That is exactly what I was trying to say.
Anthony,Originally Posted by Anthony Hoh
I didn't get that from the JAG Major's post. I think he is emphasising differences between "punishment" and "corrective training", as well as the legalities and/or illigalities associated with them.
I think the JAGMAJ brings up a valid point. Anyone but a commander administering "punishment" is overstepping their bounds. Punishment as in "non-judicial" is reserved for commanders.
That's not the case for proper "corrective training". It is a viable option for non-commanders, as long as it does not become "punishment. As far as I am able to tell from his posting, JAG Major was never against corrective training done correctly,
Bingo!
That is exactly what I was trying to say.
Did I miss read you
JagMajor,
Maybe its a clarity index issue on my part, I can live with that. But I felt from your initial response to my posting about the Soldier losing his weapon. (yes it was based on real circumstances) That I had acted inappropriately in devising a "solution" for that individuals behavior, and that I should have turned that over to the Commander for non-judicial punishment, or a form of corrective training that he/she might designate. I think the boiling point of this issue is the term punishment or to be more precise the "corrective training/punishment line. Yes I see now that you were trying to help sort the issues between the two.
My last two cents and then I promise I will let this go... If I make Joe show up 20 minutes before formation Tuesday for being late on Monday morning. Will he/she tell you I am receiving corrective training or/ I am being punished for being late. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I would submit that in many instances so is punishment. Yes we as leaders must know and understand the difference. Blackhorse thanks for synthesizing the issue for us both.
Hoh
Last edited by Anthony Hoh; 04-02-2009 at 03:59 PM.
I tend to think that UCMJ is a weapon of last resort, especially with Field Grade Article 15s. After all, if you're throwing a guy into the breech and priming him up for the Battalion Commander to launch him, that implies you don't think your Company/Battery/Troop/Team Commander can bring enough pain.
I've seen a lot of comments about how difficult it is to pursue something under UCMJ, and yet there's been no mention of summarized Article 15s. These are so easy to do. Almost any offense can be categorized as an offense under Article 92. My training room had a summarized Article 15 form with the generic Article 92 offense ready to go. Admin time at the company level - 5 minutes to complete the form and 10 minutes to conduct the Article 15. Of course, there was team/squad leader time involved in writing the counselings that would both demonstrate that the soldier had been corrected before and given an opportunity to improve their performance. So we're talking 15 minutes of company HQ time and maybe 30-60 minutes of TL/SL time per summarized Article 15.
I probably did about 15 or so of these during my 18 months in command, and the beauty of these was that when it came time for a 14-12b? chapter (pattern of misconduct), all I needed was a summarized and a company grade Article 15 to demonstrate a pattern (I'm sure the bar has shifted higher given the retention problems and wanting bodies to fill spaces for deployment, but that additional UCMJ action is an easy way to meet whatever requirement). The pattern of misconduct discharge warrants a general under honorable conditions discharge, which means a loss of veterans benefits, and so during the summarized proceeding, I would let the soldier know that continued substandard behavior would result in company grade Article 15 and the adminstrative separation that would include losing their GI Bill.
Both the swiftness of the punishment - if the offense were committed Friday morning, we could complete the process by Friday afternoon no matter what we were doing and the soldier would be edging sidewalks or painting or whatever by the time the company was released for their long weekend of fun - and the potential loss of GI Bill was enough of an eye opener for all but those that Darwin would have gotten anyways. I can't state a definitive claim that the summarized Article 15s helped give more teeth to the SLs and PSGs when they did their informal/formal counseling to substandard soldiers, but I can't help but believe that it did since the possibility of punishment became much more real (but also not a disincentive to future performance since the summarized Article 15s did NOT become part of the permanent record).
The last benefit here is that to take advantage of an Article 15, it gave the TLs and SLs an incentive to do proper counseling since I required it for any proceeding, and it helped us to make sure that we would have the goods when it came time to prevent the automatic promotion of soldiers that meet the TIG and TIS standards but weren't mature enough. It help promotes a healthy balance between corrective training and escalation (without harm to one's permanent record) when required.
