Interesting thread...
Hacksaw and Old Eagle and I are about 90+ diverse years of cumulative military experience -- and essentially are saying the same thing. This from Hacksaw identifies a significant long standing problem:I submit that is the case not because it makes sense but because it worked in WW I (a brief war...) and again in WW II (a relatively brief war...) and we have not really modified our personnel or training policies significantly since 1917. The really sad thing is that penchant for muddy boots is effectively undermined by the current training and education regimens and the flawed personnel system."Simply put, long before the current engagements, the Army was obcessively focused on tactical assignments... whether green tab or CTC O/C... and routinely weened out anyone who thought beyond the final 300m..."
It's far easier on the Personnel system to play that one size fits all game than to do what's really needed. Have a Command track and a Staff track. That works. The main reason we don't do it is simply because we didn't invent the process. As SJP Oneill said:Add this, also from Hacksaw:"a good leader/commander can always tap into big thinkers in their staff; it less easy for a big thinker to tap into leaders/commanders in their staff... "True. Part of the problem is that due to DOPMA and OPD and Congressional; pressure, we insist every LTC who's an Infantryman, a Ranger and Airborne School graduate and 'qualified' can command a parachute infantry battalion. Partly true; the law says they can -- but even my six year old Granddaughter is smart enough to know that some of them will do very well, others very poorly and most will just be acceptable. I'm with Old Eagle:"That said... how many strategic thinkers do you really need??? You certainly need them in the right spaces, but I'm not entirely certain you need a bunch of strategic thinkers..."You can put a round peg in a square hole -- but you have to use a smaller peg..."Therefore, the senior leadership of the Army were great company commanders. Their ability to succeed at GO levels didn't always pan out, sometimes with embarrassing or even tragic consequences."
Is that really good enough?
Chip Colbert:
I contend it's a trade based on the Webster's definition
"3.
a : the business or work in which one engages regularly : occupation
b : an occupation requiring manual or mechanical skill : craft
c : the persons engaged in an occupation, business, or industry."
I base that primarily on the parameters in sub paragraph b. above -- I think manual and mechanical skills are required (if often absent...), that Soldiering is work in which one should engage regularly and that it is an occupation that requires physical abilities and shrewdness but not necessarily superlative intellectual abilities for the majority of the practitioners.
I'm aware that it 'profession' is preferred for the social cachet and that Soldiering also meets the Webster definition for a profession:
"4.
a : a calling requiring specialized knowledge and often long and intensive academic preparation.
b : a principal calling, vocation, or employment c : the whole body of persons engaged in a calling ."
IMO, the specialized knowledge aspect is a requirement and the "long and intensive academic preparation." that is now seen as de rigeur is actually a requirement only for a few -- those strategic thinkers (more about them in a bit) but is effectively wasted money for the tactical mission requirements of an Army at War (yes, I know we are not at war more often than we are -- perhaps...). I also acknowledge that for some in the Army, another definition of Professional applies "3. an avowed religious faith ." Kidding, there are a few who elevate it to that level of commitment; most do not. That, too points toward the trade aspect...
Back to the strategic thinkers; we need a few, they should be in the right places and we should realize that we will not be able to make everyone a good strategic thinker. Just as not every LTC can become a good Bn Cdr, not every LTC can become a good strategic planner -- yet we insist that we can do that...
This, I realize falls afoul of OPD directives but the issue becomes fairness and objectivity or subjectivity and competence. I contend the Army could win that argument in Congress but the Per community has convinced the senior leadership not to do that. I would really like to be proven wrong...
Back on track. We call ourselves a Professional Army and the definitions of Professional justify that apellation:
"2.
a : participating for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often engaged in by amateurs <a professional golfer>
b : having a particular profession as a permanent career <a professional soldier>
c : engaged in by persons receiving financial return <professional football>."
Thus I contend we can be -- we are -- Professionals -- and really are but, like Professional Football Players, we do not 'belong' to a profession.
It is said of Professions that they must possess certain characteristics, here's a typical list: (LINK). Note the first item. Much of this thread revolves around that attribute. My personal quite strong belief is that in an effort to do what that characteristic imputes we have lost much ability in the physical plane...
That is true to the extent that we Professionals are being put through hoops by a bunch of amateurs in several places in the world today...
It is noteworthy that two characteristics of professions that we respectively eschew and embrace are "testing competency" which we try to avoid like the plague and "specialized vocabulary or jargon" which we not only embrace but literally have fallen in love with. Of those two, my belief is that in demonstrating that we are a profession, the former is of far more importance than the latter, yet on which is our emphasis...
It is equally noteworthy that the characteristics of a Profession that the US Army does possess have in all our major wars, immediately gone by the wayside and the aspects of teaching the trade is immediately adopted for all ranks.
Those ranks are part of the problem. Just as the Medical Technician who takes your blood pressure and temperature is a Health Care professional, he or she is not part of the Medical Profession, so the EM and NCOs who comprise the bulk of the Army are Professional Soldiers but they do not belong to a profession (I could get really snippy about the Sergeant Majors Academy but I won't...). We have an organization wherein the bulk of the workers are in effect, tradesmen, plying their trade -- that is true, in combat, of all ranks. That advanced and specialized education for many of the staff members and a few leaders of that organization is desirable and needed is unquestioned; the such education aimed at most or all of a subset of the organization and a specialized vocabulary make the members of the organization members of a profession is, at a minimum, suspect. It is also of questionable benefit on cost and effectiveness ground, though the recruiting and social engineering aspects are admittedly good.
I submit that desire to be recognized as a 'profession' is a root cause of some of our problems of competency and misplaced priorities.
Nope, we're professionals, practicing a trade that requires a great deal of physical effort, cognitive and experentially derived ability in an organization that has attempted to substitute more and more varied classroom effort for that experience in an effort to convince the vales of Academe that we are individuals in a profession. That really has not worked at all well on several levels...
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