Officer Retention

[RTK]

Adapt and Overcome,

I find your post interesting for a number of reasons. Given what I know about your background from your intro post, that you're going to get commissioned next year, and under the assumption that you are not prior service I have a few honest comments and observations. I say this, not to nit pick, but to enter into the honest and professional intellectual dialog that you infer is so lacking in the profession of arms.

Towards the end of the flight, the businessman asked me what sort of things officers study to be ready for war. I happened to have my copy of Roots of Strategy and showed him a few diagrams from Frederick the Great's "Instructions to his Generals", explaining how the principles of war used in those maneuvers are applicable today.

I've seen and taught a lot of LTs this year (somewhere in the neighborhood of 450). Those with the most difficulty with their chosen profession have been those who can explain the strategic and operational level, but can't apply a basic battle drill or skill level one task, especially when under duress. There are varying levels of professional expertise. Certainly the new bank teller isn't an expert on the futures markets in Asia. Nor should the new officer in regards to the strategic application of applied kinetic diplomacy

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 hope that I'm incorrectly reading into this that your assumption is that we don't. We do. Chances are you haven't been in the environment to witness or participate in it firsthand yet.

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

Terminology is a barrier within the profession of arms as well, mainly due to individual discipline and understanding of one's job. Ask your average logistics officer the differences between seize, contain, hold, secure, and isolate and you'll get as many different answers as you will people.

Why do we say "land navigation" instead of orienteering? The word navigation has a maritime connotation. Adding the word "land" does not change the connotation, it only makes the term sound as though it were created by someone with a small vocabulary.

By definition, according to Webster's, orienteering is a sport. Navigation, as a transitive verb, is to make one's way over or through. As an intrasitive verb, it is to steer a course through a medium.

Why do we say "human terrain" instead of "demographics" or "anthropology" when both of these are established and esteemed disciplines?

Consider the first paragraph of the five paragraph Operations Order (Enemy, terrain, weather, friendly forces). By describing socio-demographics as terrain the factors of OAKOC can be applied. For instance, how can the civilian populace be an obstacle, how can they be "key terrain," what benefits to they afford in terms of observation (reconnaissance), how can they affect mobility corridors and avenues of approach etc....?

Do we discourage demographers, anthropologists, and other professionals from working with the military because we appear meddlesome, unwilling to respect the venerable terms used by the scholars of their discipline?

Take a look at the staff at SSI, CALL, SAMS, The Army War College, and any number of professional education establishments around.

HMMWV stands for High Mobility Multi-Wheeled Vehicle (a term which could arguably be applied to a bicycle); I cringe inside because these terms are esoteric for the sake of being esoteric.

It's actually High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicle (ref. Army Technical Manual TM 9-2320-280-10)

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

Let me invoke my right to free speach on this one, since it's a call to change the program of instruction within my area of expertise.

Here's the bottom line; if you get this far through life with a mean age of around 22 for a brand new LT, do you really think that the schoolhouse is going to be able to undo in 85 days what you were deficient in receiving your first 22 years of life? There are a lot of things I can teach. I can teach actions on contact. I can teach platoon tactical tasks, fundamentals of maneuver, battle drills, and reporting procedures. I cannot do three things; I cannot teach character, I cannot bestow upon someone drive and initiative, and I cannot undo what your previous educators, friends, parents, or guardians failed to do.

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. What they really need to know is that the body of martial thought is larger than any set of field manuals.

Two things on this.

1. The CSA has a reading list broken down level of experience/responsibility. It's available at AAFES and here.

2. I'll tell you the same thing I told Fred Kaplan last month. As a Commander, I was much more concerned about whether my guys could secure a ground convoy than whether they could recite all 14 Chapters of Sun Tzu's Art of War.

In conclusion, the Army can improve its retention of officers by using three methods to raise the esteem of the officer corps in the eyes of the professional classes.

I wasn't under the impression that we were held in low esteem. In fact, I'm tired of getting phone calls of people outside the Army trying to hire me.


You come into this profession with a lot of preconcieved notions that may or may not pan out for you. Try not to get so myopic on that which the military is not. Make the most of what you have in front of you. After all, you're at the start line of a marathon.