Is This Laziness Or Irresponsible? GAO: Army Reserve, Guard, don’t know how many soldiers are fit to fight.

SGT Private RallyPoint Member — Sun, 09 Aug 2015 19:26:06 -0400

I read this, but I have a hard time understanding why. Is it laziness, irresponsibility, bad record keeping, or all three? It mentions, even some convicts, are listed as ready to fight. It's things like this that gives our enemies a better edge and makes us look like idiots when we can't keep up with who can fight and who can't. Do you think our enemies don't keep up with their military strength, and ours?

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — The Army Reserve and Army National Guard can’t properly determine how many of their soldiers are fit to fight, sometimes listing jailed soldiers as available to conduct missions, the Government Accountability Office says in a recent report.

http://www.stripes.com/news/army/gao-army-reserve-guard-don-t-know-how-many-soldiers-are-fit-to-fight-1.361929

KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — The Army Reserve and Army National Guard can’t properly determine how many of their soldiers are fit to fight, sometimes listing jailed soldiers as available to conduct missions, the Government Accountability Office says in a recent report.

GAO: Army Reserve, Guard don’t know how many soldiers are fit to fight

The Army Reserve and Army National Guard can’t properly determine how many of their soldiers are fit to fight, sometimes listing jailed soldiers as available to conduct missions, the Government Accountability Office says in a recent report.

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 9 at 2015 7:37 PM

CPT Private RallyPoint Member — Sun, 09 Aug 2015 19:37:25 -0400

I honestly don't really blame the National Guard. We are doing a lot more with less now a days. We lost a full time position in my company so now we lost a Training NCO. That means The Readiness NCO has to do his job now too. A lot of times soldiers don't report up all of their issues unless it comes to an SRP. Now we do an SRP annually to catch this. It is the best way to find these issues. If you don't show up then you are going to get identified as having an issue. In 2009 we mobilized our BCT and were short 700 soldiers. Sure some of them were there beyond years. But who would say I can't anymore. They will do anything they can to stay and deploy. But the SRP will once again catch this. It is easy to maintain this when you see the guy every today just about. But when you only see them two days a month and if funding is bad you may skip a month's drill. I don't think really anyone in the Guard would be surprised by this. This has been a struggle for a while.

Response by MAJ Ken Landgren made Aug 9 at 2015 8:04 PM

MAJ Ken Landgren — Sun, 09 Aug 2015 20:04:00 -0400

The two organizations are fraught with confusion on drill weekends, spend a lot of time on power point briefs, important jobs are held by M-Day soldiers, and the admin clerk is supposed to be go to person for many endeavors.

Response by SFC Everett Oliver made Aug 9 at 2015 8:23 PM

SFC Everett Oliver — Sun, 09 Aug 2015 20:23:41 -0400

This is simply sad.

Response by SSgt Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 9 at 2015 9:06 PM

SSgt Private RallyPoint Member — Sun, 09 Aug 2015 21:06:13 -0400

SGT Private RallyPoint Member, I do not believe that the issue is as bad as it sounds from reading the article. All this means is that what units officially report is not what may be happening on the ground. I'm sure there are times that units DON'T know what is going on, but I'm sure that is the minority.
If you ask any platoon or first sergeant I know, he'll know exactly how many guys he has, and what's going on with them. However, soldiers do get injured outside drill, and for whatever reason choose not to report it. And let's say a soldier breaks his leg in April. He knows that he'll be healed up by September when the unit has its next PT test. He tells the unit, and gets exempted from unit PT and rucking till he heals without ever getting a profile. Saves on paperwork, and causes the GOA a headache.
Another scenario could be a high speed soldier wants to deploy with another unit. He goes, but stays slotted with his home unit, to keep that slot from getting backfilled, because company leadership wants him back. It's not like nobody knows where he is, or why he's not at drill, but I'm sure it would draw a flag from the GOA.
Another reason, but less noble, is that commanders need to keep their numbers up. If a soldier is AWOL, it's not like nobody knows that he's missing, or that they don't kick him out. However to show better readiness, I can see a commander keeping an AWOL troop on the books until his chapter is final.

Response by MSgt Robert Pellam made Aug 9 at 2015 9:10 PM

MSgt Robert Pellam — Sun, 09 Aug 2015 21:10:13 -0400

I can't talk for the Army. But I can share experiences working with the Air Force Reserves. If the Army Reserves were anything like the Air Force Reserves, the "Good ol boy" club was well in effect. I watched Reserve members get moved around between career fields just to get promoted, even though they had NO skills in that job. If A reserve filled a straight Civilian slot, I seen them go out of the way to hire other reserve members. Leadership wasn't much better. They covered for each other, and the one weekend a month. Rare was it they did their job, they usually focused on CBT's or just left after roll call.

