William S. Lind :collection (merged thread)

[TheCurmudgeon]

Why should the military reflect society? Do you want a military that reflects a fascination with Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, or any of the rest of the inanities that our society loves? The military requires its members to live a standards-based existence, and IMO a lot of those standards are not as stringent as they should be. What standards there are in civilian American society pale in comparison.

I am going to disagree with you a little on this. Young enlisted and officers have a fascination with popular culture. Civilians have a fascination with combat video games. That is just entertainment.

What I am referring to are the social standards of duty and loyalty that are part of the military. I care much less about other standards like uniform or haircut standards, or even PT and height/weight to a point (No soldier ever stayed back home because they were too fat or could not pass a PT test, we took them with us anyway.) Standards are only important in as far as they reflect a necessity on the part of the mission and, secondary to that, a dedication to accomplishing that mission. When the standards become more important than the mission than we have lost focus.

In garrison before the war we were strict on enforcing uniform and decorum standards because they kept the Soldier sharp and situationaly aware. When some senior NCOs and Officers tried to enforce the same standards on the FOB the standards made less sense and the NCO's and Officers lost respect. They did not understand the purpose of the standard. Standards became a self-licking ice cream cone.

[former_0302]

I am going to disagree with you a little on this. Young enlisted and officers have a fascination with popular culture. Civilians have a fascination with combat video games. That is just entertainment.

What I am referring to are the social standards of duty and loyalty that are part of the military. I care much less about other standards like uniform or haircut standards, or even PT and height/weight to a point (No soldier ever stayed back home because they were too fat or could not pass a PT test, we took them with us anyway.) Standards are only important in as far as they reflect a necessity on the part of the mission and, secondary to that, a dedication to accomplishing that mission. When the standards become more important than the mission than we have lost focus.

In garrison before the war we were strict on enforcing uniform and decorum standards because they kept the Soldier sharp and situationaly aware. When some senior NCOs and Officers tried to enforce the same standards on the FOB the standards made less sense and the NCO's and Officers lost respect. They did not understand the purpose of the standard. Standards became a self-licking ice cream cone.

I agree that, in reality, some standards are more important than others. I also agree that the standards for a deployed unit should be somewhat different from those for a unit in garrison, and even ones in the field during exercises (I had a platoon sergeant once who wouldn't let Marines ever be outdoors without something on their head, which I thought was a bit extreme).

Having said that, moral and performance standards in particular matter. I don't care so much for PT standards, like you, mainly because our PT standards are not a metric of anything that is all that important to job performance (how fast you can run three miles in shorts and sneakers is not at all indicative of how mission-ready you'll be after you've walked 10 miles carrying 50 lbs, in my experience). If you can't hit a target under specific conditions, I don't want you on that gun/mortar/whatever. If you can't navigate, I don't want you in any job where your GPS batteries die and you have to use a map and compass to get somewhere.

The moral standards are a similar thing. If you don't have the discipline to not drink and drive, or use drugs, or even cheat on your spouse, I don't think you should wear a uniform. None of those things will necessarily get you fired from civilian employment, but they'll get you booted out of the service pretty quickly.

Those are the main things I'm referring to when I speak about standards.

[TheCurmudgeon]

The moral standards are a similar thing. If you don't have the discipline to not drink and drive, or use drugs, or even cheat on your spouse, I don't think you should wear a uniform. None of those things will necessarily get you fired from civilian employment, but they'll get you booted out of the service pretty quickly.

Those are the main things I'm referring to when I speak about standards.

Yep, with you 100%. Without morals, the rest is just window-dressing.

[Fuchs]

The moral standards are a similar thing. If you don't have the discipline to not drink and drive, or use drugs, or even cheat on your spouse, I don't think you should wear a uniform. None of those things will necessarily get you fired from civilian employment, but they'll get you booted out of the service pretty quickly.

Yep, with you 100%. Without morals, the rest is just window-dressing.

I don't buy it.
Career soldiers have a tendency to think of themselves (or the military) as superior to the general
population - particularly if they happen to write in English. It was only a question of time till this
attitude would resurface once the topic wandered towards the civ-mil-relationship and
representativeness issue.

