Writing a career risk?

[RTK]

...the reason my writing probably hasn't affected my career is because nobody probably reads what I write.

[Ken White]

...the reason my writing probably hasn't affected my career is because nobody probably reads what I write.

see...

Not that i'm in a position to affect anyones career...

[Entropy]

BTW Ken, nice article on the SWJ blog!

[120mm]

...the reason my writing probably hasn't affected my career is because nobody probably reads what I write.

No man-love here, but if you write even a fraction as well as you speak, you should do so.

[Hacksaw]

RTK...

I can assure you that BOLC II was not designed with the future Armor PLT LDR in mind... I'm positive that there wasn't concern about how the maneuver branches prepared fresh LTs for their first job... As you note, its about developing the others to help mitigate chances of stupid decisions leading to unnecessary loss in blood and treasure... remember from when this grew... 507th (Jessica Lynch) and IED littered battlefield...

Ken...
Your example regarding IOBC is quite understandable/predictable... maybe just maybe you could stock the schoolhouse with enough studs to effectively implement, but then the CTCs would suffer... we were, for very good reasons, a CTC-centric Army pre-2003... there is a far better arguement to staff studs at IN/AR-BOLC III given the reality that new LTs are as likely as not to be thrown into the meat grinder prior to his first unit rotation through a CTC. The universal AAR comment from SAMS is "this is what should be taught at ILE" -- problem is you have to have the faculty to actually make it happen... plus the students are self-selecting - so even if you had the faculty, the student to student education would not be the same.

Wasn't this thread about impact of professional writing

[Ken White]

...maybe just maybe you could stock the schoolhouse with enough studs to effectively implement, but then the CTCs would suffer... we were, for very good reasons, a CTC-centric Army pre-2003...

Been there, saw that, scheduled rotations for it. I understand but do not totally agree all the reasons -- or the results -- were good (at least up to my DAC retirement in '95, lost track after that). The CTC like any other training evolution has good and bad points.

there is a far better arguement to staff studs at IN/AR-BOLC III given the reality that new LTs are as likely as not to be thrown into the meat grinder prior to his first unit rotation through a CTC.

That sounds like an acknowledgment that combat is more important than a CTC rotation...

We can agree on that.

The universal AAR comment from SAMS is "this is what should be taught at ILE" -- problem is you have to have the faculty to actually make it happen...

True but that elides the point of my earlier comment to RTK -- the Personnel system is flawed AND all persons are not equally competent even though that system likes to / is forced to pretend that is the case. Horses for courses and all that...

Wasn't this thread about impact of professional writing

Still is, minor digressions only bother the conformists.

[Bob W.]

This was a terrific thread. Some of the comments made me flash back to experiences at OBC, too, which was scary!
A few contributions and responses to comments in here, for what it's worth.
I have never personally seen or experienced someone close to me come under fire for something published in a professional journal. On the flip side, I have never had a commander or superior who encouraged people to write articles, either.

I don't know if that is typical or not, but if it is, it is unfortunate. One of the biggest weaknesses I have observed over the past few years is the military's ability to communicate effectively in writing. At the Battalion and (SF) Group level, I saw poor written communication hamper procurement of critical equipment, impede preparation for deployment, and most critical of all, delay execution of operations. Where I sit now, in the five sided/five rings of hell, a poorly written document could potentially staff until the end of the universe itself, with no action taken.

As a Group XO I directed my entire primary staff to submit a written article based on their respective specialty area. I am now the lowest ranking guy in my office, and luckily I don't have a d*ck boss who is compelling me to write anything ; however, if I am ever in a tactical unit again, I will compel all of my subordinates to submit articles to professional journals once again. As a military, we rely on email and the written word in general to convey critical thoughts; officers need to be adept in this domain, especially as they get older, or they will be at a disadvantage.

Someone wrote about quality control problems at OBCs after the late 1980s; I can attest to that! I went to IOBC 91-92 and it was absolutely terrible. All of the instructors were SFAS failures marking time until they got out of the Army, or people who had gotten in trouble for one thing or the other. I went to IOAC (now the career course) in 96, and we had a Captain in our small group who had trouble READING, and had to redo land nav, the write for life superorder, etc; he was supposed to go to the 25th ID, but they sent him to be an IOBC instructor instead. Awesome! Someone told me that the Infantry School did better with quality control later on, I hope it's true.

Also, someone wrote about the issue with being able to do a SAMS-like POI at CGSC is manpower/human resources; I think that is debatable. It does not take a genius to teach the SAMS POI, and it is more student driven than anything else (readings, driven by discussions); the exercises are student driven as well. The SAMS POI might compel students and instructors to step away from mediocrity, but so be it. The Army would be better served.

SAMS cultivates a mystique about being uber hard, and there are probably leaders who don't think the average field grade could hack it. But come on, how hard is SAMS now, anyway? Back in ought-four, You could do PT in the a.m., attend class, read most of the afternoon in the library, and still have enough go-juice left to drink a few pints of Guinness at that crappy dive bar on 3rd street in the late afternoon. Is it way tougher now or something? It beats working.