Now don't get me wrong. There were some people that were above and beyond. Great workers and excellent Reserve Members that I hold in very High esteem.

I do agree though, this seems to be a leadership problem. The excuse's of budget cuts and loss slots can take a toll on a unit, but I have been through the worse of the budget cuts in the military, and my leadership adapted, we adapted. This isn't adapting, this is bad form.

Response by PO1 William "Chip" Nagel made Aug 9 at 2015 9:15 PM

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel — Sun, 09 Aug 2015 21:15:27 -0400

That doesn't give me a Warm and Fuzzy. What happened to WWMCCS Worldwide Military Command and Control System? Monster Data Base for keeping track of Unit Availability and Readiness Level.

Response by SGM Mikel Dawson made Aug 9 at 2015 9:28 PM

SGM Mikel Dawson — Sun, 09 Aug 2015 21:28:12 -0400

I full understand the problem. It's a numbers game. Many units (in my time) would carry a soldier on their books for a body count even though that soldier was not available for duty. I remember when I moved from the Guard to the Reserve. I was carried on the Guard books for two months longer than I was able to report for duty. I'm guessing this also happens for APFT/weight control. To me this is a command problem of not wanting to be at a lower strength level than really exists.

Response by LTC John Shaw made Aug 9 at 2015 9:45 PM

LTC John Shaw — Sun, 09 Aug 2015 21:45:10 -0400

It is not laziness or irresponsibility, it is bad systems planning and processes not designed to integrate because they were not designed for an operational Guard/Reserve program and need serious upgrades.
I can tell you that the Guard and Reserve has challenges when it comes to accurate reporting of all soldier statuses. This is not like active duty where you have daily accountability for soldiers. You meet once a month and 12-29 days per year for Annual Training. During your AT is when you have the most positive accountability and provide the most accurate reporting at the unit level.
There is very limited full-time staffing in a reserve or guard unit. For a company level unit you will have one full-time staff, at a BN maybe 2 or 3. All the reservist will do their best with 2 paid days out of the month and most senior NCO and Officers put in 'God and Country time' where you just work a couple nights a week and additional weekends for no pay because you are a professional and want to do a good job in the role you hold in the Reserve/Guard.
If a soldier has a serious accident, is incarcerated, commits suicide, gets divorced, etc. the Reserve Commander will not know until the event has been reported, which may or may not be the next monthly Battle Assembly. Let's assume all events are reported in the same month. When you roll up from company to BN, BDE, then geographic commands, add a funding overlay for what are the legitimate/funded structures, add all medical categories, dental, training, MOS Qual, Pay records, etc. These systems all have differences in the batch cycles and reporting periods.
Remember medical and dental for reservist are not covered, only the assessment of the soldier, so unless the soldier has medical insurance or joins the reserve system out of pocket then some medical conditions don't get fixed until mobilization.
You also have soldiers mobilized and sent with a unit overseas, but they must also have the data for this same reservist in the unit they originated from. The active, guard and reserve systems don't interface transfer data among the systems.
As a reservist that has been responsible for this reporting and provided briefing to GO level on readiness, we spend many weeks pushing to get data input into the outdated systems from our down trace units. Much of the reporting depends on critical system interfaces and I have had to explain the differences between my numbers and the reported numbers and why.
I could do it to the number most of the time, but it took weeks worth of time and effort to ensure accurate and meaningful soldier readiness stats.

Response by SSgt Alex Robinson made Aug 9 at 2015 10:43 PM

SSgt Alex Robinson — Sun, 09 Aug 2015 22:43:36 -0400

Our guard and reserve are pros. The government is a mess and they want to blame heros. Enough of this nonsense

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 10 at 2015 4:59 AM

SSG Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 04:59:15 -0400

There are a lot of factors involved I think. In smaller states it's probably a lot easier for a company commander to keep track of all his people and know what's going on with them because they're all pretty much right there where as in a larger state, his soldiers are spread out over hundreds of miles so it's not quite as easy to keep track of them.

You've also got to remember that you really only have one or two guys full-time at a unit trying to keep up with EVERYTHING that's going on in that unit. Unless there's a deployment coming soon, a 1SG and CO aren't there full-time. You have a person somewhere between E-5 and E-7 trying to keep track of 200 people plus whatever the unit has going on.

