Inside the Pentagon personnel feud that's roiled the military's most senior leaders

These reforms aren't so much about senior generals as it is about CPTs-COLs. one of the criticisms of the current system is that there is an age/time in service bias that holds back the really exceptional performers. For example, there are no below the zone promotions to CPT, so the first time the best officers can start to advance more quickly than the average officers is that he can jump one year be being below the zone to MAJ. Then, he could advance one more year ealry by getting BZ to LTC. But that means that the very, very best only can become LTC two years sooner than the average LTC. And that's after around 14-16 years in service. So really there is very little reward, promotion wise, for the top performers. And the best officers are kept out of increasing positions of responsibilty longer than perhaps there abilities would otherwise indicate.

The second, and flip side of this is the issue of time away from the key combat jobs. For example, (and I don't know if the Army still has this specialty) but when they had Foreign Area Officers, you were expected to go get a masters degree (2 years) attend the FAO Course (several months) lalnguage school -around a year; and then do in country training to develop your language skills to a professional level. So that's about 5 years of training to become a qualified FAO, and doesn't even count your first utilization tour of three years.

The problem was/is that if an officer had FAO as a functional area, the time away from his basic branch would kill him as far as being competitive for promotion. He wouldn't normally have time to get in key branch jobs like company command, or Bn/Bde S3 or XO; so when it came time for promotion, FAOs faired poorly. And even if they did mange to make LTC, since they were very unlikely to get selected for bn cmd in their basic branch, and FAO has no battalions to command, there chances to make COL were very low. So the Army ended up spending years training these specialists and then essentially the system would make them nonpromotable, and then the up and out system would require them to leave, rather than the Army being able to utilize the expertise they spent so much time and money developing in the first place.

It's sort of the old command vs staff officer thing that has been around for hundreds of years. One side says acknowldge that there are officers who will not command, and let them develop deep expertise as staff officers, allowing them to still get promoted and fill senior staff positions. The US Army has taken the other route. It really views staff jobs as a necessary evil, a block check for commanders to fill in between commands and troop assignments. No one with visions of being a senior commander seeks out staff jobs. And spending too much time on a staff is a kiss of death for those on the command track. So we rotate officers out of command jobs into staff jobs for a couple/three years, then move them back out. Thereby ensuring that no real expertise or longevity is developed among our senior staffs. Instead there is a bleief that "command types" being take charge kinds of people, will be able to perform well as a staff officer because it is considered a lesser demanding job, rather than recognizing it requires a different skill set.

It takes an incredible amount of energy to overcome the inertia of an organization like the Army. By definiton, every senior leader will have made it under the old system, and they all view themselves as super successful, so they can't see why anything needs to change.

SGT Robert R. I believe you got the "no kidding - drop dead" text book asnwer from LTC (Join to see) on the active duty side of the house. Now on the Reserve side of the house the same holds true, but with a whole new set of issues. The National Guard and Army Reserve Officers have to meet the same educational requirements as the AD, keep a fiull-time occupation without torking off your employer, be ready and willing to pay for their own travel to find key staff and command positions sometimes states away for Reserve and all over a particular state for the National Guard just to stay competitive. Then you have to fight the "good old boy" political program in the National Guard to get selected for the most Senior Positions. Now they tell you that isn;t the case, but I've been there and got that T-Shirt! In the Reserves you are selected and boarded, which is similar to AD, but there are just so many command positions and those are a must have if you want to make it to Colonel or higher. Even the GO Selection and Boarding for the Reserves/National Guard is highly political and competitive. Now, to your actual question Robert, it would be impossible to use the Corporate system of promoting your higher senior officers, because the Board of Directors would be letting go a senior offcier every day. No kidding - there are soem bad apples out there. Our current system, both in the AD, Reserve, and Guard really takes care of underperfomrers, average performers, above average performers, and somewhat over achievers. I think it will be along time, in my opinion before we see the current system change, but there will be tweaks along the way. There have been small tweaks throughout, but it is what it is and LTC (Join to see) has described it perfectly. Some of us were just very fortunate to manuever our way through the maze and puzzle!

Personally, I think our senior leadership billets are packed with fools.