Officer Shortage Looming in Army

[Jimbo]

RTK and Dusty,

Here is a perspective from where I sit. I am came up just as the timelines were changing. So RTK, that would put me in the cohort as your Troop commander during your Iraq rotation (I commanded a Company down the banana belt at that time, had a blue guidon) The concern that my peers have, defined as junior majors, is the level of experience and skills that the younger officers are getting, especially the platoon leaders. As a LT, I held four jobs, rifle PL, S-1, Rifle XO, and BMO. Many of my peers held similar type jobs, the key is we all had around four jobs, but at least three, with over a year as a PL. The concern we have is that as you guys promote, that there will be more discovery learning within the BN staffs. the guys you will deal with who are going to be BN S-3's and XO's are going to know that you guys haven't had as much expereince outside of KD job, but intellectually, it is very hard for many to remember that when push comes to shove, that juniro captain who is the S-4 might have only been a rifle PL and a scout PL, and that you as an XO will have to spend a little more time mentoring these Captains. RTK, I don't know what they haveyou doing at Knox, but BZ is a weird animal, don't get wrapped up in it, it is as much about who you as what know and what you have done. RTK, you ought to look at doing the MiTT thing. Dusty enjoy your PL time, it is unique and rewrding experience that only comes around once, make the most of it. Just some thoughts guys.

[RTK]

RTK and Dusty,

Here is a perspective from where I sit. I am came up just as the timelines were changing. So RTK, that would put me in the cohort as your Troop commander during your Iraq rotation (I commanded a Company down the banana belt at that time, had a blue guidon) The concern that my peers have, defined as junior majors, is the level of experience and skills that the younger officers are getting, especially the platoon leaders. As a LT, I held four jobs, rifle PL, S-1, Rifle XO, and BMO. Many of my peers held similar type jobs, the key is we all had around four jobs, but at least three, with over a year as a PL. The concern we have is that as you guys promote, that there will be more discovery learning within the BN staffs. the guys you will deal with who are going to be BN S-3's and XO's are going to know that you guys haven't had as much expereince outside of KD job, but intellectually, it is very hard for many to remember that when push comes to shove, that juniro captain who is the S-4 might have only been a rifle PL and a scout PL, and that you as an XO will have to spend a little more time mentoring these Captains. RTK, I don't know what they haveyou doing at Knox, but BZ is a weird animal, don't get wrapped up in it, it is as much about who you as what know and what you have done. RTK, you ought to look at doing the MiTT thing. Dusty enjoy your PL time, it is unique and rewrding experience that only comes around once, make the most of it. Just some thoughts guys.

Believe it or not, I tried for anything deployable after command, to include MiTT. They told me after 25 of 36 months away with both PL and Troop Command time in Iraq it was time to train LTs at the basic course. I'm here until I hit 24 months on station (which is 15 months, 9 days, 10 hours, and 18 minutes away ). Either way, my next job out of here is a major billet, one way or the other, KD or not. If I can't get an S3 job (which I've been requested for and need branch to sign off on) I'm going for a MiTT assignment. The unit requesting me already knows their window, and the SCO is already requesting me by name. We'll see what happens. Until then, I get to playing the waiting game and teach tactics in BOLC III as an SGI.

[Hippasus]

After spending some time at a corps level staff to remain unnamed, I would say that we do not have a shortage of mid-level officers so much as we have created too many positions in bloated staffs. We have too many folks working on worthless projects for too many GOs rather than in units. Perhaps if we were to eliminate some of these, in my view unnecessary, HQs, we could man the part of the Army that really matters...

[dusty]

I'm currently the BICC for a Infantry BN - lots to learn, but not much fun to be a junior LT on staff. As a 35D, the only platoon I'm likely to get is a UAV/SIGINT one, which is about the size element I had as a Sergeant.
I envy the 11A's these days.

[Old Eagle]

Hippasus --
As you probably know, that is one of Tom Hammes' theses in The Sling and the Stone.

[Hippasus]

OE,
Yep, it's on my nightstand. It seems disingenuous of us, as the Army, to be saying that we are short officers when we have CPTs assigned managing one or two powerpoint slides for some BUB. Wasting people and other resources and then crying for more is a disservice to our nation. And adding to staff bloat, our solution to every problem seems to be another "study group" or "tiger team" instead of simply holding established Chains of Command responsible for their jobs. I wish I could say this problem was getting better instead of worse, but its not.

[Steve Blair]

OE,
Yep, it's on my nightstand. It seems disingenuous of us, as the Army, to be saying that we are short officers when we have CPTs assigned managing one or two powerpoint slides for some BUB. Wasting people and other resources and then crying for more is a disservice to our nation. And adding to staff bloat, our solution to every problem seems to be another "study group" or "tiger team" instead of simply holding established Chains of Command responsible for their jobs. I wish I could say this problem was getting better instead of worse, but its not.

They get it from business, which is really sad.

[120mm]

After spending some time at a corps level staff to remain unnamed, I would say that we do not have a shortage of mid-level officers so much as we have created too many positions in bloated staffs. We have too many folks working on worthless projects for too many GOs rather than in units. Perhaps if we were to eliminate some of these, in my view unnecessary, HQs, we could man the part of the Army that really matters...

You sound like a 3d COSCOMer.

I was one of them, once. As an Armor/CAV guy to boot. My success parameters: Shooting neither one or more of them, nor myself, by the end of my year. I accomplished that mission, but only by a whisker

[Hippasus]

Nope, not the Coscom, though it sounds as if your experience was similar to mine. The irony it that there were important things to plan and do...but getting past the nonsense to do them was a Herculean task. I keep listening to arguments that the Army needs more more more...more people, more money, etc, and I'm just not sure we're serving our nation well. The argument is that the US "only" spends 3% of GDP on defense....ok, let's look at it another way - of total discretionary spending (i.e., what the gov't can spend after paying interest on debt, medicare and social security payments, etc) we spend 56% on the military. So we, as servants of our nation, are taking 56% of what it can realistically "choose" to spend and we still cry for more? And I haven't noticed senior officers taking fewer tdys...or traveling by commercial travel rather than expensive gov planes. Every staff is still filled with plasma tvs and two computers (sipr and nipr) on every desk. Just makes me wonder....
BTW, I'm a Cav guy too, will soon be back on the line, thank goodness.