Posted on Jul 31, 2016
The Real Reason For The Poor State Of Military Morale
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A military with poor morale is a military that fights poorly.
Recently, the Military Times published an article about the declining morale of the armed forces. It hit a big nerve, and rightfully so. A military with poor morale is a military that fights poorly. This should be a huge wake-up call to the senior uniformed and civilian military leadership.
There is a big danger that the wrong fixes will be applied to this problem. Oddly enough, the easiest problems to fix are the ones based on dollars and cents. Yes, the service chiefs will complain, but priorities can be shifted to reduce the hit on service members’ pocketbooks. But it’s not primarily the pay and benefit problems driving the downturn in morale.
According to the Military Times piece, satisfaction with pay and allowances declined from 87% to 44% from 2009 to 2014. Military pay has kept up with inflation and then some for the past several years. That’s not to say that military pay is a princely fortune, though it stacks up pretty well against the civilian world. After several years of military pay gains, 2015’s pay increase is falling slightly below inflation and the basic allowance for housing formula has changed. Let’s be honest, it’s not as if compensation has suddenly been slashed to the bone. After several years of raises, service members are taking a year of losing slightly against inflation, just like the rest of the federal workforce. Some service members may feel that they aren’t being paid what they rate, but there likely isn’t any dollar amount that would fix that. The plain truth is that military paychecks have improved since most of the force joined.
The other ancillary benefits of the military, be that health care, commissaries, exchanges, or recreation facilities, may have had some small changes here and there. Some are for the worse, like commissary surcharges. Some are for the better: when I joined the Marine Corps, most gyms looked like old-school “iron churches.” Today, gyms and other military recreation facilities are clean and modern. On the whole, though, these sorts of things aren’t moving the needle very far one way or another.
For the most part, the recent downward turn in morale can’t be laid on deployment schedules, either. Some units still have intensive deployment schedules. On an individual basis, some service members also have very high operational tempos, but on the whole, the pace of deployments has declined since the days of the Iraq surge. Only a few years ago, leaders were worried that the pace of deployment would break the morale of the force. Now that deployments have decreased, the worry is that morale is suffering for want of a mission. Service members complain about deployments, but they also complain when they don’t deploy. Deployments are a factor in poor morale, but they aren’t the driving force behind today’s military anomie.
The key factor is senior leadership that has not kept faith with its troops. The rest of the force that doesn’t live within the Washington, D.C., beltway feels that it is being ridden hard and put back wet so that the generals and admirals can claim success before civilian leaders in Congress and the White House. They have come to believe that they are expendable.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Even after taking away the burden of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the security requirements of the United States have not decreased in proportion with the downsizing of the force. As recently retired Marine General James Amos said, “We will not do less with less. We will do the same with less.” As powerful as generals are, they can’t repeal mathematics. That difference isn’t coming out of nowhere. It’s coming at the expense of personnel, equipment, and training. Today, units have to swap equipment just to deploy; new personnel go forward with inadequate training; and stateside support units, such as depots and training facilities, have to support deploying units with people and equipment. The military is like a subsistence farmer who’s eating his seed corn — it works for awhile, but a reckoning is coming.
Service members aren’t blind to this. Those who’ve been around can sense that they are working harder, but accomplishing less. More work, but somehow, less training. And perhaps they could deal with the extra work. They did join to serve, after all. They just don’t feel as if their loyalty to the institution has been rewarded. They see what appears to be an increasingly capricious and arbitrary force-shaping process. From the Army giving pink slips to soldiers in Afghanistan, the Marines kicking out sergeants at ten years of service, to the Air Force enticing airman to apply for voluntary separation incentives and then revoking the offer, senior leadership has been making its mission, pleasing Congress, at the expense of the rank and file.
That mission of pleasing elected officials isn’t just about dollars and cents and military missions overseas. It’s about senior leaders so cowed by civilian authority that they will throw anyone under a bus to preserve the image of the military. To many, senior military leaders’ fawning obsequiousness in the face of civilian pressure has turned a bastion of warrior spirit into a Mormon ladies’ social. While the military has certainly needed some cultural rudder steers from time to time, events starting with the post-Tailhook witch hunts, and continuing through such initiatives as the 21st Century Sailor and Marine Program, have left service members thinking that they joined to be in the Sands of Iwo Jima but got stuck in a showing of The Sound of Music.
