Colonel Blimps and fusty Admirals that is not totally incorrect. That trickles down. Add to that a certain arrogance, the belief that what the services do is important and thus should be above question and you get a stand off attitude from the service people who are confronted with a civilian populace that is essentially skeptical of not only the armed forces as an entity but of the desirability or even the need for their existence. War, after all is evil. Simplistically, if there were no armed forces, there would be no war.
Doesn't work that way. As the Marines say, "Nobody wants to fight a war but somebody better know how."
Long way of getting to the point. The Armed Forces entail a vastly different life style and a slightly different view of the world. It is too easy to slip into a "The enemy is everywhere" mode and simply decide it is not worth trying to communicate with those who appear to be skeptical about ones net worth.
Back to that conservative thought process -- the armed forces try to connect with civilians at all levels. Sometimes the efforts succeed, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they blow the message but they do, as an institution, try to bridge that gap. They frequently -- not always but frequently -- do not see that concern reciprocated. I think there plenty of fault on both sides but I do not think either side, for the most part, is malicious in sustaining that divide.
Quote:
I think it was Rob who pointed out that the military is OUR military and is drawn from the general population at large--who is then urged to support that military. Therefore, it would seem to ME that it's not in the best interests of either "side", particularly NOW, to either ignore or reinforce the growing separation. I am not a particularly complicated person: military comes from civilian, military needs support from civilian, military and civilian need to talk to each other at some level seems a pretty obvious chain.
He did and he's right, the military broadly reflects the nation from which it comes. While I think there are a very few people on both sides who want and foster that divide there are more on both sides who do not want that divide and really work to eliminate it. Unfortunately, I think the majority of folks on both sides are too busy or preoccupied to give it much thought. Thus I think its less a matter of design and more of one a lack of understanding created by the fact that it is not seen as a pressing concern by most.
My earlier statement that it was not a terribly bad thing was based on the fact that, other than the Cold War period, that divide has been there throughout most of our history and the nation has survived. That does not mean it's a good thing, it isn't. Nor does it mean that we shouldn't work to correct it -- we should. The good news is that a combination of todays immediate and visual communication, a chance to learn more exists. The bad news is that the DoD and armed forces public relations machine was slow to get to work on the issue. I think I see some movement in that direction and hopefully, they'll do a better job than they have in the past. If so, that will help with this:
Quote:
"In practical terms civilian votes outnumber military votes. For civilians to have any positive impact on issues affecting the military civilians need to
a)KNOW about the issues
b)have some idea about how the military feels about the issues
c)have some idea about how each option affects whatever the issue is
In other words--get a look inside the military world..."
I agree and also think the initiative has to come from the services. I also believe they are starting to realize this and work on the problem.
Quote:
"...To give a probably trite example...
I belong to Soldiers' Angels and it's been a real eye opening experience. I bring it up because it's a good example of how if people know there is a need within the military an awful lot of us will step up. That group has grown largely by word of mouth, although at this point it's hitting national radar. From my side it's very frustrating to hear there is a need for "support" yet have no idea how, what or why.
Not trite at all and that is a great program. Thank you for joining them.
No easy answers. You have a valid concern, you've identified a problem and you're doing something about it. That's what it'll take to fix it.
Regards,
Ken
Comments on Various Issues
Quote:
Originally Posted by
AdaptAndOvercome
I don't think one proficiency excludes another. Anyone who can not perform basic tasks needs to be remediated, but I hope the people who are the best at basic tasks can also understand higher levels of war. As we said before, the promotion rate is so high that most lieutenants will become lieutenant colonels if they stay with the Army.
I am coming late to the discussion, but as I was reading through the logs, I found this comment interesting.
The lieutenant's responsibilities are no more "basic" than the general's. They simply have a different point of view to deal with. Strategy is not, per se, more complex or difficult than tactics. Perhaps because the one is associated with a junior rank while the other is associated with senior rank and experience the assumption is easy to make -- this division of labor probably has more to do with physical, rather than intellectual, capabilities. However, from an intellectual perspective, there is nothing that defines one as "basic" and the other as "advanced."
Personally, I've learned more from Rifleman Dodd than I have from many works of big thinkers. I prefer the memoirs of company grade personnel to the big chessboard histories.
As you continue your personal education in these areas, consider Earl Wavell's advice to Liddell Hart, on how the latter ought to do military history: "I think I should concentrate almost entirely on the 'actualities of war' -- the effects of tiredness, hunger, fear, lack of sleep, weather... The principles of strategy and tactics, and the logistics of war are really absurdly simple: it is the actualities that make war so complicated and so difficult, and are usually so neglected by historians." (Quoted in Holmes, Acts of War, p.7)
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Retentions issues...
More money will always be welcomed, but we've made our commitment, so it's not a deciding issue.
I also don't think it's the pace of the deployments that is really the problem. Rather, what is truly difficult is the inability to plan beyond this week. Example: my husband just finished a deployment at the end of July. His parent unit to which he was returning turned down his request to forego dwell time and take another deployment that would have started in October because he was told he was needed at the unit. Fine, so we moved from RI to CA and had an expectation of some stability. On his third day back at work he was told he'd be deploying again in April. Add in a few other complications, and now my son and I will be moving back east. While this move will make my dissertation work a bit easier (school's in DC and I'll be in Newport, so I'll have the War College's resources at hand), it's a whole lot of upheaval we did not need and could have avoided had we known that this was going to happen.
We would be willing to accept deployment "for the duration." It would be a cost and a burden we could plan for. But the current system just whipsaws us around, making everything that much more difficult.
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Civil-military divide...
On the one hand, I know first hand that even the most tree-hugging, liberal New York civilians can have great respect for military personnel and show a tremendous level of support. The wide and diverse group of my family and friends who supported my husband's first MiTT deployment was truly astounding.
I do think it's difficult for anyone not living the life to understand the full range of complications and burdens associated with the life. However, I think even within the military there can be a bit of ignorance of what some folks are going through. For example, if a person knows someone who's been deployed primarily to a FOB then it's going to be very hard for them to understand the stress of a different, more combat-intensive deployment. Most of them would be horrified at the idea that, after so many days of waiting for the knock on the door that you begin to wish it would just happen, if only because then that stress would be gone.
And we ought to remember that the majority of the families are _not_ associated with the military -- the demographics of the Marine Corps, for example, are such that the majority of the guys deploying are single, and so the families are civilians living all over the country. Many of the people going through the stress of deployments have no military community upon which to rely for support.
Alternatively, I think that there is even difficulty for the military member to understand the stresses the families are under. My husband has no idea what it's like to attend a funeral, sit at a hospital bedside, or help a young Marine cope with being taken away from his buddies because he's been wounded.
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And that's enough from me for now -- I have to go wash my car, to clean off the ash and get it ready in preparation for trip number four across the country in as many months. I am running out of routes to take...
Cheers,
Jill
Too much is never enough...
Do we really have a retention problem with Captains or do we simply have too many staff positions for them to fill?