There's nothing that special about the military. And the people in it aren't that special either. Many of
them would be (or were) failures in civilian life, for example - and this includes officers and NCOs.

The more strict the military pretends to be on minor offenses, the more likely they are to be hidden from
official records. You don't really think a general loses his job for driving drunk or cheating on his wife, do
you? And abuse of 'go drugs' by flying personnel is an open secret if not officially endorsed.
The ones who get into great trouble for such things are the ones who have made the wrong enemy in
the system.

Besides, there are plenty civilian jobs in which stuff like drunk driving or drug abuse may be career-
ending. German policemen live in perpetual fear that some stain in their personnel records could stall
their career indefinitely, for example. A great share of the working population depends on their driver's
license and lives in fear about losing it.


There's also nothing special about job requirements for a very large portion of the military. Office work is
office work, workshop work is workshop work - for most of its jobs and much of the time the military
cannot really claim to be in need of substantially elevated standards.
It's easy to find a great many civilian jobs with more critical demands on the personnel than for most of
the military personnel, even at wartime.
Think of a railway control centre, a surgeon, a bus driver, a pilotage, a lab technician, ... the dumbass
doing an inventory list in a depot full of spare parts cannot come close to them only because he's
wearing a BDU. So why would him cheating on his wife or smoking pot on weekends be of interest at all?

[TheCurmudgeon]

I don't buy it.
Career soldiers have a tendency to think of themselves (or the military) as superior to the general
population - particularly if they happen to write in English. It was only a question of time till this
attitude would resurface once the topic wandered towards the civ-mil-relationship and
representativeness issue.

There's nothing that special about the military. And the people in it aren't that special either. Many of
them would be (or were) failures in civilian life, for example - and this includes officers and NCOs.

I am assuming you are a civilian. You have never been a police officer, or a fireman, or a medic. You have never held any position where your personal wants, needs, and desires were subordinate to those of the people you served. That should it come to it, your life is forfeit so that others may live.

I guess not.

What allows you to do that without fear, or remorse, is belief in a set of values. Values that transcend simple day-to-day life. That connect you to something bigger than yourself. That allow you to go to the most miserable places and do the most horrible things and then come home with honor and not kill yourself.

This value system is not something shared by the average civilian in the liberal west. The closest thing it comes to is a form of tribalism - a dedication to your tribe. But that is only the part that connects you. It is not the ideal that drives you to sacrifice for others.

I am sorry, but very few positions in the civilian world compare on any level. You are right that we do think of ourselves differently from, but not superior to, the population we serve. It is part of being a Soldier. It is part of being a service member. It is something that you take on with an oath, not a simple contract. Too bad you don't see that.

[Bill Moore]

I am assuming you are a civilian. You have never been a police officer, or a fireman, or a medic. You have never held any position where your personal wants, needs, and desires were subordinate to those of the people you served. That should it come to it, your life is forfeit so that others may live.

I guess not.

What allows you to do that without fear, or remorse, is belief in a set of values. Values that transcend simple day-to-day life. That connect you to something bigger than yourself. That allow you to go to the most miserable places and do the most horrible things and then come home with honor and not kill yourself.

This value system is not something shared by the average civilian in the liberal west. The closest thing it comes to is a form of tribalism - a dedication to your tribe. But that is only the part that connects you. It is not the ideal that drives you to sacrifice for others.

I am sorry, but very few positions in the civilian world compare on any level. You are right that we do think of ourselves differently from, but not superior to, the population we serve. It is part of being a Soldier. It is part of being a service member. It is something that you take on with an oath, not a simple contract. Too bad you don't see that.

Interesting comment, one I largely agree with. We identify with people who hold similar values. You may find the following uncomfortable, but your comments apply equally to insurgents and terrorists. As for feeling superior to the general public that is a broad claim by Fuchs, who is the general public? If it is those who wait outside a store overnight on black Friday to rush in and get a good deal on a computer, and work a 9-5 job that means little to them, so they turn to drugs and mindless T.V. to escape life, I don't necessarily feel superior, but I'm glad I chose the path I chose, because I serve among those who also seek to contribute to a higher cause. Superior? Happier? More meaningful? I don't know what label to put on it. What I described is a segment of the public, and it doesn't reflect others that I'm actually envious of, such as pathfinders in science, those who lead social revolutions (Martin Luther King), etc. General is too general of a term :-).