Life in the military has a lot of rewards, but also a lot of sacrifices and hardship. What has made soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines withstand those hardships throughout history is a sense of belonging and the knowledge that someone has their backs. The source of the military’s discontent doesn’t lie in money, it’s in the fact that many in the military believe that loyalty currently only travels up, not down. Senior leadership can moan about not having the money to fix the morale problem, but there’s not enough money in the world to fix it unless the underlying problem is solved. If the military doesn’t have its peoples’ backs, it will soon be looking at their backs as they walk out the door.
Recently, the Military Times published an article about the declining morale of the armed forces. It hit a big nerve, and rightfully so. A military with poor morale is a military that fights poorly. This should be a huge wake-up call to the senior uniformed and civilian military leadership.
There is a big danger that the wrong fixes will be applied to this problem. Oddly enough, the easiest problems to fix are the ones based on dollars and cents. Yes, the service chiefs will complain, but priorities can be shifted to reduce the hit on service members’ pocketbooks. But it’s not primarily the pay and benefit problems driving the downturn in morale.
According to the Military Times piece, satisfaction with pay and allowances declined from 87% to 44% from 2009 to 2014. Military pay has kept up with inflation and then some for the past several years. That’s not to say that military pay is a princely fortune, though it stacks up pretty well against the civilian world. After several years of military pay gains, 2015’s pay increase is falling slightly below inflation and the basic allowance for housing formula has changed. Let’s be honest, it’s not as if compensation has suddenly been slashed to the bone. After several years of raises, service members are taking a year of losing slightly against inflation, just like the rest of the federal workforce. Some service members may feel that they aren’t being paid what they rate, but there likely isn’t any dollar amount that would fix that. The plain truth is that military paychecks have improved since most of the force joined.
The other ancillary benefits of the military, be that health care, commissaries, exchanges, or recreation facilities, may have had some small changes here and there. Some are for the worse, like commissary surcharges. Some are for the better: when I joined the Marine Corps, most gyms looked like old-school “iron churches.” Today, gyms and other military recreation facilities are clean and modern. On the whole, though, these sorts of things aren’t moving the needle very far one way or another.
For the most part, the recent downward turn in morale can’t be laid on deployment schedules, either. Some units still have intensive deployment schedules. On an individual basis, some service members also have very high operational tempos, but on the whole, the pace of deployments has declined since the days of the Iraq surge. Only a few years ago, leaders were worried that the pace of deployment would break the morale of the force. Now that deployments have decreased, the worry is that morale is suffering for want of a mission. Service members complain about deployments, but they also complain when they don’t deploy. Deployments are a factor in poor morale, but they aren’t the driving force behind today’s military anomie.
The key factor is senior leadership that has not kept faith with its troops. The rest of the force that doesn’t live within the Washington, D.C., beltway feels that it is being ridden hard and put back wet so that the generals and admirals can claim success before civilian leaders in Congress and the White House. They have come to believe that they are expendable.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Even after taking away the burden of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the security requirements of the United States have not decreased in proportion with the downsizing of the force. As recently retired Marine General James Amos said, “We will not do less with less. We will do the same with less.” As powerful as generals are, they can’t repeal mathematics. That difference isn’t coming out of nowhere. It’s coming at the expense of personnel, equipment, and training. Today, units have to swap equipment just to deploy; new personnel go forward with inadequate training; and stateside support units, such as depots and training facilities, have to support deploying units with people and equipment. The military is like a subsistence farmer who’s eating his seed corn — it works for awhile, but a reckoning is coming.
Service members aren’t blind to this. Those who’ve been around can sense that they are working harder, but accomplishing less. More work, but somehow, less training. And perhaps they could deal with the extra work. They did join to serve, after all. They just don’t feel as if their loyalty to the institution has been rewarded. They see what appears to be an increasingly capricious and arbitrary force-shaping process. From the Army giving pink slips to soldiers in Afghanistan, the Marines kicking out sergeants at ten years of service, to the Air Force enticing airman to apply for voluntary separation incentives and then revoking the offer, senior leadership has been making its mission, pleasing Congress, at the expense of the rank and file.