Spot on Shek. Good post.
Fascinating thread. Make me wonder what we would
do in a busy war when no one had time for some of these things and there was great objection to administratively discharging a guy because he was a little rowdy or a pusher of envelopes. No matter, we're not in one. Yet.
Ken, concur.
We could spend the same amount of time motivating and instilling spirit and using that rowdy soldier where best suited. Seems the Article 15 is just as overrated now as it was in 74.
If you want to blend in, take the bus
Great post and totaly agree. It is one of the most underutilized actions. I love doing them for all the reasons you listed (not that I enjoy UCMJ, but you know).
I wish we had the same ability to turn around... where I'm at, JAG still gets to review and process the packet, not the orderly room. Which in many cases doesn't give a time advantage compared to a CO of FG. Thus, first lines get tempted into the same cycle with "corrective training" and no due process.
Wow. I wonder if some commanders abused it and so a brigade commander required the processing through JAG. My brigade never had a problem with it since we made sure that the summarized was simply an escalation from formal counseling (i.e, the first your late to formation, verbal counseling/corrective training, the second time put it on paper, and the third time it was a summarized Article 15, provided there wasn't extenuating circumstances and that the offenses occured relatively close together). It might be something to rengage with your commander to see if there was some abuse that resulted in some knee jerk reaction or if that's just the way it always was and nobody thought to challenge it.
How did you know
what kind of young soldier I was? Yes, I was the beer drinking, tail chasing, rowdy troop, who always ended up in 1SG's office Monday morning. I use to call them Grandpa speeches. The thing that kept me from being booted was my attitude. I was just as rowdy if not more so in the woods and 1SG loved it. He booted 50-60 people a year based on performance in the field. If you were no good in the woods, the slightest mistakes in the rear would have you doing the duffle bag drag to the house.
Chain of Command always wanted to keep me in a glass case with a sign "Break Only In Times Of War". Oh, the good old days in the Army, before we became a PC group of sissies!!!!!! Maybe someday I'll share the number and types of Article 15's and what for.....hint they all revolved around my abilities to drink beer and chase tail.
ODB
Exchange with an Iraqi soldier during FID:
Why did you not clear your corner?
Because we are on a base and it is secure.
In nearly eighteen years that I have been on active duty I have seen one summarized Article 15 that I can recall. Virtually every commander that I had did not believe in them. In fact several felt that it was an indicator of weak NCOs in the platoon, that they were abrogating their responsibility to maintain discipline with in the platoon to the company commander. I tend to agree. The company commander should be the last resort. If I have a soldier in front of the commander it's because either he has committed a serious infraction or that I have done everything within my power and the soldier has refused to do the right thing. If I bring that soldier for anything less than that I am telling the commander that I have failed and that I need him to take care of discipline within my platoon for me.
SFC W
To put all the cards on the table… the primary reason was because TDS had a ####-hot Major who could spin straw into reduced sentences. Like you mentioned, the Summarized are building blocks up to a 14-12C or BCD Special. This cat was using errors in prior proceedings to get time off, charges reduced, etc. JAG had to review all Summarized so that there weren't mistakes that would cause problems later down the road (violating the 24 hours, poorly worded charge sheets, incorrect counseling statements, etc).
Don't get me wrong – I love TDS. They're one of the few groups of people in the Army who are doing something directly related to the Constitution all day every day. I sometimes wish they weren't so dedicated to their job.
Last edited by Courtney Massengale; 04-03-2009 at 06:17 PM.
Thanks for resurrecting this post, JAG Major. I don't really have a dog in it, but I missed the ABC's of OIF and the Major Moments in Reflective Belt History the last time around and am glad I was exposed to it.
He cloaked himself in a veil of impenetrable terminology.
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