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Thread: TRADOC Losing Its Edge?

  1. #121
    Council Member Pete's Avatar
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    Everyone agrees that the U.S. Army began a decline during the Vietnam conflict, starting approximately post-Tet in 1968. There were many reasons for that --McNamara's Hundred Thousand, the retirement of the WW II and Korea generations of NCOs -- but my main concern here is the hard road back from there during the period when I served. What I have yet to figure out after a year of messages on the subject is whether DePuy and TRADOC were working to reverse the Army's decline, or whether their initiatives were a main cause of the slump in the first place.

    The decentralized Army unit training of the '50s and '60s may have allowed for a lot of variability in the quality of training from unit to unit -- it may have been very good in some outfits but very poor in others. However, I still have yet to see how the Task, Condition, Standard and BTMS initiatives of DePuy's TRADOC actually weakened the Army of the late '70s and '80s.

    I know that during that period the renewed command emphasis on training at the local level actually discouraged us from doing it because if we put anything on the training schedule inspectors with clipboards from brigade would be there to watch the instruction and rip us a new one. ("Did the instructor make full use of training aids?") One battalion commander in the 7th DISCOM at Fort Ord told his company commanders to never ever put training on the training schedule because it would only lead to adverse comment from staff officers working for higher-ups!

    Ken, just out of curiosity, what did you work on when you were a DA civilian for the DePuy/Starry TRADOC? I'm trying to see where you fit into the larger picture of this period.

  2. #122
    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Wink Development of a cynic...

    Quote Originally Posted by Pete View Post
    ...What I have yet to figure out after a year of messages on the subject is whether DePuy and TRADOC were working to reverse the Army's decline, or whether their initiatives were a main cause of the slump in the first place.
    A bit of both, I think. De Puy IMO did more good than harm but he was a 'successful' product of a system, ergo, that system likely was fundamentally sound in his mind. Still, he could and did fix things. I briefed him when he came to Korea in 75. There were several issues. One was that three posts trained track vehicle mechanics. Sill trained on the Arty systems, M107, 8, 9 and 10 and the M578; Knox all the Tanks and Aberdeen did the 113s. Problem was that all fed into one MOS (Shades of combining 11B , 11F, 11H and 11M...) and the wonderful Personnel system would then send these round pegs (M107-10 fixers) to Mech Infantry Bns where they filled Square holes and met M113s for the first time while supervised by a Motor Sergeant who was strictly a wheeled guy. I briefed the then TRADOC CG in the fall of 75 and when I got to Knox the following March, Knox trained all Track Mechanics on all vehicles, the Sill and Aberdeen courses were inactivated.
    The decentralized Army unit training of the '50s and '60s may have allowed for a lot of variability in the quality of training from unit to unit -- it may have been very good in some outfits but very poor in others. However, I still have yet to see how the Task, Condition, Standard and BTMS initiatives of DePuy's TRADOC actually weakened the Army of the late '70s and '80s.
    In order, that variation from unit to unit never ceased -- and it won't. It's a function of a good commander versus a mediocre commander. Good commanders produce good units, the less than good do not. Those good Commanders succeeded not due to but in spite of BTMS, that and having good troops, thanks to Shy Meyer and Max Thurman. The theory with BTMS is that it would cut of the valleys of cyclical training. Two problems with that, you cannot stop cyclical training in an Army that wants and encourages a 25% personnel turnover annually (and has an 'up or out' policy). If you're cutting off valleys, you're also cutting off peaks -- that's a recipe for mediocrity if I ever heard one.

    All that is based on service from 1949 until 1977, DAC time from 1977 until 1995 and paying attention plus a couple of kids in the Army since then. BTMS was a bad idea and though it's been marginally improved, it still is woefully deficient. That the Army is as well trained as it is is a tribute not to the process but to the people who work around it.