[JMA]

Another gem from that seminal work by Lord Moran : Anatomy of Courage which gives some insight into this age old problem (written a mere six months after the armistice):

The clear, war-given insight into the essence of a man has already grown dim. With the coming of peace we have gone back to those comfortable doctrines that some had thought war had killed. Cleverness has come into its own again. The men who won the war never left England; that was where the really clever people were most useful. I sometimes wonder what some of those good souls who came through make of it all. They remember that in the life of the trenches a few simple demands were made of all men; if they were not met the defaulter became an outlaw. Do they ask of themselves when they meet the successful of the present how such men would have fared in that other time where success in life had seemed a mirage? Are they silently in their hearts making those measurements of men which they learnt when there was work afoot that was a man’s work? They know a man, for reasons which they are too inarticulate to explain, and they are baffled because others deny what seems to them so simple and so sure.

Interesting comment, one I largely agree with. We identify with people who hold similar values. You may find the following uncomfortable, but your comments apply equally to insurgents and terrorists. As for feeling superior to the general public that is a broad claim by Fuchs, who is the general public? If it is those who wait outside a store overnight on black Friday to rush in and get a good deal on a computer, and work a 9-5 job that means little to them, so they turn to drugs and mindless T.V. to escape life, I don't necessarily feel superior, but I'm glad I chose the path I chose, because I serve among those who also seek to contribute to a higher cause. Superior? Happier? More meaningful? I don't know what label to put on it. What I described is a segment of the public, and it doesn't reflect others that I'm actually envious of, such as pathfinders in science, those who lead social revolutions (Martin Luther King), etc. General is too general of a term :-).

[Fuchs]

You sound like the Army trying to justify why combat awards should only be given to Soldiers in combat positions. Sorry, but my clerks ran to the bunkers from the same rockets that landed in my FOB every week. You need to go downrange.

Don't think those engineers, mechanics, and cooks in all those civilian equivalents had to put up with indirect fire on a regular basis.

My country never handed medals out for running to cover. If we had, almost all of my grandparent generation would have had the medal since almost all of them had to run to a bunker hundreds of times. They had to put up with hostile fires - literally fires- on a regular basis.

Also
http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2013/11...bs-in-america/

I am assuming you are a civilian. You have never been a police officer, or a fireman, or a medic. You have never held any position where your personal wants, needs, and desires were subordinate to those of the people you served. That should it come to it, your life is forfeit so that others may live.

Actually, incorrect. I served in the military. Besides, to subordinate "wants, needs and desires to those people you serve" is the nature of every work contract. You wouldn't need to get paid otherwise.

What allows you to do that without fear, or remorse, is belief in a set of values. Values that transcend simple day-to-day life. That connect you to something bigger than yourself. That allow you to go to the most miserable places and do the most horrible things and then come home with honor and not kill yourself.

Wow, that's some nonsense. Soldiers have no fear because ... "values"?
I suppose you're the one who has no clue (or has delusions) about soldiers here.
Same for remorse.
And what drives soldiers in warfare isn't a "belief in a set of values". It's hate driven by propaganda and psychology mixed with comradeship and authority.

You're inflating "values" beyond recognition.
I understand the right wing in the U.S. does so, pretending "values" are important above all and then pretending the own team has them. I suppose you fell for this delusion and applied it to the 'team military'.

This value system is not something shared by the average civilian in the liberal west. The closest thing it comes to is a form of tribalism - a dedication to your tribe. But that is only the part that connects you. It is not the ideal that drives you to sacrifice for others.

That's not "values", but comradeship - plus a heavy dosage of bollocks. Look at underground coal miners and how they bond at work in face of constant danger. They're civilians.

I am sorry, but very few positions in the civilian world compare on any level. You are right that we do think of ourselves differently from, but not superior to, the population we serve. It is part of being a Soldier. It is part of being a service member. It is something that you take on with an oath, not a simple contract. Too bad you don't see that.

