Mike, Ken, et al:

While I agree with the trend toward mediocrity (the lack of selective promotions in the Army officer corps is a glaring example of this) exists and is rampant in our society, there are things that can be done to mitigate its effects and one was mentioned, Unit Manning.

If units were stablized for 3 years, with all leaders having stability in jobs, then the company commander would be comfortable saying that '3d Squad' is running a 72-hour patrol. He would know how 3d Squad was trained, be comfortable with their performance during LFX and FTX, MRE, etc. He would know that all/most of the Soldiers had been in the squad for a year, were really proficient in their tasks, and any team leaders that were not up to snuff were either retrained to an acceptable standard or replaced with someone who could hack it.

However, the Army and ARFORGEN, is putting folks into bad positions where no one knows anybody else. If you don't know them, how could you ever trust them? (Personal example - I am reporting to a brigade 3 shop going to A'stan. I will be reporting in mid July. Main body movement is in August. I bet the BDE CDR has a lot of confidence that I can work a request for air in a TIC or thoroughly understand the ROE...)

The Army has shown that it can change. It wants to do unit manning. We cannot blame this on bureaucracy, although we did for years. It was poor leaders not understanding the problem or willing to fix it. Instead, the Army sucked it up at the battalion level.

I hope the Unit Manning initiative gets activated again, after ARFORGEN and OPTEMPO levels off.

Tankersteve