The system itself is flawed too. A lot of things take forever to make their way up, if they ever get there at all. I've got things missing from iPERMS that should have been in there 2 years ago. (Yes I've brought it up numerous times.) Another personal example, when I was promoted I was overseas. The slot I was promoted into was in a unit still back in the States. When my leave ended, I was supposed to be transferred to the other unit. Someone somewhere dropped the ball and it didn't happen for 5 months.

In the Reserves I imagine it's even worse. You have commands that are spread out over entire regions and people travelling from all over hell and creation for drill.

It's not nearly as bad as it used to be, but the system still needs a lot of work.

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 10 at 2015 8:19 AM

SSG Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 08:19:40 -0400

Where you have a difference between Active and Reserve/Guard Components is Active Units are seeing each other everyday. They interact closely and when you break your arm, your command knows.

Often, in Reserve/Guard Units, the soldier isn't thinking about their Reserve/Guard Unit when they break their arm. They are worried about their full-time employment and their Unit gets put on the back burner.

In regards to Reserve/Guard Units, could the AGR do more to reach out to their Soldiers? Absolutely. But, at some point also, the individual soldier should assume some responsibility.

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 10 at 2015 1:24 PM

MAJ Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 13:24:01 -0400

As a Commander I can tell you my strength and operational availability. I speak with my readiness NCO daily and receive weekly reports from a system called DPRO. It can be done, it just requires a significant amount of time to be spent the outside of IDT weekends.

Where the problem comes in is when states "cook the books." The guard is in the process of a drawdown much like the AC. To avoid being one of the BCTs being cut, states move all qualified personnel into the deployable units on paper. Then once the evaluation is done they come back off. So a company that shows 100% on paper may really only be 80% manned. Then when deployments come around they have to scramble to find people.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 10 at 2015 5:49 PM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 17:49:21 -0400

I think its dereliction of duty and false reporting..

Response by LCDR Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 12 at 2015 1:25 AM

LCDR Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 01:25:30 -0400

Yes to all. What kind of lack of accountability leads to that? What a shit show.

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 18 at 2015 3:21 AM

SGT Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 03:21:49 -0400

Their response should be all of them

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 27 at 2015 2:46 PM

SGT Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 27 Aug 2015 14:46:52 -0400

Fit to fight and ready to fight are not the same. I know nothing about an SOP for having readiness no.'s available. I surmise any troop w/a profile would count as "unfit". Additionally, overweight or PT bolo may be characterized as "unfit". What I do know is, I am fit and ready.

Response by SPC Douglas Hemmingway made Aug 18 at 2016 5:03 PM

SPC Douglas Hemmingway — Thu, 18 Aug 2016 17:03:59 -0400

I can only go by my own experience as a former member of the Kansas Army National Guard. I know that I had to struggle to stay within height and weight standards and PT standards. Many times I had a hard time working in the fitness routine, but I did the best I could do. I know I often failed to report an illness to the Guard though I did to my civilian employer. Most of my illnesses were not of a long enough duration though for me to worry about reporting them to my Section Leader, Tank Commander or Squad Leader before the next MUTA. I did get into height weight compliance and was when the First Gulf War broke out. The only time I had a health and fitness issue affect my career negatively was in the last six months I was in the 242nd Engineers. I had gone to AT in San Diego. I woke up the Tuesday of the first week without my voice. I thought it was due to the drier air in the San Diego Mountains near Camp Mareno near the border. My Squad Leader was concerned and sent me to sick call. The clinic on the California Army Guard base there admitted me and an Air Guard Medic saw me. He was not happy with my pulse so hooked me up to several diagnostic machines. After he disliked my EKG he sent me back down to San Diego Naval Station as it was the nearest military hospital. There the civilian Navy employee doctor didn't like that, my pulse or my blood pressure.

I was sent home by Kansas' Chief Medical Officer and put on profile until I saw my own physician. I didn't have one in Wichita at the time and the one who saw me on short notice was a doctor in Topeka, Kansas. It turns out that the heart rate issue was benign and the BP issue was due to the difference in the climate between San Diego and Kansas. But my profile did not get modified for me to do any PT until a month before my ETS date and the SFC at the Topeka Armory who administered the APFT did not schedule it until the earlier part of the week of my ETS date. He also had me to the push up on the highly polished and very slick basket ball hard wood floor of the armory's drill floor instead of in their fitness room. I got through seventeen of the push ups and my left hand slipped out from under me and I nosed dived into the drill floor. He of course stopped the test there and instead of re-initiating that day he said he couldn't reschedule until a date two weeks after I was to ETS.