Quote Originally Posted by slapout9 View Post
Hi Rob, here are a couple of ideas to start with.

1-Let Sergeants go to the Army War college.

2-Let Sergeants experiment with small unit tactics and give them funds to do it with, then let them write the manual.

3-Let veteran combat Sergeants go directly to OCS and be comissioned as officers without all the college degree bull####.

4- Instead of just giving troops a booklist to read...buy them the books. Colonel Warden did this when he was in charge of the Air Command and Staff College. BTW he is going to send me the booklist when he finds it and I will publish it. It is over 100 books on a broad range of subjects not just War and they were given to all the students.
I agree with most of this. I have been thinking along the same lines for a while. I do have a few responses though:

1) I am not familiar engouth with the Army War College to pass any judgement on this issue.

2) Good idea!

3) I think this is a good idea but the actual details I think are a little complex. The degree traditionally has been required in order to ensure that the officer has the basic skills and knowledge (writing, grammar, vocabluary, history, etc.) Unfortunately, today most university degrees in no way give even a reasonable assurance of this. Too many universities allow students to take such BS courses (women's studies, post-wwii lesbian nazi literature, etc. LOL!) ( I feel that these are narrow specialty areas better suited to a master's or more likely a PhD) as well as allowing them to take a very narrow area of study (this is especially true of BA students.) This more than ever supports loosening degree requirements. The only question is what would the requirements to gain admitance for this type of program.

4) I think this is a good idea. I have some ideas on this, but I'll post about that at a later time.

Adam