A coal miner is different from a clerk, is different from an electrician - every job is different from most jobs. The trivial difference doesn't matter and doesn't explain the obvious pattern of American soldiers thinking of themselves as so much better than the common population 'who does not really deserve their stalwart service'.
And yes, that's the impression conveyed, not the impression that they merely think of themselves as "different", not superior.

[TheCurmudgeon]

My country never handed medals out for running to cover. If we had, almost all of my grandparent generation would have had the medal since almost all of them had to run to a bunker hundreds of times. They had to put up with hostile fires - literally fires- on a regular basis.

Fuchs,

I apologize for inferring your lack of service or commitment. At this point it would seem that we are talking past each other. Since part of the problem is inter-generational shifts in values, comparing today to the past makes the case that things have changed today.

In any case, I think I am just going to have to disagree with you and leave it at that.

[Bill Moore]

I agree that, in reality, some standards are more important than others. I also agree that the standards for a deployed unit should be somewhat different from those for a unit in garrison, and even ones in the field during exercises (I had a platoon sergeant once who wouldn't let Marines ever be outdoors without something on their head, which I thought was a bit extreme).

Having said that, moral and performance standards in particular matter. I don't care so much for PT standards, like you, mainly because our PT standards are not a metric of anything that is all that important to job performance (how fast you can run three miles in shorts and sneakers is not at all indicative of how mission-ready you'll be after you've walked 10 miles carrying 50 lbs, in my experience). If you can't hit a target under specific conditions, I don't want you on that gun/mortar/whatever. If you can't navigate, I don't want you in any job where your GPS batteries die and you have to use a map and compass to get somewhere.

The moral standards are a similar thing. If you don't have the discipline to not drink and drive, or use drugs, or even cheat on your spouse, I don't think you should wear a uniform. None of those things will necessarily get you fired from civilian employment, but they'll get you booted out of the service pretty quickly.

Those are the main things I'm referring to when I speak about standards.

I actually find my position closer to Fuchs than yours on this issue oddly enough, and perhaps that is due to being in the Army through the late 70s to recently and watching the evolution of the impact of the Christian Right on the Army in particular. It was getting to the point I thought we may have been in the North Korean military or the former Soviet military with everyone spying upon one another looking for dirt they could report on. The type of dirt that gets reporting on today such as drinking, Joe cheating on his wife, etc. would have resulted in the tattler being told to mind his own business a couple of decades ago. On the other hand, hopefully every effort would be made to hammer the self-serving individual who cheated on his travel voucher or used his position in other ways to personally gain from it. There is a difference between professional values that are important to the organization and subjective personal values (how one lives his or her life).

Quite frankly I knew several good soldiers to include officers that drank and some even cheated on their spouses, but wouldn't for a second do anything unethical professionally and you wouldn't hesitate to count on them in combat if you knew them. They just came from a different school of thought when it came to how they conducted their personal lives. Morals are absolutely important, but morals that are related to the profession, not subjective morals where you get to evaluate someone's personal life. This focus on people's personal lives is little more than political correctness concealed as discipline, and it is ruining our society and our military. We boot these guys out, while keeping those who appear to be squeaky clean by appearances, yet it is the squeaky clean ones more often than not that end up betraying their country, perhaps because it didn't live up to their high expectations? Snowden and the specialist who provides droves of classified material to Wikileaks are examples of these types of crusaders. We're in a human organization and if we don't get that humans will error and that each will have different personal values we'll only create the illusion of a force that conforms to a particular set of morals in their personal life. We need to focus on their professional lives and not keep trying to peer into their bedrooms. I can recall two officers who made a huge issue of infidelity and excessive drinking. One later was caught in an act of infidelity and the other finally got called out (and kicked out) when he got his 4th Driving While Intoxicated ticket. There seems to be a correlation between those who are the most self-righteous and also the most guilty.

