What do you believe is the biggest internal problem facing the current military?

Most of this comes from the top.

If your men are unruly and sullen, If NCOs and Petty Officers refuse to execute their authority and Junior Officers has rather stay in their staterooms all day, look to yourself for the source of the problem. If the men do not do what they are supposed to do, it is usually because no one has told them what to do?

It’s a gross mistake to allow standards to drop for any reason! You then become responsible for the death of half-ass trained soldiers that might have survived had they been trained to the proper standards. Military life is supposed to be hard. Combat is hard. Death is forever! If I had a Son in the Army today I would want him trained hard, no quarter given. He would become a man, not a pansy!

The military has become an isolated warrior class. Young people have been watching Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria drag on and on and they have a healthy sense of "not for me" so who is left to apply? Unemployment is at historic lows, so a lot of young people (and I've spoken to many) don't join because they can find good jobs, go to a civilian technical school, or are go to college. Compounding it are all the mixed signals from the political sphere. Immigrants have always joined as a path to citizenship. Now they get told, "Don't want people like you" and they get discharged and in one case, a combat vet was deported -- that creates serious issues of trust.

When we break faith with our combat warriors, we're screwed. The Army missed its recruiting goals by 60,000. That is an unbelievable number, but not surprising. America has seen the actual treatment of injured vets (physical and mental) who come home and know it is horrible. We all know this, no secret, its on the news all the time, but no intelligent solutions, just cuts to VA services and a tax break for folks who don't need one. Service member suicide is at a very high rate, yet no change to the culture.

Young people see that and ask themselves, "Why would I sign up for that?" and that is a very good question. End result, we don't get very good candidates, but the quality of candidates has been in decline since Desert Storm ended and the great RIF of '92 and spawned the first generation of bad leadership.

There are some very good points here. I am about to enter my 32nd year since enlistment and I’ve been both Officer and Enlisted as a Reservist and Active Duty.

There are definitely cycles that appear and similarities across the board. So many issues have already been cited; wasting time with quarterly to annual training that does not need to be done on that frequency, and the population that we now draw our force from.

I see that there are huge discrepancies in our talent management professional development of leadership and management. The main stream generation that comprises the bulk of our force thinks much differently and the leaders that are ahead of them do not understand those differences. All sides must learn about each other and meld that understanding to the military mindset and processes.

So there are many, many more problems, too many for anyone of us to list all of them.

However, I believe it is the lack of understanding of the operational military, it’s goals and mission, and an internalized understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the leader in the led. This is at least one of the components of the “atom” making up out military problems, if not the nucleus!

When I went through basic you took what was hamded out to you without complaining. No writing home aboit how mean the DI is, or too tough the training is. I look at some of the complaints on a couple of FB sites for AF enlisted and NCOs. The complaints posted there are rediculous. One was, his superior told him he needed more off-duty volunteer work to improve his performance review. They post many instances of they or others breaking the rules/orders. If you post a reply pointing out where they may be wrong they attack you for it even though they sought the advice of the group.

I don't know why every NCO say that.
To be honest I join the army because of the history and discipline that they have..unfortunately when you come to the units they are the most undisciplined. Also a private will do what the sgt say to do..
I'm 30 I was a truck driver for 6 years before I decided to join because I was sick of dealing with bs...but I come here and there is more BS here that outside..

The officers don't know how to plan shit..I have never seen so much stupid in my life..

NCOs are not living the nco creed at all..they only care about pleasing the 1st sgt..I'm a 88m they been here for 4 to 6 years and they can't back up a trailer..so that's what wrong now a days..

They're just not motivated enough.

There's some things that irk me: the amount of time wasted on stupid take like "area beautification" and other crap. Or soldiers should spend the majority of their time training, not doing administrative tasks. The race to lower standards. The money wasted on inclusion programs (I don't care about outliers, we should be focusing our money on a meritocratic utilitarian manner), the crap way we assign duties without regards to their educational backgrounds or linguistic aptitudes, the fact that after two decades in Afghanistan that most of our soldiers still don't have a clue about the place prior to deploying there... The favoritism and careerism is bad too.
Also the amount of waste and lack of efficiency and the disregard for tube and money...
The fact that we even purchase supplies from communist China disgusts me.
Also the lack of fighting spirit in rear-echelon troops.
The traditions of officers not to wear qualification badges - they should wear them and set the example for their troops along with the NCOs, otherwise the troops with think it's not important.
The way soldiers and even leaders politicize everything and openly use political pejoratives is frankly appalling. That fucking shit can not stand. It's the US Army, not the Democrat Army or the Republican Army. This isn't a fuckin dictatorship, we're not a party-Army. Shit pisses me off.

Valid points SPC Voye. I agree...the force fed PC doctrine is a thorn in the side and unnecessary distraction and fiscal waste. What's even more scary is the brass on Capitol Hill ignoring real issues to focus on destroying careers of anyone who dares disagree with them about it. When a General or Admiral has nothing better to do than to create orders for units to spend time and money to purge their training and operations manuals of potential 'offending' verbiage, it's reached its idiocy point.

Political correctness and the cyclic drawdowns the military goes through every couple of years. Our civilian leaders forget that the Congress has a "Constitutional" requirement to fund and maintain the Navy and Army [Art 1, Sect 2, cl. 12 and 13 US Constitution]. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 doesn't help either.
Can you imagine what a military force would look like if DOD applied the training outlined in the following:
Heinlein: Starship Troopers
Gordon Dickson: Dorsai
Joe Haldeman: The Forever War