[Schmedlap]

As a Group XO I directed my entire primary staff to submit a written article based on their respective specialty area... if I am ever in a tactical unit again, I will compel all of my subordinates to submit articles to professional journals once again.

I think it is good to encourage people to write if they have something worthwhile to convey. But that seems to be uncommon - at least among those who actually do write. Skim through the last 5 years of Infantry magazine. 90% of the material is stuff that most of us already know. I know a guy who wrote an article about the role of the company XO in Iraq. It read like a cut-and-paste from the annex to 7-8, 7-10, and whatever the latest version of 101-5 is. Absolutely nothing new. But he felt special about getting published and he had something to put on his resume when he ETS'd.

There's also the OPSEC thing. 10 years ago, I think it would have been very easy to force people to write because it was all lessons learned from training. Experience gained today is very theater specific and of tremendous value to our adversaries because it is so timely and relevant. I amassed plenty of experiences that I think could be written down and published from my last deployment, but it was all at the Secret or TS level and much of the stuff at the unclassified level, in my opinion, is better left out of the public domain.

I agree with the gist of what you're saying though.

... we had a Captain in our small group who had trouble READING, and had to redo land nav, the write for life superorder, etc; he was supposed to go to the 25th ID, but they sent him to be an IOBC instructor instead. Awesome!

I had a CSM who referred to IOBC as "Infantrymen Observing Bad Captains." For what it's worth, my PLT trainers were great.

But come on, how hard is SAMS now, anyway?

I think all Army schools are now easier. In Ranger School, for example, I hear that they now allow the students to wear boots. Why don't they just give them the tab as soon as they sign in at Camp Rogers? I went through the last hard class - we trudged barefoot through the snow in Dahlonega and we liked it. And nobody ever fell asleep in my class.

[120mm]

SAMS cultivates a mystique about being uber hard, and there are probably leaders who don't think the average field grade could hack it. But come on, how hard is SAMS now, anyway? Back in ought-four, You could do PT in the a.m., attend class, read most of the afternoon in the library, and still have enough go-juice left to drink a few pints of Guinness at that crappy dive bar on 3rd street in the late afternoon. Is it way tougher now or something? It beats working.

Crappy dive bar??? Now them's fighting word, sir!!!

[Bob W.]

Schmedlap,

I agree about your point about the dearth of decent articles in military journals; certainly my mandatory writing program did little to alleviate that. Most of my guys opted to post something on company command dot net, and most of what they wrote did not necc revolutionize military affairs, either.

The main reason I made them submit articles was to enhance their skills at written communication and I believe that a public venue is one of the best ways to do this. As an XO, I was tired of reading the tripe they were sending through my office (I am an editor maybe, but not a damned ghost writer!), so the article thing let them know I was serious. I also kept the local economy going strong by buying red pens by the caseload, too.

I did not review their articles before submissionor assign subjects, either, I just wanted them to write something, and not have it seem totally like a homework assignment (even though it was). Probably a good idea for the future, though, since some of them got by with a 300-400 word p ost.

I laughed at some of the repsonses to my school experiences B.S.; the Ranger School one is classic. Hey, I did lose my patrol cap in Dahlonega in the mountains, and the RIs made me wear a sandbag on my head for about five days; I even had to sew cateyes on it. It was hotter than sh*t, I eventually cut it down and made it more hat-like, so I didn't look like some mutated giant gnome walking through the woods. . .

That bar on 3rd street in Leavenworth rocks, too, I like the middleclassyness of it. I used to chew tobacco back then (in ought four-ought five) and they actually had a spitoon for me. I felt like Bill Doolin or something in that place, and for a guy originally from CT, that is pretty damn good.

[Ski]

I've applied for SAMS, and we are expected to be notified next Friday on whether we were accepted or not.

The SAMS program has been expanded to over 110 students in the Summer class, and there is also a winter class of around 35 students.

The feedback we were given from the SAMS instructors was that the biggest challenge getting into SAMS was the following:

1. No combat experience - they have made this a discriminator now.
2. Branch allowing you to attend - operational demands have priority over all schools, including SAMS, so if Branch tells you you ain't going, you ain't going.
3. Bad interview

If I get into the program, I can provide some feedback. I am light years more excited about SAMS than CGSC, mainly because CGSC has become an Army school where the POI has been reduced to a lower standard because, according to at least three of my instructors "everyone gets to graduate unless they committ a crime, plagarize or fail the Height/Weight and APFT twice."

It's sad, because I don't think the POI is altogether bad - there certainly should be some revision from an intellectual and common sense perspective - but because many of my peers do not have the background necessary to get into details about a lot of the coursework (see my earlier comments about learning history, reading, professional development in other threads).

SAMS cultivates a mystique about being uber hard, and there are probably leaders who don't think the average field grade could hack it. But come on, how hard is SAMS now, anyway? Back in ought-four, You could do PT in the a.m., attend class, read most of the afternoon in the library, and still have enough go-juice left to drink a few pints of Guinness at that crappy dive bar on 3rd street in the late afternoon. Is it way tougher now or something? It beats working.