Army Officer Commercial

[Massengale]

to try and refocus this so it doesn't become a free-for-all my point is this:

1. The Army is racially diverse but culturally homogenous.

2. Although the causes of this homogenity are multiple, one of its effects is that it is self-perpetuating.

3. Although this homogenity is cost-effective for the Army in raw dollars, it has been quite costly in the long run due to 2nd order effects...such as a chasm between policy makers and the Army and...well....sucking at COIN.

[Ken White]

to try and refocus this so it doesn't become a free-for-all my point is this:

Best way to avoid that in my observation is to avoid name calling on places and people who do not meet your standards.

1. The Army is racially diverse but culturally homogenous.

Essentially correct -- what's your recommendation for change?

2. Although the causes of this homogenity are multiple, one of its effects is that it is self-perpetuating.

True, see my question 1.

3. Although this homogenity is cost-effective for the Army in raw dollars, it has been quite costly in the long run due to 2nd order effects...such as a chasm between policy makers and the Army and...well....sucking at COIN.

Again, correlation is not causation -- the Army doesn't do COIN well simply because it eschewed it doctrinally and trainingwise for almost 30 years at the direction of a number of very senior, not company grade and generally not from the South persons (Specifically and in turn: from / College : MA/USMA; CA/UCB; KS/USMA/Rhodes Scholar; PA/USMA; NY/USMA/Dual MAs Harvard; PA/USMA; MA/Norwich/MA UNH; OK/USMA; HI USMA/MA Duke). In fairness, one of the PA guys and the Hawaiian tried to reverse that neglect but the system just outwaited the first mentioned and went back to what it does best, little change. The second became OBE. One of the worst at killing and burying COIN was the Rhodes scholar. Notice the thread -- no common state other than the two from PA...

Do recall that COIN is only one Army mission; cultural sensitivity is not a requirement in warfighting (trust me on that) -- really not even in COIN because, as I noted earlier, the lapses you cite are command problems, not individual cultural error attributed to people whose greatest flaw seems to be that they do not think the way you do.

I'm also suggesting that the dominant cultural environment of the Army is hostile to people from the coasts.

I spent 45 years in and working for it; my observation was not that, it was that the dominant cultural environment was hostile to people from the coast (or anywhere) who expressed an obvious sense of superiority and disdain for those not so anointed...

That, I believe is due to the coastal 'gentlemen' not demonstrating some of that cultural sensitivity that you mention they intrinsically possess and you seem to prize. Hicks are like that in responding to pseudo elitism. It's a Scotch Irish thing...

P.S.

Been to Fayetteville, avoided the others; full of Earthlings, no place for an old airborne sweat -- the trick if you get back to Bragg is to go west, to Troy and points west, get out in the small towns away from post. Or you can just go to DC and meet kindred spirits...