Officer Retention

[Adam L]

Don't take any of this personally and remember that in most of your life people who are willing to seriously challenge your ideas and conceptions are few and far between (and more valueable than gold.) It is important to find out at some point whether or not people don't challenge because your ideas are good and accurate or, because they don't have time or patience to deal with them because they are not. We have all been in the later atleast a few times. Being new to the forums I've gotten into an argument or two over more technical areas than perhaps I should have been involved in. Defend your arguments, but avoid being defensive at all costs. Even though they may make remarks about your background its nothing personal, it just happens to be about your person.

Good luck,
Adam

[RTK]

Don't take any of this personally and remember that in most of your life people who are willing to seriously challenge your ideas and conceptions are few and far between (and more valueable than gold.) It is important to find out at some point whether or not people don't challenge because your ideas are good and accurate or, because they don't have time or patience to deal with them because they are not. We have all been in the later atleast a few times. Being new to the forums I've gotten into an argument or two over more technical areas than perhaps I should have been involved in. Defend your arguments, but avoid being defensive at all costs. Even though they may make remarks about your background its nothing personal, it just happens to be about your person.

Good luck,
Adam

Great post. Great guidance. It's going in my wallet.

[Adam L]

Great post. Great guidance. It's going in my wallet.

Thanks, I always try to do my best.

Adam

[Adam L]

After making the above statement, here is my 2 cents.

Note: I meant to post this last night but I was just too tired.

They don't necessarily exclude another, but a book worm who can rattle off the 9 Principles of War who can't make a decision under fire is a problem.

I have to side with RTK on this, and I don't know if you are quite getting where he is coming from. I don't believe he was being literal when he was referring to reciting The Art of War. He has a point about his priorities. He has another point about book smart people being able to take tests and get the right answers and being incompetent in application. This can be seen in pretty much every area across the board. My favorite example of this is when teachers are required to take tests on Bloom's Taxonomy (in ed school normally) and don't understand that just because you can give answers on something doesn't mean you understand it. There is a difference between the ability to give answers about something and the capability to abstractly apply, modify, reapply, evaluate and modify is a logical leap many people will never make it. The reason I love this example is that Bloom's taxonomy is all about that.

By discussing warfare at an intellectual level, I think I removed many Vietnam-era stereotypes that these men had accepted for forty years. I think we need to engage professionals at the same level that their professions engage them.

I have to agree with RTK on this side. I have to point out that part of what may have lessened their preconceptions is you and your background (which I am assuming is similar to theirs.) I have found that when discussing with people with these notions about the military there is a bit of a psychological hold up on their part. The discussions are quite often very sanitized (due to the terms of art) and yet about a very brutal subject. It's a bit hard for many people to understand how people can discuss such bloody business so casually or unemotionally. They just don't understand that remaining objective is important. Many could understand a historian, but not someone who's opinions and conclusions potentially could save or kill someone.

Surgeons tend to have a similar problem. Normal people would not deal well with how many surgeons talk about what they do amongst others in their profession. Both in their sense of humor, which is very dark, and in their very calm, and quite often cavalier, demeanor. This is quite often a necessary attitude when performing risky surgeries. When you are performing a surgery where if you are1/20th of an inch off or not done inside 20 minutes the patients dies you cannot have self doubt. Surgeons learn (they do teach this in medical school) how to be diplomatic and how to talk to patients. This is no easy task and many never become adequate and very few master it. The military does not have the time to train officers in this area. I would bet a lot of what makes them good officers (in combat not politics) is what gives them trouble in this area.

To that end, the Army needs to spend time in its basic courses on grammatical instruction and writing.

Although I agree with RTK in that a lot of things come first this is a good point and I believe it has been looked at by the army (many years ago.) Many large tactical blunders in history have been due to issues stemming from misunderstood or misinterpreted orders. Unfortunately, this is a difficult task which ranks low on "need to do" compared to more bread and butter skills.

On the other hand perhaps we should look at most professionals (including the top of the class out of Harvard, Yale and Princeton.) Their grammar is not what it used to be. For that matter neither is their education. I don't want to go off on this tangent. I'll save it for later.

Commanders must also encourage professional development through reading classics. The Art of War is a very short book, yet I have immense trouble convincing my peers to spend an hour reading it. They expect the Army to train them in everything they need to know.

