An Officer Corps that can't score?

CPT Christopher F. — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 08:22:30 -0400

<div><font color="#4d4d4d"><span style="font-size: 14px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The American Conservative published a scathing article titled "An Officer Corps That Can't Score", about our performances in the last four conflicts, careerism, and the Military Officer Corps. It accuses us of ignoring changes that should be made following these last operational shortfalls, especially in comparison to the sweeping changes made after the Vietnam War. </span></font></div><div><font color="#4d4d4d"><span style="font-size: 14px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></font></div><div><font color="#4d4d4d"><span style="font-size: 14px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I'd like to get your opinions. Are we ignoring the changes that need to be made and allowing careerism to blind us from future success?</span></font></div><div><font color="#4d4d4d"><span style="font-size: 14px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></font></div><div><font color="#4d4d4d"><span style="font-size: 14px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Or have we already begun to make the changes and are doing so in different ways than before?</span></font></div><div><font color="#4d4d4d"><span style="font-size: 14px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></font></div><div><font color="#4d4d4d"><span style="font-size: 14px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">You can read the article here:</span></font></div><a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/an-officer-corps-that-cant-score/" style="font-size: 14px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#4d4d4d">http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/an-officer-corps-that-cant-score/</font></a><div><br></div><div class="pta-link-card"><div class="pta-link-card-picture"><img src="http://theamericanconservative.com/images/facebook-logo.jpg"></div><div class="pta-link-card-content"><div class="pta-link-card-title"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/an-officer-corps-that-cant-score/">An Officer Corps That Can’t Score</a></div><div class="pta-link-card-description">How military careerism breeds habits of defeat</div></div><div style="clear:both"></div><div class="pta-box-hide"><i class="icon-remove"></i></div></div>

Response by SFC Michael Hasbun made Apr 18 at 2014 8:27 AM

SFC Michael Hasbun — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 08:27:47 -0400

I read this the other day. I thought there were some great insights that, though objectively true, go against the grain of what we are told day in and day out, so they will meet with blind resistance, with little thought given to the actual topic. Basically, there will be a lot of knee jerk reactions.

Additionally, I don't think it's intellectually honest to single out Officers on this issue. These very same issues address NCO's as well. Basically all senior leadership would do well to do an honest self assessment.

Response by SPC Christopher Smith made Apr 18 at 2014 9:45 AM

SPC Christopher Smith — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 09:45:35 -0400

My personal opinon is the Officer Corps should shoulder a good amount of this issue, but they are not the sole group to blame. I will highlight and explain my ideas on several topics from the article in which I believe are primary issues that are blinding not only our Officers Corps but all SMs in general.

"....officers are not professionals. They are merely craftsman. They have learned what they do on a monkey-see, monkey-do basis and know no more. What defines a professional—historically there were only three professions, law, medicine, and theology—is that he has read, studied, and knows the literature of his field."

I agree with this statement not only for Officers but for all SMs. We as SMs do not learn by practice but learn by "tradition". Practicing tradition does not create a professional realm, I have been arguing this point for a good amount of time.

"Decisions are pulled up the chain because the chain is laden with surplus officers looking for something to do. Decisions are committee-consensus, lowest common denominator, which Boyd warned is usually the worst of all possible alternatives."

How many times has told a PVT or any SM to shut up and keep there head down when they offer a better solution than what is being pushed out to the group? Instead of allowing intergration from the bottom with a testing cycle, we allow minor issues and details to be issued from the top. Many Officers wish not to create waves, because a wave or two would be a career ender.

"....“up or out” promotion system and “all or nothing” vesting for retirement at 20 years."

This is an overall issue for the American military service, pushing more and more people to be false "leaders", they are not fully developed into "leaders" because they only take directive and make none of their own. Leading by position only makes a person a figure head, and nothing more. The people below you have to follow you because of your position but most know that your power is really limted and next to nothing, but they are in no position to challenge you.

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Apr 18 at 2014 10:13 AM

CPT Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 10:13:10 -0400

I read this article and my first beef is always that it's easy to call the game from the sidelines. I believe President Theodore Roosevelt said it best:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

I think that Lind is a guy who "read a lot of books about war" and talked to some buddies, but never put any skin in the game. Now that does not mean that he does not have a point, maybe some of us are too focused on careerism and not enough on war fighting, but how would he truly know? How did he conduct his research? Is there consensus amongst academics and military personnel that we are lagging? Have we lost 4 wars? So I challenge him on his assertions first and foremost.

