While I agree that is often done -- too often IMO -- I also have served under a number of good Commanders who flatly refused to do that (including one who relieved a Major for doing that kind of prep work on his own volition). If one has one's act together, that kind of manipulation isn't needed. We complain about the 'politics' then we play the game? Makes no sense.Yes...To have a MISO (Military Information Support Operations; the new name for Psyops [unless doctrine has been rewritten... again]) unit doing this job, even an otherwise underemployed MISO unit, shows a lack of forethought. You have to procede from assumption that it will hit the front page of the NY Times, and ask yourself, as a leader, "How will this look?"Think about what you wrote
One of the things the Army needs to learn from the Air Force is to explain this to junior officers ...and that the process for getting funding doesn't always meet with their standards of conduct.
Maybe it would be better, easier and more honest, meeting reasonably decent standards of conduct, to change McNamara's deeply flawed PPBS which arguably is the cause of most the sort of trauma discussed in this thread -- and which certainly is the cause of disillusionment in many a Major (and which Congressional staffers exploit to their advantage...)...
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