RTK is right here, but I have to ask should commanders have to push officers and potential officers. Shouldn't they expect a little initiative. I would dare to say that someone who makes no efforts to expand their capabilities and knowledge perhaps should be going into another profession. I should clarify that if the officer or potential officer is simply prioritizing and sticking to more meat and potatoes education initially I think that he may have a good idea (although if he is not yet in the military, with the exception of those in the most strained circumstances, I fail to find it plausible that some spare time for extra study cannot be found.

That said, I believe there are many barriers between the military and the professional classes, and one very large one is terminology.

No, acronyms are the biggest obstacles. It doesn't take a sociologist to guess what human terrain is, but what the hell is a COIN or CJTF. Why is it COIN and not CI? To a laymen that would seem more logical. A cop on the other hand would really be pissed of because he'd have to deal with CI meaning both criminal informant and counter insurgency.

"
You are reading that the way I meant it. My experience is in the Northeast. Few people know much about the military, and the most professionally educated people often have the dimmest view. I would like to hear how we have been promoting our profession to those people if you'd like to share.

Coming from the Northeast myself be careful about your statements. Say what you want about the Boston area but leave the rest the North East out (it's pretty big.) Look, you probably, like me, came from a nice upper middle class family, lived in a nice upper middle class neighborhood and went to nice upper middle class school. This tends to lead to meeting a lot of people who all live in little boxes on a hillside, whom all go to university and all become identical lawyers, doctors and investments bankers. (I must note for accuracy that my family wasn't one of the identical ones.) Also, quite often the people who talk the most about something are the most ignorant.

The Northeast I believe you are talking about lives mainly in the drift of the universities. NY for all its loud leftist talk is actually split pretty evenly. There are a lot of people going into the service, but I would have to admit most are enlisting. The issue of recruiting officers in the Northeast I will get to in a new post.

Sorry about this long post. I wanted to get my 2 cents in. Actually, let's be honest its at least 75 cents.

What happened to the cent symbol on the keyboard?

Adam

[RTK]

What happened to the cent symbol on the keyboard?

It went away with inflation...

[Adam L]

It went away with inflation...

LOL!

Good one!

[selil]

My favorite example of this is when teachers are required to take tests on Bloom's Taxonomy (in ed school normally) and don't understand that just because you can give answers on something doesn't mean you understand it. There is a difference between the ability to give answers about something and the capability to abstractly apply, modify, reapply, evaluate and modify is a logical leap many people will never make it. The reason I love this example is that Bloom's taxonomy is all about that.

It's interesting you mention Bloom. When he wrote his taxonomy back in the 1950's he got a lot of nasty comments. The idea that you could create a taxonomy of learning was preposterous. It had been done before, but there was a lot of people who considered knowledge to be like water and brains to be buckets. Knowledge was a quantity to be poured in not absorbed or used.

Now we accept Bloom and his hierarchy and apply concepts like outcome based education, and learning objectives to everything. Yet to often we find people down around level 1 or 2 defining, describing, reciting, instead of climbing up the ladder to synthesis. Get out the bucket and pour some more knowledge in so to speak.

Sun Tzu is great, but tell me how it relates to the current conflict and better yet give me a reasoned argument about how it was applied in a previous conflict and use that as a model in the future conflict that we don't know about. Tell me how the operation of a laser jet printer sitting on my desk is similar to the operation of a TOW 2 Missile System. Drawing correlations between disparate ideas to create new patterns of knowledge is what we are really trying to do.

I remember as a low and rough corporal watching as a lt. scrambled and couldn't figure out what to do when one of our guys walked backwards of a ledge on the rim of Lava Lake. I jumped down in the ditch and was doing the breathing, beating, bleeding number telling my buddy he was an idiot. The Lt. was standing there kind of looking numb. My staff sgt. took the Lt. and said "Sir, don't you think we should call for a corpsman", "Sir, don't you think you should call Company", so on and so on and so on. Perceived power rested on the gold of the Lt's collar but reality placed on staff sgts hands.

I don't blame the Lt. for freezing in such a mundane no fire no issue kind of situation. Somebody walking backwards off a cliff kind of caught me by surprise too. I watched the staff sgt. and learned you didn't have to beat the Lt. senseless and you never stop learning. I also learned that you can't teach an autonomic response to everything. Some things you just have to experience. When I've told this story in the past I also mention something else. I learned that in the Marines teamwork go's down and UP the chain of command. You can't learn that in a book.