That mission of pleasing elected officials isn’t just about dollars and cents and military missions overseas. It’s about senior leaders so cowed by civilian authority that they will throw anyone under a bus to preserve the image of the military. To many, senior military leaders’ fawning obsequiousness in the face of civilian pressure has turned a bastion of warrior spirit into a Mormon ladies’ social. While the military has certainly needed some cultural rudder steers from time to time, events starting with the post-Tailhook witch hunts, and continuing through such initiatives as the 21st Century Sailor and Marine Program, have left service members thinking that they joined to be in the Sands of Iwo Jima but got stuck in a showing of The Sound of Music.
Life in the military has a lot of rewards, but also a lot of sacrifices and hardship. What has made soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines withstand those hardships throughout history is a sense of belonging and the knowledge that someone has their backs. The source of the military’s discontent doesn’t lie in money, it’s in the fact that many in the military believe that loyalty currently only travels up, not down. Senior leadership can moan about not having the money to fix the morale problem, but there’s not enough money in the world to fix it unless the underlying problem is solved. If the military doesn’t have its peoples’ backs, it will soon be looking at their backs as they walk out the door.
The Real Reason For The Poor State Of Military Morale
Posted from taskandpurpose.comPosted in these groups: Morale
Edited >1 y ago
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 4
Posted >1 y ago
Is there support from civilians? These 15 year wars are making them numb. Sure there is the "Thank you for your service," but is that support? Some, including politicians, think we have too many benefits already. That is the real problem. Others think all veterans suffer from PTSD. It is a shame when soldiers are doing 14 combat deployments. Are there sacrifices being made by the majority? It used to be rich and poor served alike, even the children of presidents.
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SSgt Russell Stevens
>1 y
I hear, "Thank you for your service" from many people on the streets. Truth be told I have had too many years in the middle east and would like my mental health returned. I'm still constantly scanning the sky, looking behind doors, and diving for cover at sudden loud noises. The VA doesn't seem able to help, I get moved from one counselor to another and don't get the time for any of them to suggest something I might have overlooked. Morale at low levels in the military? Stop the younger people in the military from asking about the experience of veterans since we saw the morale decline starting in 1988 when President Reagan announced the first drawdown.
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Posted >1 y ago
I've been saying this for years now. The senior leadership within the ranks have foreseen a cliff on the horizon that is looming ever closer. The reckoning is coming. A volunteer force that does not endorse or support its constituents will disintegrate over time.
What kills me the most is that everyone on this bus can tell that we're about to drive off a cliff, and has been shouting for our driver to stop; but rather than pump the brakes, the leaders at the wheel have stepped on the gas and popped the nitro for good measure, doubling down on management strategies that clearly don't work.
If the status quo is turning your troops sour, you're doing something wrong. At least give the opposite approach a shot and see if maybe putting things in reverse helps. It certainly can't be any worse than taking a nose dive off that cliff.
What kills me the most is that everyone on this bus can tell that we're about to drive off a cliff, and has been shouting for our driver to stop; but rather than pump the brakes, the leaders at the wheel have stepped on the gas and popped the nitro for good measure, doubling down on management strategies that clearly don't work.
If the status quo is turning your troops sour, you're doing something wrong. At least give the opposite approach a shot and see if maybe putting things in reverse helps. It certainly can't be any worse than taking a nose dive off that cliff.
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Posted >1 y ago
Thankfully the general state of morale in the military is leaps and bounds over what it was during the post-Vietnam War RIF when racial tensions were high, drugs and alcohol use were through the roof, etc. I enlisted at that time and was amazed at what I saw SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL
There are high-demand and low-density units which have been tapped for deployment so often with little break between deployments. That is where I would expect to find low morale.
thankfully most troops do not have consistently low morale.
Low morale is a sign of leadership which isn't functioning well - officers and NCOs need to work together to keep morale high.
There are high-demand and low-density units which have been tapped for deployment so often with little break between deployments. That is where I would expect to find low morale.
thankfully most troops do not have consistently low morale.
Low morale is a sign of leadership which isn't functioning well - officers and NCOs need to work together to keep morale high.
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