Posted on Aug 4, 2015
"Army is breaking, let down by Washington"
18.9K
22
10
4
4
0
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
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
Posted in these groups: 
Army
Army
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 9
4
4
0
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.
(4)
(0)
1SG Michael Farrell
I saw a lot of mediocre types take advantage of the early outs in the early 90s as well as more than a few really good soldiers. When I enlisted, I came to wknowa lot of good officers and NCOs who had been downsized/riffed/riffed back to enlisted rank. and it was really sad. In 1993, I worked for a great officer named Schmitt; he was the I Corps G3(training) and I was his NCOIC. He was selected by the early retirement board (SERB) for involuntary retirement at 22 years service. I learned it by walking in to see him one morning and he was staring at the letter. I thought he was disappointed by something and I told him, "Look, boss , you're one of the soldiers I've ever known, and if those fools can't appreciate that, fuck 'em!" When I found out why he'd been upset for real, I felt bad but he suddenly showed up at my desk with a large Starbucks for me and said, "Thanks." Eventually, the Army sort of got their head out of it's butt and rescinded the SERB. (It took his 3 Star rater in Desert Storm and a variety of other Generals to get their attention.) However, they said that he could serbed again in the future. So he retired -- loved the Army with all his soul but he would not accept that and then put his family through that stress.
(0)
(0)
4
4
0
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.
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.
(4)
(0)
3
3
0
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/
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/
(3)
(0)
Read This Next
Continue with Facebook 
Continue with Google