Anti-Intellectualism In The Army

[Ken White]

Generalissimo White (that does have a nice ring about it, I have to say)

Eye of the beholder, I guess. Never aspired to be one of those so it rings hollow to me, YMMV.

I don't care so much about it passing as I do the present. The contraction has to stop somewhere - we are pushing inexperience upwards, which leaves us with a disaster waiting to happen, especially on the individual level.

It's not officer attrition is wicked high.

As you should -- care about the present, that is. What I was trying to to do was provide some solace and mostly reassurance that 'this,too, will pass.' Know that doesn't make it any easier when the alligators are about but things do get better.

Just trying to point out was what Old eagle says below:

It's been worse...

[Schmedlap]

It makes a mockery of any general leaving a legacy or making an impression in all but the most fleeting of ways - he won't be able to stick around long enough to make real changes, and his successor will likely undo everything he attempted...

Just to expand on that - this occurs at every level. I was very, very lucky in that I was able to scam my way into staying put as a PL for a long time and then again remain as an XO for longer than normal (combination of good timing, stop-moves, and deployments). As an XO, I inherited what can only be regarded as an organizational, administrative, maintenance, and accountability abortion. It took a full two years to unscrew it all (probably could have done it in 10 months if we were not constantly doing FTX's, NTC, and OIF - but still). My supply "sergeant" (an E-4) and I were both poised to PCS at about the same time and I was scrambling to make sure that we did not switch out at the exact same time - I wanted some continuity. He asked me why I was so concerned about that. That was when I conveyed to him one of Schmedlap's truisms of the Army: "Almost every duty position that you fill in the Army will be broken down into three stages. First, you evaluate the cluster left behind by your predecessor. Second, you correct it. Third, you hand it off to someone else who screws it up, regressing to the point that you started at. Every once in a blue moon, you will inherit a smooth running operation, or you will hand off to someone who will not screw it up, or - and I've never seen this - both. If that ever happens, fight like hell to stay in that unit."

I hindsight, I would add two things to that. 1) You generally don't finish step two unless you've got enough time to do it. If you inherited a cluster or if you hand one off, it is likely because you did not have enough time. So, the guy who hands off the cluster to you isn't necessarily a turd - it might have been a predecessor 3 or 4 times removed. That said, the advice to "fight like hell to stay in that unit" seems all the more appropriate - the unit probably recognizes the value of keeping people put. 2) The vicious cycle seemed to occur primarily in non-command positions.

[jkm_101_fso]

Just got off the phone with a good friend who recently wrapped up his third Iraq tour. His thoughts and observations were very interesting, but for the purpose of this particular thread, he observed:

Witnessing more Officers and Senior NCOs relieved of command/responsibility than ever before. In fact, he noted the amount was "incredible". In all fairness, he is the type of guy that would be willing to give someone many chances, so he's not the vindictive or cutthroat type.

He believed that about 80% of them were completely deserved and the other 20% were not, or questionable, (scapegoats, etc.) He did mention that a few seemed like ridiculous micro-management (i.e., a 1SG being relieved by MNC-I commander because of negligent discharges)

Thought this was particularly interesting considering our discussions of company command, etc.

I can honestly say that during my two combat tours, I never saw anyone "relieved". I saw the COC "switch" guys out after 12 months to get them out of command, but not true "relief for cause".

[Ken White]

As it should. I can believe the percentages and they are probably about as good as you can get for accuracy based of human fallibility. Shame about the 20% in one sense but I bet if you dig, you'll find out most were the result of a series of small events that culminated in selection of one trifling event to provide a legally sufficient 'cause.' IOW, probably a lot more were truly deserved than is at first readily apparent.

ADDED: I don't know the circumstances on the 1SG cited but if a Co sized unit is having a spate of negligent discharges; somebody's wrong and needs to go. Hopefully, they also nailed in some fashion (not necessarily an Art 15) each individual and his immediate leader for each of said discharges. If not, that may be why the 1SG got zapped...

We don't relieve enough for cause and the tendency to just move people who don't perform is a bad peacetime habit that needs to be stomped out. It's partly induced by DOPMA and partly caused by political correctness and the insane requirements imposed on anyone who just wants to rid the Army of the excess deadwood that accrues at the >16 years of service mark. We should tolerate honest mistake and errors in training -- even some errors in judgment -- but clamp down viciously on malfeasance, obfuscation, evasion of responsibility and leadership, tactical and technical incompetence or failure (especially that last cluster).

The Peter principle is valid, the Army can at times prove that with a vengeance -- and in peacetime, it's ignored. That's bad. In wartime, it is not ignored, the longer the war and more people exposed to combat, the more rigorous they are in culling. That's good.

[Schmedlap]

My observations are in line with FSO's - at least on my last tour in Iraq. First two tours were a circus of negligence that was overlooked or downplayed. But even up until ETS, my observation was that any amount of negligence would be forgiven stateside. In fact, I am about 90% sure that the command queue was massaged to ensure that the known duds got their command time while stateside and then switched out to someone believed to be better in time to deploy. I guess it's better than letting known duds command in combat, but there's still something wrong with this picture.

[reed11b]

Ditto here. The exception being that gross negligence was rotated out of promotional command tracks, but they certainly remained in the Guard. The ones that suffer for this "kid gloves" approach is the enlisted. When I was active, my battalion inherited the LtCol that had been in charge of Ranger School when the two soldiers drowned in the swamp phase. Thanks to his paranoia about his career, he chaptered out a huge number of paratroopers, all of them E-4 and below, many justified, but some were not. I guess I'm the type that feels that if a soldier volunteers for service and makes the effort to try and succeed, he deserves second and third chances. The exception is combat, but my experience with enlisted vetting is that reality is the opposite. Poor soldiers are given extra chances because we need bodies during war time. Anybody else have enlisted experience in both peacetime and war that's wants to add to this?
Reed