Ill Informed Blog Post at AM on Advisors

[Tom Odom]

Late night in Fayetteville, so if this is slightly disjointed or rambling, I apologize. Good discussion despite my efforts.

All good points and all tied to the very first question I posted:

a. What is the future of SFA and advisory capacity?

All things flow from that issue. Much of what you describe is US Army culture driven based on a decades-old mindset that dictates how one gets ahead. For instance:

If you locked people in at Fort Polk, as an Advisor lifecycle, with 6 months training, 12 months deploy, 18 months trainer, you would take these officers and senior NCO's out of the force for 3 years at a time, and leave them stuck in Polk. How many people would volunteer for that?

We already lock folks at Fort Polk on a 3 year cycle as OCs. IF advisor success is the key to a strategy of drawdown and turnover, asking for volunteers is not the answer. Your 3 year cycle would be a good way to do it.

The idea that MiTT tours are Korea tours is the same thinking that dogged efforts early on in Iraq; the belief this is not what real soldiers do is at this stage like praising the Maginot Line in 1939. The Army has to put up some of its best and brightest and then reward them for what they are doing. The answer to the issue of captains missing command cycle opportunities is to give priority for command to those who have MiTT tour under their belt as well as using MiTT duties as a discriminator on selection to battalion command. That too goes back to the original question.

Tom