Second, having been in the army for half a second, at no point would I classify the men and women that I've worked with as sycophantic. Most senior NCOs are ready to tell me and other junior officers when we are wrong and most junior officers will do the same with field grade officers. are there "Massengales" out there? Yup! Most of us though fall in the spectrum between a "Damon" and a "Massengale" what Lind describes is the worst case scenario officer corps, not the real officer corps. Could it happen? again, yup! Is it here, no and i won't contend to be a "disruptive" thinker, but there are plenty of officers instituting relevant change and still being successful in their careers.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Apr 18 at 2014 11:07 AM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 11:07:45 -0400

Let me counter with this little gem:

https://medium.com/the-bridge/63d1546b8692

Junior officers have been the ones pushing the edges with reform, just as our greatest leaders did when they were Junior Officers, as well. The platform they are using today is social media, and they are leveraging it far more effectively than our current Generals and Congress.

Rise of the JO

This post was provided by Joe Byerly, an armor officer in the U.S. Army currently attending the U.S. Naval War College. …

Response by SPC Charles Brown made Apr 19 at 2014 6:00 PM

SPC Charles Brown — Sat, 19 Apr 2014 18:00:38 -0400

No offense to any of
my officer friends or contacts, but I heard this from an officer I once served
with and thought that it would fit in really well with this discussion thread.

The Army Officers Corps

2nd
Lieutenants: After spending 4 years at Hudson High (West Point) learning
from books they come charging into their new units thinking they know it all
and don’t need to listen to any of their senior NCO’s. In essence they are
dumber than an E-1.

1st
Lieutenants: After 1 year in the service of their country they have come to
the realization that for all their book learning there is still a lot to learn,
and have begun listening to their senior NCO’s. They have developed good
listening skills and begin to apply the knowledge they have gained. They are at
least as smart as an E-3.

Captains: After 3
years serving their country they listen to their NCO’s apply what they have
learned and are not capable of standing on their own two feet. While
occasionally they need reassurance that what they are doing is of benefit to
their subordinates they are overall capable of accomplishing most missions with
little confusion. Equal in intelligence to an E-6

Majors: Have
finally gotten their stuff together and can remember where they have put it.
They are capable of accomplishing missions as they have been set before them.
They pride themselves on being able to set a good example for those officers
below them, however, they are often ignored as being a know it all.
Intelligence rating E-8

Lieutenant Colonels:
Still have their stuff together, and remember where it is. They can create
missions that would otherwise cause headaches for lesser mortals. Some would
say they can even spell difficult words without the use of a dictionary and
even use these words correctly. They are smarter than the average E-9.

Colonels: Have
their stuff together but occasionally need help in finding it. They can create
missions for the soldiers under their command; however, this usually ends up
with a radio call of Lima Lima Mike Foxtrot, from some lost patrol in the
woodline who is at best 25 yards from the company CP. This is where the
intelligence level begins to suffer. They are almost as smart as an E-5.

Brigadier Generals:
Memory is beginning to slip, hence the need for an aide-de-camp. Their biggest
problem seems to be that they are unable to remember where their car keys are;
again they need a driver to make sure they get to the meetings they have
forgotten they scheduled; now they need a secretary. Intelligence is about the
average of a Corporal.

Major Generals: No
longer able to keep their stuff together, forget about remembering where they
put it. They need even more help in keeping track of their keys, schedules, and
problems they need to handle. Surrounded by people who tell them everything is
going to be all right and there is nothing wrong with them. Average
intelligence Specialist

Lieutenant Generals:
Usually works in Division or Pentagon office, they are kept in these offices to
avoid creating more havoc than their lower ranking counterparts. Memory is
totally gone by now and feel abandoned by the people whom they considered to be
friends because their friends don’t want to see what will happen to them.
Intelligence = to Private E-2

Generals: Lost
souls wandering the halls of power, cannot find either his office or the
latrine. Intelligence of a slick sleeved private,

Please remember that this is all meant in fun. Life is what it is and most officers do a fairly good job with their skills. However, there are those who will through no fault of their own fall into one or more of these categories as they progress up the food chain. Gentlemen, please remember where you came from and how you got to where you are.

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Apr 20 at 2014 2:06 PM

MAJ Private RallyPoint Member — Sun, 20 Apr 2014 14:06:38 -0400

LT Farnsworth,

I admit that I've been out of the "real Army" for a couple years while in school, but I'd like to try and answer some of your actual questions for a moment. Hopefully they help you.

There are people, officers and NCOs who are trying to make the right changes. I believe the new AR 670-1 is a great example of how people realized that after standards relaxed around 2006-07 due to the surge in Iraq and the need for more Soldiers, we needed to clean ourselves up. However, political correctness and careerism has started to get in the way. You can search the discussion boards on here to see how the process was going. The PT test is another example. Higher level leaders have become synonymous with "knee-jerk reactions" instead of well thought-out responses. Some leaders would rather make a sweeping change to look good on an evaluation instead of the common sense, practical change that is actually needed.