[jcustis]

A very wise man (my 1st Bn cmdr as an officer) told me once that we are actually professionals because we have our own terminology, much the same as doctors, lawyers, and bankers do.

He believed that the ability to kick a football through uprights, dunk a basketball, or hit a homerun did not make one a professional, so I think differing terminologies are fine, and I see that you agree to some extent.

Grammar, diction, and eloquence are good for only three things in my mind. The first is writng a fitness report on a subordinate. Second, we have to be abe to write good awards. Finally, we must be able to write a good eulogy for our fallen brethren. All else is secondary.

I think we'd be hard pressed to find a servicemember who left the service because they felt other professions held a prejudice against them as uneducated, or folks who have overlooked the military as a possible career for the same reasons. The reasons are a lot more primal and basic.

A man or woman is either going to be adventurous and take the plunge into the military, or they won't. That they come from a region like the northeast (where I attended college), bears little on the process if they already have it in their heart. They often do not have it in their heart due to the affluence they have enjoyed all of their life. Put another way, if you are close to your banker father and understand a bit about his profession, wouldn't you be more inclined to follow the same path as you become an adult? If you drove a Saab in college because it was handed down from Mom or Dad, you're going to feel that pull to follow in their footsteps because you want a Saab later on.

The Northeast is rife with family traditions. Same prep school path...same Ivy League education. "Well Biff, remember that there's that associate partner position waiting for you once you finish school...hmmm...hmmm." Recent military service may simple not be one of them, so it is difficult to maintain that chain.

Personally, I'd rather stand beside a chaw-chewing, backwards-ass officer or NCO who was a hard mofo and knew how to issue simple orders,than someone who could recite the significance of Waterloo. That's for the folks on the History Channel to take care of.

Don't get me wrong, I've thought long and hard about the issue of drawing the right folks into the officer corps. Society in general has changed since the 50s and 60s, and without a bipolar state opponent breathing down our necks, perhaps the issue of retention boils down to the fact that some members don't want to roll the dice for the third, fourth, or fifth time and die in the process. I dunno...

[slapout9]

Personally, I'd rather stand beside a chaw-chewing, backwards-ass officer or NCO who was a hard mofo and knew how to issue simple orders,than someone who could recite the significance of Waterloo. That's for the folks on the History to take care of.

Somebody say Amen....!!!!!!

[Adam L]

Amen... I think you pretty much summed everything up.

I can't. I have a dip in.

?I don't get it.?

[max161]

Sun Tzu is great, but tell me how it relates to the current conflict and better yet give me a reasoned argument about how it was applied in a previous conflict and use that as a model in the future conflict that we don't know about. Tell me how the operation of a laser jet printer sitting on my desk is similar to the operation of a TOW 2 Missile System. Drawing correlations between disparate ideas to create new patterns of knowledge is what we are really trying to do. .

Selil,

With all due repsect I have to take exception to your Sun Tzu comment. Sun Tzu (and Clausewitz for that matter) are not authors of "how to" books. They do not provide the answers to complex political-military problems within their pages. They stimulate critical thought and analysis. They can help you to learn how to think but not want to think. They are neither prescriptive nor proscriptive. Both authors contribute to the ideal leader that Clausewitz was trying to develop - one with coup d'oiel or the inner eye - e.g., the genius for war. A leader can only develop this through a combination of intellect/study combined with experience which is designed to create a commander (and leaders and staff at all levels) who can cut through the fog and friction of war and make the right decision at the right time. Every conflict can be analyzed using Sun Tzu and Clausewitz but the answer to the second part of your question is unanswerable. We don't directly "apply" Sun Tzu or Clausewitz in the Jominian sense (as in principles of war or a checklist or task list to accomplish) but through the study of Sun Tzu and Clausewitz military (and political) leaders are developed who can devise strategy, orchestrate campaigns and successfully execute operations across the spectrum of political-military conflict - and in today's realm of conflict as well.

Respectfully,

Dave

[Adam L]

That's not what he was saying. The Quote you have is an example of the type of thinking and extrapolation that Blooms Taxonomy seeks to evaluate. He was not attacking Sun Tzu or Clausewitz. He using the questions to demonstrate the type of analysis he was describing. Take a look at Blooms Taxonomy here. It is not the best description but you can get the idea.

Adam