Angry Iron Majors (A.I.M.)

COL Ross Coffman, sir, there are so many disgruntled Majors due to the cliff retirement system. Take away this financial coercision and many would leave. Currently, at the 20 year mark you are left with two groupings, incredible Patriots that want to serve and mediocre officers that are scared to leave.

COL (Join to see), I always kind of looked at it the other way. When I was promoted to major, I was a field grade officer and got to wear scrambled eggs on my service cap! I outranked everyone below major. I made more money. Granted, I was a staff weanie the entire time I was a major, but I thought the positives outweighed the negatives. Yes, I did a ton of staffing and writing but that was just part of being a major.
A fellow classmate at a non-resident phase of the C&GSOC helped me gain a proper perspective. Most of us were captains, and one Monday evening, this fellow student walked in wearing his new gold oak leaves. We were in awe and asked him what it felt like to now be a major. He looked at us, laughed and said, "Hell, I'm two grades higher than I ever thought I'd be!" LTC (Join to see)

So, I don't know if I am just off my rocker or that I disagree with most on here is just who I am. I am not an Angry Iron Major, I can be angry at times and when needed but it serves no greater purpose to just be angry all the time. Yes, as a Major we are staff officers for the duration of our time at this level, but that does not mean that you are not still a leader with influence. Part of the problem is that people allow themselves to be placed into a box, and once there they do as they are told to within the confines of the box. I always try to use the guidance from my boss, and higher HQs as a reference point as long as it is understood what the desired end state is we can deviate to make something better.
I was lucky to be a part of an LPD last month by a great senior leader. Within this forum he opened it up to questions at the end, and while I don't remember what the question was I will always remember what the answer was. He said "The most fun job in the Army (for an Officer) is Battalion Commander, the most rewarding is being a Brigade Commander, the path to both of those starts (at which point he points at the few Majors in the room) as a Major. If you want to get to the fun job and the rewarding job, you have to put in the long hours and the changing priorities and the issues at higher and higher levels. You say that you don't want their jobs (CPTs referring to MAJs) that you don't want to be them. Well if you aren't them, then you don't get to the other." [All of this is as close as I can remember paraphrase to the direct quote]

Sir, I saw this when it was posted, but refrained from posting because... well, potential self-preservation. But nearly a month later it's still on my mind. It seems to me that there is often completely just cause for an Angry Iron Major to be angry. If an officer loves his Army but is dissatisfied with the nature of the politics and backstabbing he sees in his unfiltered view of BDE and above, then "voting with his feet" seems to be the coward's way out. It is abandoning the Army that he loves to the dysfunction and inefficiency that he despises, and going home harbor those resentments for life, while those who remain simply say "he never learned to grasp soft power." Maybe that major is a naturally bitter person, sure. But the bias is to assume that anyone with a negative opinion is just disgruntled and jaded and therefore his views are immediately dismissed. There is absolutely no effort to actually take these views and evaluate them and use them to better the processes of the Army. I have seen majors actually brag about ass kissing their way to success, even using that exact phrase. What recommendation can an onlooker make to change that? I have seen cut-throat environments where majors undercut each other and fight with sheer duplicity for the elusive ACOM, taking credit for work that wasn't theirs and placing blame for their mistakes. Who is he to complain to? His rater? He's working in the same toxic environment and has no influence without jeopardizing his own career.

When it is a cultural thing, there is no way to influence the culture with mere confessions to a trusted leader who has no influence to fix the greater culture. When the anger is justified, the best way to fix the culture is through angry non-toleration of the intolerable environment. It is through mores that any hope of change exists. And mores will never change so long as good officers vent their concerns to a powerless leader and then accept the corrupt culture, or run away from the problem. Or worse, embrace the "OE" and swim in it, thus perpetuating the worst aspects of the culture.

When it is time to fight, we certainly put aside the lesser concerns of making the Army better and focus on winning the fight. But we also can't afford as an institution to keep driving good officers away because they have legitimate complaints that they refuse to accept as norms, and then to blame them for being "disgruntled" and "negative."

Finally, the idea that "life is too short" to live it in anger and to go find a profession that "makes you happy" seems also to a lesser solution if we earnestly believe in selfless service and making the Army as great as it can be. If we're only in the Army so long as we're happy in the Army, then how is that service not selfish? How is selflessness not understood to mean that you do it even when, and especially when, it makes you unhappy because there are higher purposes than personal happiness?

COL (Join to see) I recall AIMs in the Pentagon when, after seeing what they did every day, I didn't begrudge them their anger. If you've ever been in the Pentagon early in the morning or late at night, when all the "tourists" (I thankfully count myself in this category) and "happy people" are gone, the AIMs do the real work, typing furiously or walking fast, head down, carrying a packet or a pile. Living in a world where everyone outranks them and the rules are more political than military. They looked like pale, malnourished mine workers. Three years of that and they damn well earned their command. So I cut them some slack.

I was going to post the link myself, but it seems that RP beat me to the punch:
A little relevant humor (?).

https://www.rallypoint.com/answers/league-of-disgruntled-majors-the-officer-version-of-specialist-mafia

I'm new to the whole field grade and Iron Major thing, so perhaps I'll get angry in the future. Right now, I am the J-1 principal in a TDA unit that is the army reserve element of US Forces Korea. I also have a role on the USFK staff in WMD warning and response.

Perhaps I just have a great chain of command that I work within, but I find since promotion to major that I am consulted and my recommendations at least considered, if not always adopted. I'm sure things will change when I move in a year or two into a BN S3 or XO position, but that is a step that is needed to prepare for BN command, and one I look forward to meeting head-on.

Very good insight on a group of folks very much important and necessary but little understood and much maligned.

Since I got my 20 year letter and know that I can retire at any time, I have become much less "angry" and things that used to drive me nuts rarely bother me anymore.

The thing that stuck out here is "negativity is contagious for those with weak minds".

Those that want to ignore that this problem or "club" actually exists are the main issue. As a retired Major who MOS-Q twice, deployed six times, and spend almost a decade in GWOT combat, EXPERIENCED Majors are "rode hard and put down wet". Not sure how that can be classified as a "weak mind" COL. We cannot simply "fix" the problem with changes in attitude LTC/COLs. Pointing the finger at us saying our frustration at us means higher leaders are failing their jobs, simultaneously. More often than not senior officers are more out of touch with their command's climate and staff. "Iron Majors" DO NOT often have the direct ability to ask for assistance because more often than not they are independent in action anyway. Is the suggestion here to approach their BN, BDE, DIV, or CORPS CDR? Seriously? This only results in career ending decisions. Never forget, Majors are CDR's LIFELINE to providing timely expertise and knowledge in areas outside your basic branch, and the only thing that CDRs want is that exact professionalism, nothing else. XOs are often more junior than staff officers! I watched the same sets of problem for nearly three decades. It accelerates during periods of reductions of force. For those that can retire, we do it as early as possible. For those that think the "club" does not exist, your time will come albeit briefly or extended.