Why does the Army appear to have a discipline issue with the lower enlisted ranks?

Personally, I think it's do with American society moving away from being unquestioning of authority. Young people see politicians on both sides acting like complete and utter fools, and as such, are maybe a little less likely to buy the whole indoctrination spiel the Army lays on them in the early days.
They see a few wars, and absolutely nothing to show for them, except a few very rich white men, and a bunch of nutty conspiracy theories. Why should they have any confidence in their leaders? It's not like their leaders are proving themselves capable in any way, shape, or form.

Add to that, the sheer stupid lengths that many military leaders will go to in order to exercise authority. Case in point? Another discussion that has me all kinds of twisted, where a female is told by her Platoon Sergeant through her squad leader that she needs to wear a bra when OFF DUTY. And the vast majority of responding officers and NCOs in full support of the leader. This. THIS is one of the major reasons I could see lower enlisted joining the Army, and coming to the realization that they might just be surrounded by fools.

Now.. I am not saying the officers and NCOs ARE fools. Just indoctrinated into a HOOOOORAHHHHHHH!!-type mentality that just doesn't play with an entire generation of enlistees who are seeing America fall apart around them.

This problem is not unique to the army it is rampant in all parts of society. The liberal brainwashing of our youth has come home to roost the standards have been lowered across the board. everyone gets a participation trophy and no one can be disciplined for anything. We cant hurt feelings by giving grades in school or keeping score in sport events. This society in general is seing the bad effects of this in every phase of life. In schools the kids disrespect the teachers and even physically attack them. It was shown in Florida the sheriff was told by the politicians not to arrest kids on high schools because they wanted to try to show a reduction in crime rates under thier leadership. well the result was the parkland shooting where the shooter had double digit police complaints against him but never charged on any . But they were quick to blame guns for the problem. In New York city this summer the police had water and buckets thrown on them and were afraid to make arrests because the liberal mayor would not stand up for them and feared they would lose their jobs. In Washington state the radical Antifia wear masks while they protest and destroy property and attack conservative reporters who try to show their violent unlawful ways and they are defended by the liberal mayors and the police are told to stand down and let them brake the law because they are on the side of the party in power. The sanctuary state and city people demonize ice and do not allow the police to help them which makes it unsafe for everyone. Liberal colleges do not allow conservative speakers on campus and allow violent protests against them and the police stand by and watch letting the damage and injury's go unchecked. I can site many more examples. The really sad part is the main street media is run by them so you never hear of most of these problems . I believe this is part of the problem that allowed us to get to this braking point.

It’s not just the Army the Navy and Air Force has the same problems.
The problem stems from a lack of leadership from above and enforcement of PC policies, If a junior has a conflict with a senior all he has to do is accuse the senior of sexual misconduct and the senior reputation is destroyed (guilty until proven innocence).

Inability to uphold the standard. Or just a blatant disregard for it.

I'm concerned that changes in discipline may be the influence of both politics and PC Issues. Having served and currently my son serving the differences in discipline are blatantly apparent. I don't know the answer yet I'd tend to question if it were an issue of both society and potential repercussions on leadership, at every level, if PC concerns are the destructively stifling.

I was stationed at a Naval Hospital as a junior enlisted in the 70;s and knew sailors who would avoid certain walkways to reduce required saluting (and junior officers who would frequent certain routes to garner respect). In the early 80's as a Marine Artillery Officer when the Regiment was shooting at Ft. Bragg, I went with a couple of other LT's to clothing sales. We were not saluted by numerous SPC's and below despite being obviously commissioned (USMC wore shiny bars on lapels). In the 90's + in the Army, it would depend on where I was regarding respect of rank.
I think that it is about Command Climate. In the Mariines the respect of rank comes all the way down the ladder by culture. In the Army I think that although it is cultural priority, it tends to be more locally enforced by command and Staff NCO's. I believe the expectations are lowered from the beginning when it is more a question of numbers rather than quality.
On the other hand, in the elite units I have been associated or familiarized with in the Army (e.g. SF, Rangers, etc.), while the trappings of respect are less obvious, the cultural exhibitions are there (at least within the organizations; somewhat less for an outsider).

There are a lot of discipline issue in the Army, one that I see is soldiers walk past infractions all the time some of this me be they are scared to say anything or they too do not know the reg. I also see people referring to pay grades and not ranks. As leaders we have to enforce these standards, the Army makes it easy there is a manual for everything.

