The AT was somewhat misleading in the article (maybe just the title). These were the findings of a study group to the CSA. These weren't the CSA's priorities.
Still, the findings were telling.
The Army These Days
Today's SWJ Blog news feed had an article from Army Times, available here, about what the Army CoS regards as being its main challenges today. It might have generated great comment on this forum were it not overshadowed by current stories about OBL, Libya and the Arab Spring. Among other things it mentions Ken's pet-rock subject, the personnel system. To me it's a "Good of the Service" kind of thing. Anyone have any comments about it?
The AT was somewhat misleading in the article (maybe just the title). These were the findings of a study group to the CSA. These weren't the CSA's priorities.
Still, the findings were telling.
Special Studies Groups
Yes, it was the report of a DA-level Special Studies Group, not what Dempsey has in mind. During my DoD consulting days I found the Army reg on SSGs -- they'e formed ad hoc to look at specific situations or problems that happen to be troubling the highest levels of DA.
The solutions for lesser problems are often supported by briefings, studies and documents for the top leadership but they often -- not always -- support decisions that have already been made. One of Shy Meyer's preferences was for officers with alternate specialties in Operations Reseach. An O5 combat arms guy told me the inside joke within the ORSA community was the question asked at the outset of each study -- "Which answer do you want to hear?"
As for other Washington DC gossip -- in the 1980s an ex-Marine and former Special Forces officer told me Max Thurmond was gay. He said he saw him French-kissing in a Georgetown bar with an African-American gentleman, then the Chief of Personnel for Army Materiel Command. It helps to explain where Clinton was coming from at the time. Shortly thereafter Thurmond died suddenly. Perhaps that story is true but it might be from a guy with an agenda.
Last edited by Pete; 05-11-2011 at 12:41 AM.
Could be...
Max Thurman may or may not have been gay -- don't know, don't care -- but character assassins abound and Max made a lot of enemies; mostly folks who couldn't cut it.
His brother, John R. was also a lifelong bachelor and both were more than Monk like in many of their habits. John R. was the older, retired as a three button and died not long after Max.
All important, but little new
Pete,
Not that this is a bad thing, but most of these problems are old news and I'm glad the new CSA is going to continue working on them. I was somewhat surprised about the airing of dirty laundry in bullet one, but do we need a SMA if he isn't meeting regulary with th CSA and Secretary of the Army as a holiistic leadership team. Sounds like an easy fix, and suspect it will be.
Maybe it is due to my SF up bringing, I think drill and ceremony has little to do with the profesion of arms. We have song for that in SF called the "garra trooper". Focusing on mindless uniformity, D&C, inspections (after basic training) will distract from combat training IMO. If it can be done in moderation (to ensure we maintain our important traditions) I'm all for it, but I have seen it to many times when garra troopers made their careers by focusing on everything but war fighting.
I wish the new CSA the best, the Army will need a strong leadership team to guiide it through the turbulent times ahead.
Drill and ceremonies could easily be brushed up on with only an hour or two of practice a month in company- and battery-sized elements. Barracks inspections and the like are as much for training junior NCOs on how to square away their troops as they are for the eyewash aspect.
Inspections in small units aren't only of barracks or facilities; they are also done before patrols and operations. In around 1980 my Field Artillery battery had reaction force duty for a highly secure local facility. Our First Sergeant had to get after the junior NCOs to straighten out their guys' web gear and so forth. When there were practice deployments at the secure site guys' canteens would be falling off their pistol belts, the LBE would be twisted or improperly adjusted, etc. Inspections have been part of Western military organizations since at least the 1600s so in line units I wouldn't recommend doing away with them yet.
It's fine as long as the leadership personnel (including junior NCOs) doesn't forget what all such stuff is good for and what it's meant for. Things spin out of control and become useless if not harmful once they lose sight of the purpose.
There's also nothing wrong with explaining the true purpose to the troops, even to recruits imo:
The purpose is to generate a general discipline that is the basis for quick reactions to orders, preparedness and battle discipline. A disciplined force is a force in which all soldiers maintain basic standards (such as keeping your weapon cleaned, water instead of beer in your canteen and the like) without permanent micromanagement by leadership personnel (which becomes quickly exhausted when challenged, even without such micromanagement).
Lose sight of this and you can drift into the 'spit and polish' school quickly, even become harmful to your service (as were the infamous late 19th century Royal Navy officers who cared much about shining boots and total removal of coal dust, but didn't exercise gunnery even once per year).
Keep it in mind, use your brain and it'll be fine. The exact details (which rules will be set or not) aren't that important.
Fuchs, I agree with you. Jawohl, alles klar.
Hauptmann Eisen
Originally Posted by Bill Moore
"Garet Trooper" by SSGT Barry Sadler US Army Special Forces
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8uIwi1oHuw
Bill Mauldin had a Willie and Joe cartoon that showed the two relaxing, unkempt as usual, by a building with a sign that said "Rest Camp." Standing over them was a burly spitshined MP with a holstered .45 who was wearing jump boots. The caption was, "We call 'em Garritroopers." In appreciation some Airborne guys sent Mauldin a pair of jump boots but he never wore them because he felt he hadn't earned the right to.
Last edited by Pete; 05-12-2011 at 05:21 PM.
There were actually a series of Garritrooper cartoons, and he talks about them a bit in "Up Front" as well.
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
In around 1985 the Beetle Baily comic had Old Sarge saying, "I'll be darned. The 97th Infantry Division is having a reunion." My Dad, then a Washington Post local news columnist, was a 97th ID combat vet. He phoned the cartoonist, Mort Walker, and asked him about the reference to the 97th. Walker said had been an enlisted guy in the 97th until he entered OCS. After being commissioned he commanded a POW compound in Italy in '45. Dad wrote a warm column about it at a time when DoD and the Reagan administration regarded the Post as an arch-enemy. Political allegiances and loyalties are not always as simple as they seem. As a career newspaperman Dad may have met Mauldin; he introduced me to the Post's Herblock on two occasions when I was a kid.
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