I just read some of the excerpts from this manual to my NCOs and the one comment was "I think it was better when we had officers from the nobility who just treated us like peons instead of educated officers who try to make us look like peons...."
What ever happened to clarity and brevity in Staff Duties? I see mission statements that are whole paragraphs....
Those are brilliant comments that bear repetition and thought.
The first is the well phrased sensing of many NCOs...Originally Posted by Infanteer
Those few -- but still too many -- today who are guilty of such efforts really ought to consider how their actions reflect on themselves. Condescension is not a military virtue.
Today's troops are capable of doing far more than many are willing to permit them to do. Among other things, that failing drives good people out (while fostering not so good people staying in) and is extremely wasteful.
On the brevity comment, spot on. Even more accurate on the clarity aspect. The production of any manual of over 100 pages should be immediately outlawed -- simply because the larger ones lose so much in translation...
B-- But Ken, are you saying that military service members aren't reading hundreds of pages of manuals every time they get a new position, are trained on a new piece of equipment, or have to carry out some task? That they just want to most important details, and don't need paragraphs of over-complicated gibberish? That said information should be easy to find?On the brevity comment, spot on. Even more accurate on the clarity aspect. The production of any manual of over 100 pages should be immediately outlawed -- simply because the larger ones lose so much in translation...
Why, if what you're saying is true, then there's thousands and thousands of pages of manuals gathering dust that no one reads! That's patently absurd, sir!
Heretic! Furcifer! (Okay, that one was a little too far.)
"The status quo is not sustainable. All of DoD needs to be placed in a large bag and thoroughly shaken. Bureaucracy and micromanagement kill."
-- Ken White
"With a plan this complex, nothing can go wrong." -- Schmedlap
"We are unlikely to usefully replicate the insights those unencumbered by a military staff college education might actually have." -- William F. Owen
Umm, my secondary MOS when I retired
was 51E. I had four MOS's, 11B5P, 11F5S, 11G5P, 19D5P -- all got rolled up into 11Z5P so they told me I had to pick another. I figured I'd done enough 51E stuff to qualify. So I picked the 51E and thus I guess that being furciferous isn't all that far out...
Wow, lucky hit! I take it back then -- Furcifer!was 51E. I had four MOS's, 11B5P, 11F5S, 11G5P, 19D5P -- all got rolled up into 11Z5P so they told me I had to pick another. I figured I'd done enough 51E stuff to qualify. So I picked the 51E and thus I guess that being furciferous isn't all that far out...
"The status quo is not sustainable. All of DoD needs to be placed in a large bag and thoroughly shaken. Bureaucracy and micromanagement kill."
-- Ken White
"With a plan this complex, nothing can go wrong." -- Schmedlap
"We are unlikely to usefully replicate the insights those unencumbered by a military staff college education might actually have." -- William F. Owen
LOLOL - And at least the "nobility", and since you're from Canada, that means the colonial aristocracy crowd (ah, for the good old days...
Honestly, nothing PO's competent people as much as some pissant spewing buzzword diarrhea (if one wishes to be academically prissy about this, I would recommend the term "logorrhea"; it means the same thing).
Hunh, I'm reading a "document" right now that makes FM 5.0 look like a model of clarity, brevity, insight and nigh-on God touched brilliance. the term logorrhea is much on my mind of late.....
Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
Senior Research Fellow,
The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
Carleton University
http://marctyrrell.com/
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