[former_0302]

Quite frankly I knew several good soldiers to include officers that drank and some even cheated on their spouses, but wouldn't for a second do anything unethical professionally and you wouldn't hesitate to count on them in combat if you knew them. They just came from a different school of thought when it came to how they conducted their personal lives. Morals are absolutely important, but morals that are related to the profession, not subjective morals where you get to evaluate someone's personal life. This focus on people's personal lives is little more than political correctness concealed as discipline, and it is ruining our society and our military. We boot these guys out, while keeping those who appear to be squeaky clean by appearances, yet it is the squeaky clean ones more often than not that end up betraying their country, perhaps because it didn't live up to their high expectations? Snowden and the specialist who provides droves of classified material to Wikileaks are examples of these types of crusaders. We're in a human organization and if we don't get that humans will error and that each will have different personal values we'll only create the illusion of a force that conforms to a particular set of morals in their personal life. We need to focus on their professional lives and not keep trying to peer into their bedrooms. I can recall two officers who made a huge issue of infidelity and excessive drinking. One later was caught in an act of infidelity and the other finally got called out (and kicked out) when he got his 4th Driving While Intoxicated ticket. There seems to be a correlation between those who are the most self-righteous and also the most guilty.

Can people's personal lives make them professionally vulnerable? Why do we spend six figures on a background check before giving someone a TS/SCI clearance? Would you personally be comfortable with giving a clearance to a known philanderer? A known drug user? Etc?

I also know some people who value their oath of enlistment/office more highly than any other commitment they ever made, but I'm struggling to think of any objective method by which you could differentiate them from anyone else who just didn't want to live up to the commitments they've made. The oath of office/enlistment is a lifetime commitment, in the same way that marriage vows are (or, at least, that's how they're designed). A lack of willingness to live up to one doesn't necessarily indicate a lack of willingness to live up to the other, but it does indicate a lack of good judgment on the part of that individual, and a possibility of being put into a vulnerable position by enemy intelligence services. I can't be the only Archer fan here, but the 'honeypot' is not just Sterling Archer's favorite intelligence operation; it does actually happen.

That's only one example of the sort of things that people who aren't ethically sound can be drawn into. There are lots of examples of bribes, kickbacks, embezzlements, etc., involving military personnel. All of those are, IMO, moral issues.

I suppose that while I understand your distinction between personal and professional ethics, I don't consider them separable as you apparently do.

[Bill Moore]

Can people's personal lives make them professionally vulnerable? Why do we spend six figures on a background check before giving someone a TS/SCI clearance? Would you personally be comfortable with giving a clearance to a known philanderer? A known drug user? Etc?

I also know some people who value their oath of enlistment/office more highly than any other commitment they ever made, but I'm struggling to think of any objective method by which you could differentiate them from anyone else who just didn't want to live up to the commitments they've made. The oath of office/enlistment is a lifetime commitment, in the same way that marriage vows are (or, at least, that's how they're designed). A lack of willingness to live up to one doesn't necessarily indicate a lack of willingness to live up to the other, but it does indicate a lack of good judgment on the part of that individual, and a possibility of being put into a vulnerable position by enemy intelligence services. I can't be the only Archer fan here, but the 'honeypot' is not just Sterling Archer's favorite intelligence operation; it does actually happen.

That's only one example of the sort of things that people who aren't ethically sound can be drawn into. There are lots of examples of bribes, kickbacks, embezzlements, etc., involving military personnel. All of those are, IMO, moral issues.

I suppose that while I understand your distinction between personal and professional ethics, I don't consider them separable as you apparently do.

Frankly we have thousands of men and women with security clearances that are so called philanderers, and while their behavior disappoints me I realize I live and work amongst humans whose behavior is influenced by a number of factors. None of them happen to be saints, but most strive to be good.

There may be a correlation between philandering and those who betray their country, but I suspect we make our nation more vulnerable to the honey trap when it is viewed as a career ending crime.

On the other hand, there is no gray space for the following:

There are lots of examples of bribes, kickbacks, embezzlements, etc., involving military personnel.

These are professional ethics violations, and should be prosecuted, just as travel voucher fraud should be. There is no doubt that some philanders don't have a good bone in their body, and they'll be involved in professional ethic violations also, but it doesn't apply across the board. Unfortunately our system doesn't take the total person into consideration before it passes judgment.