Should an officer be allowed to continue to serve on Active Duty after being relieved from command?

SPC Mike Davis - Different War, Different methods and he could not adapt. Patton would have sucked in Viet Nam, but put him in Desert Storm he would have ruled.

Read all the comments, all great information. It comes down to it at the end, to what I said. Issues at the way top and also politicians sticking they're opinions where we dont need them. We can give 101 ways to better improve the military and even save tax dollars. Like alluded above, we save by retaining talent in areas that we need it. Maybe that would also help when the next president takes office and wants to dismantle the military to cut budget instead of kicking out 40k+ service members in a matter of months. We already saved a bunch by getting rid of up or out and retaining talent. Maybe this is why they feel the need to push people up idk. This article came out in 2011 but always seemed very relevant to what I saw. https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/308346/

What's to say that the person doing the relieving isn't a moron themselves. I personally know that to be the case in at least one instance.

COL William Oseles - The entire 7th wasn't wiped out at The Little Bighorn, that's a common misconception. Custer lost about 1/3 to 1//2 of the 7th, including himself, his brothers, and brother in law, but that's far from the entirety of the 7th. But while he did get a good chunk of the 7th wiped out at The Little Bighorn, he had performed spectacularly up until then, esp. during the Civil War where his bravery and his leadership saw him get brevet promotions all the way up to Major General.

Custer was one of those officers who created a toxic atmosphere within his command, particularly amongst his officers. He was known to play favorites and some of his subordinate officers seriously disliked, if not outright hated, him. This may have been a factor in the two officers in charge of the surviving 2 elements of the 7th (after Custer had split it in 3) debating the meaning of a set of written orders and whether they should try and ride to the rescue of his "battalion" or not.

Sgt Chris Fisher - I've only met one and He was relieved of command and made to retire. He seemed to be the exception, in all other cases in My experience the Mustangs did tend to be great leaders. One unit I was all our Officers were mustang ranging from SSgt up to MSgt so not just mustangs but experienced NCOs prior to becoming commissioned Officers. Two of those in that unit a former SSgt and a former MSgt rose to the rank of Full Colonel, 06. I lost track of the others past Captain but it appears they were doing ok, I'm sure they must have advanced further.

SGT Thomas Price - I've heard every officer a mustang idea many times through the years and I can tell you one of the absolute worst officers I ever knew was a 1stLt mustanger who was in charge of my platoon during my enlisted days in the Marine Corps. This man was a sadist and took particular delight in denigrating and mistreating his Marines as I witnessed first hand. When I was commissioned in the US Army, I vowed I would never, ever be an officer like that Marine LT. Beyond that, I know a ton of USMA officers who were pretty darned good platoon leaders who went on to become duds when they made captain because they realized the WPPA would protect them if they screwed up. Not many, but a few. I knew a lot of ROTC platoon leaders who struggled with the very basics of soldiering 24/7 but once they'd been in for a while, they made some truly outstanding captains, majors and LTCs. None of them had enlisted time.
At the end of the day sir, what makes a good officer isn't their source of commissioning, it's what's in their heart and soul that counts most and that goes for all leaders at all levels. In my opinion, those leaders I respected most were the ones who were tough, demanding, fair and who genuinely loved those subordinates entrusted to them as if they were their own sons. There's a few of those gents I'm still close friends with today some 35 plus years down the road. Now that's real leadership that lasts.

Well sir, I will defer to your experience on the matter; I realize that my sample pool is much smaller than yours. Salute.

I feel like this is pretty accurate I also see a lot of places where you have someone that is competent at one level and for all of the reasons you described makes the next pay grade and is absolutely awful at it. There are some people in the army that deserve to be a four-year staff sergeant there's other people that if left to their own devices could be a competent E5 at their retirement. Personally I'd rather see somebody stay at a level they were good at then take on something they were uncomfortable with

Every time I wax nostalgic about my time in the military, I visit Rally Point and take my two reality pills. Exiting was the best decision I ever made.

Very true on so many levels.

