"Army is breaking, let down by Washington"

2015-08-04T10:36:43-04:00

From: Stars & Stripes

Last month, Gen. Ray Odierno, outgoing Army chief of staff, and Gen. Mark Milley, his successor, testified to the difficulties faced by the Army. I’d like to make the same points by telling a story.

When I was a boy, tonsillitis was a dangerous illness. In 1952, it kept me in Tokyo General Hospital for weeks. I shared a cramped ward with dozens of soldiers horribly maimed in Korea. The hospital had only one movie theater. I remember watching a Western sandwiched between bandage- and plaster-wrapped bodies. I remember the antiseptic smells, the cloud of cigarette smoke and the whispers of young men still traumatized by the horrors of the war they had just left.

My dad came from Korea to visit me, and I recall our conversations vividly. At the time he was operations officer for the 2nd Engineer Battalion. He told me how poorly his men were prepared for war. Many had been killed or captured by the North Koreans. During the retreat from the Yalu River, some of his soldiers were in such bad physical shape that they dropped exhausted along the road to wait to be taken captive.

“We have no sergeants, son,” he told me, shaking his head, “and without them we are no longer an Army.”

In the early ’70s, I was the same age as my Korean-era dad. I had just left Vietnam only to face another broken Army. My barracks were at war. I carried a pistol to protect myself from my own soldiers. Many of the soldiers were on hard drugs. The barracks were racial battlegrounds pitting black against white. Again, the Army had broken because the sergeants were gone. By 1971, most were either dead, wounded or had voted with their feet to get away from such a devastated institution.

I visited Baghdad in 2007 as a guest of Gen. David Petraeus. Before the trip I had written a column forecasting another broken Army, but it was clear from what Petraeus showed me that the Army was holding on and fighting well in the dangerous streets of Baghdad. Such a small and overcommitted force should have broken after so many serial deployments to that hateful place. But Petraeus said that his Army was different. It held together because junior leaders were still dedicated to the fight. To this day, I don’t know how they did it.

Sadly, the Army that stayed cohesive in Iraq and Afghanistan even after losing 5,000 dead is now being broken again by an ungrateful, ahistorical and strategically tone-deaf leadership in Washington.

The Obama administration just announced a 40,000 reduction in the Army’s ranks. But the numbers don’t begin to tell the tale. Soldiers stay in the Army because they love to go into the field and train; Defense Secretary Ash Carter recently said that the Army will not have enough money for most soldiers to train above the squad level this year. Soldiers need to fight with new weapons; in the past four years, the Army has canceled 20 major programs, postponed 125 and restructured 124. The Army will not replace its Reagan-era tanks, infantry carriers, artillery and aircraft for at least a generation. Soldiers stay in the ranks because they serve in a unit ready for combat; fewer than a third of the Army’s combat brigades are combat-ready.

And this initial 40,000-soldier reduction is just a start. Most estimates from Congress anticipate that without lifting the budget sequestration that is driving this across-the-board decline, another 40,000 troops will be gone in about two years.

But it’s soldiers who tell the story. After 13 years of war, young leaders are voting with their feet again. As sergeants and young officers depart, the institution is breaking for a third time in my lifetime. The personal tragedies that attended the collapse of a soldier’s spirit in past wars are with us again. Suicide, family abuse, alcohol and drug abuse are becoming increasingly more common.

To be sure, the nation always reduces its military as wars wind down. Other services suffer reductions and shortages. But only the Army breaks. Someone please tell those of us who served why the service that does virtually all the dying and killing in war is the one least rewarded.

My grandson is a great kid. He’s about the same age I was when I was recovering at Tokyo General. Both of his parents served as Army officers, so it’s no wonder that in school he draws pictures of tanks and planes while his second-grade classmates draw pictures of flowers and animals. The other day he drew a tank just for me and labeled it proudly “Abrams Tank!”

Well, sadly, if he follows in our footsteps, one day he may be fighting in an Abrams tank. His tank will be 60 years old by then.

At the moment I’d rather he go to law school.

Robert H. Scales, a retired Army major general, is a former commandant of the U.S. Army War College.

http://www.stripes.com/opinion/army-is-breaking-let-down-by-washington-1.361011

Army is breaking, let down by Washington

Someone please tell those of us who served why the service that does virtually all the dying and killing in war is the one least rewarded.

Response by SCPO David Lockwood made Aug 4 at 2015 10:41 AM

2015-08-04T10:41:03-04:00

Does not surprise me at all.