    The problem with the BTMS process is that it does not cope well with the wide variance in conditions found in combat (my pet is "Clear a building") and it does not lend itself to the production of leaders who can merge a number of 'tasks' (many of which are NOT tasks but merely enabling skills and knowledges) to complete a mission. In fact, I believe it impedes the integration. They can do discrete things well but have rarely been taught how to integrate tasks, to merge a number of efforts to get a job done. Fortunately / hopefully, OBT&E will change that.
    Ken, just out of curiosity, what did you work on when you were a DA civilian for the DePuy/Starry TRADOC? I'm trying to see where you fit into the larger picture of this period.
    I did not work for TRADOC and though I went to Monroe on TDY occasionallly, I tried to avoid it to the maximum possible extent. Depressing place. I was an Armor School Training Division Chief responsible for all the map and land nav instruction at Knox (BCT, Armor and Cav OSUT, PNCOC, BNCOC, ANCOC, AOBC, AOAC and the Pre Command Course plus occasional special courses and seminars). That included supervision of 15-20 Instructors, development of training material, integration of that material with tactical training, a budget, coordination and all that jazz. It also included fighting -- and beating -- the Post and the TRADOC Bureaucracies over almost everything...

    I tried to get all the TRADOC Service Schools on the same wave length and to reduce redundancies. Everyone cooperated well except Benning -- and the C of S there, the Director of the Tactics Dept were both people I knew and had worked for or with -- good guys but hidebound. Captives of the system.

    Where I then 'fit' is really totally irrelevant. This "I'm trying to see where you fit into the larger picture of this period." is sort of specious IMO. What you may be after is validating in your mind my credibility to speak to certain things. That's okay if immaterial; what I say either makes sense or it does not. It's generally as accurate as I can recall and mostly subject to all sorts of checks and corroborations. The brief TRADOC experience was only a part of 45 years -- and almost certainly the most unimportant, even trivial, part at that. I didn't learn much at that job. However, it did let me see the inner workings of the training system and to know we don't do what we say or even think we do. Knox let me know Two Stars did not insure competence. DePuy and Donn Starry gave me an impression that even four stars were no guarantee.

    Did that for seven years, 77 to 84. Then I went to Atlanta and FORSCOM -- versus TRADOC. Same bureaucracy, different focus. More cynicism acquired. Much more. TRADOC probably is unnecessary, FORSCOM is totally unnecessary. Eleven years in Atlanta and Fort Mac validated my perception that even Three and Four Stars did and do not insure competence. Not by a long shot...

    Moral is, do not assign people to large headquarter or let them see how those aggregation work. You'll develop cynics.

    All that is why I rail about our marginal training and our disastrous personnel system. I've seen too many people, good people, killed by errant stupidity, a 'go along-get along' or 'don't make waves' mentality and overweening egos.

  3. #123
    Council Member Pete's Avatar
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    Wow ... and to think that all I accomplished during my life was to command the Fow-Fowty-Fow Double-Clutchin' Mutha-Truckin' QM Truck!

  4. #124
    Council Member Pete's Avatar
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    The mention of the M107 175mm self-propelled gun brings back old memories because my first TO&E unit had them. When we retubed to the M110A1 eight-inch in around 1980 I believe it made us the next-to-last 175 unit in the history of the Army. A few months later when I was battalion motor officer a guy wearing an Afrika Korps-style hat with the Deutsche Bahn logo walked in my office one day and asked if he could measure one of my howitzers so he could better plan their rail transport to our field exercises in the Grafenwoehr training area.

    When I showed him the dimensions of the weapon system in the -10 manual tabulated data he laughed because whoever had made the metric conversions had screwed them all up. I led him to one of our howitzers and told him to have at it. His Afrika Korps hat-wearing crew got to work with tape measures and plumb bobs. When one his men pointed to a puddle of cherry juice forming under an adjacent howitzer I began to explain how the hydraulics of the lock-out system worked. The top guy said, "Ah, leutnant, you do not haff to tell me, I commanded a battery of 88s in Russia!"

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