An Officer Corps That Can’t Score

[Bill Moore]

Sir,

Agree with you on this, but I think it's a lot more far-reaching than that. Despite our officer corps being far too large, we do a horrible job retaining and managing talent (the Marine Corps doesn't even track retention of top performers, at least at the JO level, and I suspect the Army is the same way). Our personnel system is BROKEN. In a lot of ways it's a wonder we get the caliber of guys we do.

You don't have to buy the 4th Generation War pseudo-history to see that we have probably lost two wars. Most of that blame may rest at the feet of the politicians and unclear/unrealistic objectives, but the military has to shoulder some of the responsibility. PPE-laden "KLE patrols" don't indicate that we really "get" COIN, and I agree with you that much of our adaptation has been for the worst.

I agree with you that our personnel system is broken, but I don't have any feasible recommendations to fix it. I do think individual officers could be managed more effectively we if reduce the size of the officer corps, but downsizing alone won't facilitate that, there will need to be changes in the system also that downsizing may enable.

I have seen great officers move up the chain and I have some great officers overlooked throughout my career. If a great young officer with good character and strong potential ends up working for a toxic officer when he is a key developmental position his career can come to a dead stop. Unfortunately career progression is not based on performance and potential alone, there is a fair amount of chance involved (who you work for, the assignments you get, the opportunities to excel during those assignments, etc.). One's head should not swell with excessive pride just because they were selected for promotion and some of their high quality peers weren't, because an honest review of why that happened would point out a number of variables that were beyond the control of the individual officers. Unfortunately most people who work in the personnel field are bureaucrats that are more motivated to defend the system than promote change. On the other hand how do you manage personnel in an organization with a few hundred thousand employees without a bureaucracy? I know that sounds too much like a Zen Koan, but that is the friction that must be resolved.