It seems to me that higher command is almost always looking for scapegoats whenever something happens and seldomly, if ever, blames themselves whenever something bad happens. There was a recent incident where a sub commander was relieved of command because of a bad night time docking. This was despite the CO telling his Commodore that his crew was not trained for it and the Commodore insisting on him doing it anyway because he wanted the skipper and his boat in the dock ASAP. So, the skipper was relieved of command for "loss of confidence" (along with his senior staff, including the COB) but, in this case, the investigating board also found fault with the Commodore for being so insistent on the docking and ignoring the warnings of his subordinate.

There's also the various incidences of collisions in Navy ships in recent years as a result of crews being overworked and undertrained. None of this the fault of the ship's skippers but as a result of policy pushing these ships and their captains harder and harder yet it's captains of these ships that are getting beached, not their fleet commanders who are telling them to keep on going despite their crews not have adequate time to rest, much less train.

While performing duties as first sergeant in Germany and just passing the IG inspection with flying colors the battalion commander relieved me of my duties and tried to end my service with over 17 years. Soon after the first sergeant that serviced the LTC’s vehicle among others in command failed the IG without being relieved. I was fortunate enough to find a position and retire.

Cpl Justin Goolsby , to me, you hit it exactly. Do we still need/have a use for this officer's skills. And we've made the assumption that the decision to relieve was not made because of illegal or immoral behavior in which case, with or without a court martial, the officer should be shown the door.
Maj William W. 'Bill' Price Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. SP5 Mark Kuzinski SGT Mark Halmrast MSG Dan Walther LTC Jeff Shearer Lt Col Scott Shuttleworth Capt Seid Waddell LTC Stephen F.

Dale, you are right about not every officer being the next great commander of legend. However, when that officer demonstrates an inability to learn from the experience and change how he/she leads, what then? Perhaps I'm running the risk of too much specificity in my example, but I expect this scenario is not unique when looking across the services for other such examples.
Thanks for your response!

Frank, this is one of those crappy "no-win" scenarios. The system positively protects officers like this for a short while -- until they come up against a superior who knows bullsh*t when he smells it and acts accordingly for the good of the Army.
That said, if the officer in question is as incompetent as he sounds, then he is probably ripe for HQDA Board action. My guess is that he's already been passed over once for promotion and he is just waiting for the other shoe to drop. This is of course unless he's field grade already - in which case, you're snookered. If this guy is "retired on active duty" his OER will reflect that and DA will catch up with him eventually.
The danger for you exists is if he is your superior. Directly or indirectly undermining him (including the dropping of hints that he ought to resign) is insubordination (or worse).
If he's your subordinate, nail him in his OER. If he's not in your chain, steer clear if you want to avoid coming out stinky. The last thing you want is a reputation as an agitator.
If the officer is from another service a ten-foot-pole is too short an implement. Avoid entangling yourself at all costs.

SSG Dale London - Fortunately, he is a *former* supervisor of mine. That is, until I went to my commander to have a heart-to-heart talk about my "beloved LTC" and what can be done to get me out from under his rule. It had turned out that the commander was already tracking this "beloved's" prior history and was adjusting his glide path within the unit accordingly. Added bonus was the opportunity to transfer to a different section which has been able to leverage my skill sets better while alleviating my stress at the same time. :)

I applaud your good fortune -- would that we all were so lucky.

You've got functional areas as a part of this, but, honestly, I think the Army needs to realize that not every Officer is going to do well in command and can still be a force multiplier as a staff Officer.

The main issue with this is the Armys general handling of officers.

I have a friend that went through OCS, has a masters in a finance field, and was commissioned as an MI officer. Granted IPPS-A is going to reduce the prevalence if the finance branch over all, it is poor talent management on the army.

A lot of officers have a general understanding of the field the army out them in, that may or may not match the field of their degree.

Just because that engineer company commander is an engineer officer, they may not have an engineering degree.

Adjusting a releived commander to a field of expertise, may mean moving them out of the CMF they are part of, and that is just as damaging to their career.

The broad scope of officer training means they are expected to be generalists. Perhaps, instead, it is time to relook how we manage careers as a whole, versus just kicking someone out.

Of course, a relief for cause evaluation is fairly well a career ender anyhow. Sure you may recover from it, but how capable are you to do so?