Response by SGT Kristin Wiley made Aug 4 at 2015 10:43 AM

2015-08-04T10:43:00-04:00

Wasn't this already posted elsewhere?

Response by 1SG Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 4 at 2015 11:28 AM

2015-08-04T11:28:19-04:00

We never seem to learn.
I don't personally think that the equipment issue is all that acute; we outclass everybody by a wide (if shrinking) margin, and our training level is light-years ahead.
What is deeply concerning to me is that we are hemmorraging first-term Soldiers. This is the core of any unit; Sergeants, experienced Specialists, and the odd hard-charging Staff Sergeant. These are getting out in droves, and we will take a decade to recover from it. This experience we have gained the hard way is far superior to anything we could ever concoct in training environments.
Troops leave, but this is different.

Response by SGM Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 4 at 2015 11:58 AM

2015-08-04T11:58:12-04:00

Excellent commentary.

Response by MAJ Ken Landgren made Aug 4 at 2015 3:32 PM

2015-08-04T15:32:02-04:00

That is a hell of an article. The country dishonors the very people who have sacrificed the most. They are giving pink slips to talented soldiers, and everyone knows the NCOs make things happen to accomplish the commander's intent.

Response by SGT David Wyatt made Aug 4 at 2015 4:30 PM

2015-08-04T16:30:58-04:00

I distinctly remember when they sent me and 249,999 of my closest friends home in the early/mid 90's. I think they said there would be a tax savings and they called it the peace dividend. We had a young SGT that was an Audie Murphy and SGT. Morales member AUSA USAREUR NCO if the year one year and NCOA USAREUR NCO of the year another. Former 11B20 paratrooper that switched to 97E to hopefully get promoted. Excellent soldier in the field and in garrison. Could not beat the drawdown and chucked it. That is one example of countless times I saw a really good LEADER that had wanted nothing more than to be a soldier forever, pack in all up in disgust and move out smartly for another career while he or she still had time. And the soldiers that are left behind are not stupid they see what i shappening even when those young NCO's have the bearing not to bitch in front of the troops and then morale just rockets through the floor.

Response by SGT Dave Tracy made Aug 4 at 2015 4:50 PM

2015-08-04T16:50:50-04:00

I read this article in the Minneapolis StarTribune today, and it does paint quite a strong picture; needless to say the commentary, while not often well informed, was just as interesting. But I digress.

My biggest take-away from the article is the gutting of leadership as a consequence of the draw down. It's a problem that may plague us far more than putting off aquiring the latest and greatest technology as soon as we (the Army) would like.

An Army devoid of junior officers and NCOs is not combat effective, regardless of what new toys Generals and Privates have to play with-assuming they have any new toys of course.

Response by SSgt Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 4 at 2015 6:21 PM

2015-08-04T18:21:21-04:00

Cutting equipment doesn't bother me nearly like cutting training does. If soldiers are well disciplined and trained, it doesn't take much to bring them up to speed on a new piece of gear. We can always wait on updates. But you can't keep QUALITY soldiers without providing them training opportunities. This is the first piece that I've seen that mentions the training issue, and I believe it is a big piece. Of course I'm a National Guardsman, so I understand that I'll have limited opportunities compared to my AD counterparts, but is it really too much to ask to be able to go to a NCOES school AND do AT in the same year? Is it too much to ask to get to go to ANY school? I'm not just speaking for myself, but for my comrades too.

Response by 1SG Michael Farrell made Aug 4 at 2015 6:59 PM

2015-08-04T18:59:34-04:00

I share the concerns of the author. The Army breaks without people, good people who are physically, mentally, emotionally and morally ready to do what needs to be done. The other services can substitute technology for people with the exception of the Marine Corps who, if downsized, have a tradition of making due with the Navy's castoffs. They can't do that with people, of course, but they can downsize their missions. Marines were responsible for guarding embassies and providing security for a century; however, guarding embassies became a way to make money for defense contractors, and that mission was outsourced.

Soldiers vote, of course, but with depressing allegiance to people who don't care for them, their missions and their families; their training or their equipping. The congress depends on those who hand it large amounts of money, the defense contractors. Who don't care about the Army either, because they can make so much more on other services. So the doggies and the jarheads will have to just get along until someone wises up. Technology is wonderful; but, the war isn't over until someone stands over the enemy fighter and decides not to plunge the bayonet into his throat but accept the surrender. We've gone through this repeatedly...we have an expansionist foreign policy by default with an addiction to the myth that we don't need people, must tech.

I weep for the future of my country and it's forces/