It's because soldiers have cried so much to thier parents, and thier parents went and cried to thier congress members and that lead to NCOs getting told that we had to back off.

As I look back, to my basic training, the biggest take away was to not do anything to get my buddies killed. This brought unit and mission cohesion. It also brought the idea of self sacrifice for others and the greater good. It was transforming.

Sir, I believe it starts in BCT. Prior to retiring I worked in a recruiting command and I had many soldiers return saying how lax it was, and many even stated how disappointing it was due to lack of discipline and challenge. There is also the issue with retention, they feel that if they are too harsh, they will not make retention goals which then get reflected on commander OERs, and other evaluation factors. Another factor is, with retention issues in certain MOSes there are some kids getting promoted way too fast. So as younger "more hip" young NCO's they don't hold their buddies (PFCs - Spec 4's) to a standard, either because they want to be friends more than they do a leader, or they simply don't know how to lead. Lastly, the command has to support the actions of the NCO, and this includes the Platoon Sgt. and Platoon Leader. When a soldier is a discipline problem, I believe that the squad/team leader also needs to be counseled as to why his/her soldier is lacking said discipline.

Lack of Respect, Good Order and Discipline go hand in hand with a lack of proper effective leadership. A challenge for sure in the more touchy feely stress card era of our modern military. Today's leaders more than likely have their hands tied and so the "troops" are able to get away with a lot more then perhaps during times past. Morale issues from enduring multiple deployments, entitlement running amok, political correctness, lack of proper accountability for ones actions are just some of the many issues that cause this general lack of respect and discipline you speak of. Great Post Michael. I've not spent much time on here but when I received notice of this discussion in my email I had to come check it out. BZ and All The Best with your paper!

Because we can't all be infantry.

It's the unit. I was in the Infantry and a Combat Engineer and believe me, we didn't have issues like that! As an NCO , we handled business. What you are seeing are the hobbits, pogues, rear echelon units. Non combat units young Capt. I began my service in 1985, also an Army brat, dad was 30 yr MSG, Vietnam veteran, I'm an old school NCO.

Rank, no rank. If I ever had a little shit disrespect me I would tear him a new ass, regulations be damned. I saw NCOs get disrespected back in the 80s because they shouldn't have been an NCO in the first place. I was an E-6 and lived in the barracks with the soldiers for several tours. They knew who they could push and I wasn't one of them. When I was in my room whether it was weekend or not it was "all quiet on the western front." I wasn't the only one though. There were many NCOs I knew that wouldn't take no shit. If I were in the Army today I would probably be brought up on assault charges my first day…….but I wouldn't be disrespected.

Not sure if anyone else experienced this issue but in in recent years during my second time in the Army, I served as a Platoon Sergeant for a while and when assigning daily tasks such as PMCS at the motor pool or other details that would come up, I found that a lot of soldiers would actually pull out the race card and accuse the high ups of singling out certain individuals out because of their race. I personally took offence to this as tried to assign tasks to my soldiers as I saw they could actually accomplish the mission in a timely manner with minimal supervision. When it came to discipline it was the same way. there was always that race card coming into play.

In my experience, it has a lot to do with the quality of the individuals we are selecting to serve in our military. MANY bad choices were forced onto drill sergeants and first units when I came through in the beginning. Having to backfill the servicemembers that left prior to OEF and OIF quickly without properly vetting or training our troops didn't help matters, either. Out of nearly 300 recruits who came through with me in 2000, more than 60% had criminal records. Over half of THAT population had felonies! And that's just one problem.

17 Marines arrested for human trafficking and you don’t have this type of issue. Better wake up Captain.

Is it an issue of discipline, or a matter of observed customs and courtesies? Are they failing to perform their assigned tasks, or just not locking up in casual conversation?

I never felt respected because a soldier stood at parade rest and adressed me by title at the beginning and end of every sentence. Respect was when they spoke to me candidly, heeded my counsel, and when appropriate, carried out my orders.

VOLAR was a problem, down grading was, Untrained soldiers replacing trained Solders after the down grade, auto promotions, on and on. We started injecting the Army with ill trained Officers and NCO'S at all levels. Now today well try not to let this interfere with my Civilian Job. JMT

Is this true about all MOS-es ? I don't see how the Infantry can lack discipline and be combat functional !