In '76 when I signed up, the Specialist grades ran through E-7; it was decided that after Spec-5 NCO's should have developed leadership skills, one of the difficulties in the Support MOS's is developing NCO leadership schools that TRADOC can accept.

The navy may have the right idea with regard to this. Their "Line Officer" system keeps "specialist" officers out of the chain (line) of command. Thus, a Navy Medical Branch captain (0-6) on an aircraft carrier cannot take command of that or any warship of any size, even if he is the last officer aboard. On the other hand an ensign (0-1) of the line can take command of anything from a PT boat to aircraft carrier in the absence of another, higher ranking line officer, and may exert command authority over that same medico Captain in the process.
While an argument can be made that the navy has a completely different command structure from the army or marines (the air force uses a similar system to the navy), yet the fact remains that an army food service officer may be a poor -- even a disasterous choice to command a combat unit. This has, in fact, happened in the past.
The unit may get lucky and get an officer who's smart enough to lean on his subordinates as he deals with a completely unfamiliar environment, but do we really want to leave this sort of thing to luck?

Chris,
I couldn't agree with you more! The only caveat to what you just said is it is *assumed* that a given officer is receptive to the good advice being proffered by a well-meaning, competent NCO. If the receiver of the message isn't willing to listen, it's not worth the effort to try to get through to them. Only after some hard knocks will some listen to counsel; however, by the time they are receptive to good advice, the situation risks turning into an unsalvageable mess.
I'm very glad to see two examples of great turnaround stories for officers who would otherwise have failed had they not heeded the good advice of a reputable NCO. I love these kinds of stories! And, more often than not, they do come out better for the experience and are real joys to work for.
Thanks for sharing your great anecdotes today! (Happy Easter, BTW!)

MAJ (Join to see) - my last unit CO was like that didn't care just wanted to retire, didn't want to be bothered with problems, I retired first, CO retired but not at LTC, if it were not for that CO I would have stayed on until I was 60

I had to up vote just on reference to Piers Anthony. I enjoyed his early Magic of Xanth books but as I grew older grew weary of them but find myself re-reading the first trilogy on occasion.

LTC John Shaw - The quote was actually from his "Biography of a Space Tyrant" book 2 "Mercenary"

I feel I should clarify my story a bit lest others get the impression that the officer in question was a complete failure as an officer, which he was not.
His deficiency was his lack of ability to land an aircraft on a carrier and the inability to accurately do the self assessment that would have told him that he was a danger himself and those who flew with him.
He had no record of failure at ground landings and in fact his quick thinking in another incident at home base prevented loss of personnel and equipment.
I have no doubt that as a ground based pilot he most likely excelled and was an asset to his command. No one I spoke to that served under his leadership on the ground had ill to speak of him or his abilities as an officer.

PO3 Andrew Kelly - Thanks so much for adding that detail, Andrew.

From what I have been able to discern from the headlines, my own studies on organizational culture, and the occasional discussion with fellow professional officers (active/retired/vet), this sort of "House of Cards"/"Game of Thrones" type of political maneuvering and manipulation comes from an established culture that encourages this sort of backhanded behavior.
When an outsider comes to an organization from the "outside", part of integrating the new person into the unit is an acculturation of sorts. In short, the person partially sheds the cultural norms carried over from a previous organization and adopts some of the norms unique to the new unit. In your case, the cultural norms of that unit happened to be in direct conflict with your moral compass and what you were brought up with as positive cultural norms and values (e.g. honesty, integrity, "people first-mission always"). The sadly uncommon part of your story is that you refused to give in and subsume your better judgement for the sake of career.
I don't think the public hears enough stories of courage in the face of what I've heard called "beta-male political posturing". For the benefit of the greater organization, we need to reward moral courage more often by preserving the careers of those who have demonstrated it. Making victims of those who do so by killing careers sends the wrong message and, instead, *promotes the opposite* behavior.
Thank you for sharing your story, Robert!

CPT Robert Boshears I will never forget asking an O-6 cooking his heels with me during a “?” briefing at NTC when he would be an O-7.

He responded, never! His previous division commander, upon receiving a NOGO during a “”FTX”” has ‘killed’ all of the Colonels in his division with negative OERs!

A nice display of: Duty, Honor, Country!