I truly believe that leaders know where changes need to be made, but become afraid to make them because it has become unpopular to disagree with senior leadership. Below is a letter written by a former Brigade Commander after his command time, which was much longer than the 18 months listed in your article. You can see what happened to this leader when he wanted to try something different. Whether you agree with him is beside the point, it's the fact that he tried to do something different that is important.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/images/pdf/secarmy_redacted-redux.pdf

You are entering the military at a much different time than officers have in over a decade. This is your chance to take the knowledge gained from those who served overseas, and apply it to the current threats and projected future engagements. Take advantage of this time so that your mistakes are not like those before you.

And with respect to the article; I find it atrocious to say that the military lost any of those conflicts/wars. The military hasn't lost, don't forget that. If they are to be considered losses, it is because of failed political leadership. Armies fight, we do not make policy and we do as we are told. The military did not decide to fight in these conflicts, but we did so as best we could. Militarily, we are still above the rest. I also believe it is easy to blame an entire Officer Corps instead of identifying specific leaders or levels. I'm not sure how the Officer Corps has failed when you look at all that has been asked and completed by it over the past 12+ years. This Army has gone through a lot to just attack it in this manner. While we should be constantly looking at ourselves and trying to improve, it does us no good to put a blanket blame on every officer who has, or is serving.

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Apr 20 at 2014 8:27 PM

CPT Private RallyPoint Member — Sun, 20 Apr 2014 20:27:00 -0400

I get it, things are not going well. You can argue whether or not we lost, but no one can argue rationally that we won. True. But I refuse to put an once of stock in the ramblings of this article.

It leads off naming the Prussian, French, and post WWII Japanese Armies as examples of success stories. Yet, I kept reading beyond my own better judgement.

Next argument: Officers believe the swill that the U.S. Military is “the world’s greatest military ever.” If you want to find people saying that, don't ask officers. I'm not sure who is saying that any more (unless there is a camera or reporter's note pad shoved in their faces - we all toe the line in those situations, and guess what? The author of this article is a journalist - unsurprising that he gets this answer, right?).

Can we all basically scoff at the belief that officers don't know the profession? Is that what you have experienced here on RP? Do we sound like we don't read or know anything about the military? I'd like to think we are not special here and that we are a representative sample. His "facts" are based on two sources, "a friend who teaches at a Marine Corps school" and "another friend, teaching at an Army school." Oh, good! As long as you have thoroughly researched your assertions, by all means, call us Neanderthals.

Next, while most of us get the sense that there are just too many officers, nobody's lining up what the alternative should be. He basically walked up to the president of the cress club and shouted "nerd." So? You don't get points for pointing out the obvious; you get points for suggesting solutions. He doesn't and can't. This is our problem to solve and big changes are in the works. You may not be personally tracking what's happening in the officer corps, but for my active duty year group, you can truly say, "look to your left, look to your right, soon one of the three of you won't be here."

We run decisions up the chain of command because people don't have enough to do? No. We enact stupid policies, conduct pointless studies, and develop meaningless training because people don't have enough to do. We run decisions up the chain of command because we are a large organization and cannot allow units to operate in a vacuum. But we all complain about having to run decisions higher so I'm sure from the outside, this looks like it's the problem. It's not the problem.

As someone else pointed out, the "up or out" thing has been a joke for a decade. Nothing short of a court martial could prevent your promotion in the Iraq/Afghanistan environment, and even then, only if it was really, really bad. I worked for a LTC who was a CPT named in the Abu Ghraib scandal. Did you catch that? CPT to LTC six years after Abu Ghraib? Trust me. No one was making decisions in fear of "up or out." (P.S. - here's a demonstration of making decisions in a vacuum, where's the applause?)

Did you see where he claimed that the President and congress "could quickly fix" all of these problems? I hit the breaks here again. Who nodded their head in agreement here? That our current President and current Congress are the answer to our woes? Let's extend this logic: the President and Congress can fix everything wrong with our schools, they can fix everything that's wrong with healthcare, they can fix everything that's wrong with the American family, right? Yes, they can pass laws and enact policy, but to believe that would "fix" anything is laughable based on all available, observable evidence.

And the conclusion, like the rest of the entire article is just intended to be provocative. It's worthless commentary. We need more worthless commentary like we need...more officers. I get that people are frustrated and bitter. I'm right there with you. But let's not just mindlessly side with everyone else who puts up talk about being frustrated and bitter. The solutions will have to come from within if we do not want to have them dictated to us by outsiders or forced on us by events. Look at how the events of the last 10 years forced us to reshape the very core of our military beliefs. We have a lot of work to do if we don't want that to happen again, but complaining is not accomplishing anything. This article is just a bunch of misguided, ill-informed complaining.

Response by SPC Charles Brown made Apr 21 at 2014 12:00 AM

SPC Charles Brown — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 00:00:03 -0400

Sorry Major, I posted that this was just in fun. I guess some people have no sense of humor. Have a good day.

Response by LCDR Private RallyPoint Member made Apr 21 at 2014 6:50 PM

LCDR Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 18:50:15 -0400

Here's my take on the nonsense in this article.
http://cimsec.org/debating-military-youre-listening/