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I was in ROTC for a few years, which isn't the actual military, but it is the future officers. They worked pretty hard to make sure we understood that even aski

by lovich 9y ago

I was in ROTC for a few years, which isn't the actual military, but it is the future officers. They worked pretty hard to make sure we understood that even asking clarifying questions when assigned a task was both insubordinate and showed that you were incompetent. I don't know ow where it started but at some point one group of upperclassman took the approach of teaching the lower classman that they are allowed to listen and not speak under all circumstances, and every class after that felt like it was their turn to be in charge when they became upperclassman

chrisseaton 9y ago
> They worked pretty hard to make sure we understood that even asking clarifying questions when assigned a task was both insubordinate and showed that you were incompetent. That's so totally inconsistent with everything I know about Army doctrine, people in the Army, the approach to training western militaries use, and ROTC, that I'm honestly not sure to believe you (but I'm sure you're telling the truth if that's what you say). When you deliver orders do your crib cards not include a massive highlighted block that says to at this point ask for questions from the subordinates and answer them? Don't you do that thing of keeping taking questions and then when they run out turning it around and asking them questions back to check they really asked about everything they weren't sure about? Doesn't the US Army have a sort of little ceremonial tick that after every point of instruction the instructor pauses to ask 'do you understand that?' If there's one group that I know that does 'there's no such thing as a stupid question' it's the Army.
- lovich 9y ago
  Military doctrine as stated and as practiced are routinely inconsistent in practice. In the same ROTC course we spent the entire year being taught about how militaries that jumped on new technologies and adapted to change faster was the way to win war, and then right after class all but two of the cadets thought that we should never even think about replacing fighter jets with drones that had better performance because of A: the drones might take control of themselves and it'll be like Terminator, B: we've never used drones before, and C: being a fighter pilot is cool and being a drone pilot isn't. There are undoubtedly a number of good officers and enlisted in the military by sheer virtue of their numbers, and I'm sure many of them helped write those forward looking doctrines. The reality of the actual situation inside the military is a morass of waste, micro managing and simultaneously not giving enough instructions, and politics. The meritocracy of the military only comes into play when it is facing a mortal enemy and the people who do their jobs poorly actually are removed by dieing. When you are in the situation that US military is where it outclasses every enemy it's fought for decades by orders of magnitude then incompetence is covered over just by the momentum of the entire system. Just look at the waste and turmoil over uniforms[0] When I was in the program it became apparent through scuttlebutt from the officers that most changes or cancellations in programs like this lined up 1 for 1 with people being promoted into positions and deciding to clear out their predecessors work so they could make their own mark. A common complaint about new second lieutenants as well, was that they were always making up some new work or replacing working processes so that they could point towards their accomplishments when going for a promotion. Those are all the hallmarks of a system dominated by politics, not meritocracy and if it's happening at the junior level those same officers are going to bring those habits with them when they promoted to higher ranks Edit: They had the "do you understand that" pauses when I was in the program as well. After indicating that I did not understand I was taken aside and told that if I planned on continuing in the military then I should not be voicing any doubt. It was not told to me as a threat but as career advice, and they coupled it with techniques for finding out what needs to be done when you don't have information such as nodding politely and saluting your commanding officer, immediately forgetting what they said, and then finding a seargant to ask what should really be done. My school's program may have been an outlier but I heard the same stories and advice from the upperclassmen, the teachers who we're actual officers and enlisted, and enlisted members we met on base visits [0]https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/29/politics/military-uniform-redesign-aquaflage/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/29/politics/military-uniform-red...

by lovich 9y ago

chrisseaton 9y ago

> They worked pretty hard to make sure we understood that even asking clarifying questions when assigned a task was both insubordinate and showed that you were incompetent. That's so totally inconsistent with everything I know about Army doctrine, people in the Army, the approach to training western militaries use, and ROTC, that I'm honestly not sure to believe you (but I'm sure you're telling the truth if that's what you say). When you deliver orders do your crib cards not include a massive highlighted block that says to at this point ask for questions from the subordinates and answer them? Don't you do that thing of keeping taking questions and then when they run out turning it around and asking them questions back to check they really asked about everything they weren't sure about? Doesn't the US Army have a sort of little ceremonial tick that after every point of instruction the instructor pauses to ask 'do you understand that?' If there's one group that I know that does 'there's no such thing as a stupid question' it's the Army.

lovich 9y ago
Military doctrine as stated and as practiced are routinely inconsistent in practice. In the same ROTC course we spent the entire year being taught about how militaries that jumped on new technologies and adapted to change faster was the way to win war, and then right after class all but two of the cadets thought that we should never even think about replacing fighter jets with drones that had better performance because of A: the drones might take control of themselves and it'll be like Terminator, B: we've never used drones before, and C: being a fighter pilot is cool and being a drone pilot isn't. There are undoubtedly a number of good officers and enlisted in the military by sheer virtue of their numbers, and I'm sure many of them helped write those forward looking doctrines. The reality of the actual situation inside the military is a morass of waste, micro managing and simultaneously not giving enough instructions, and politics. The meritocracy of the military only comes into play when it is facing a mortal enemy and the people who do their jobs poorly actually are removed by dieing. When you are in the situation that US military is where it outclasses every enemy it's fought for decades by orders of magnitude then incompetence is covered over just by the momentum of the entire system. Just look at the waste and turmoil over uniforms[0] When I was in the program it became apparent through scuttlebutt from the officers that most changes or cancellations in programs like this lined up 1 for 1 with people being promoted into positions and deciding to clear out their predecessors work so they could make their own mark. A common complaint about new second lieutenants as well, was that they were always making up some new work or replacing working processes so that they could point towards their accomplishments when going for a promotion. Those are all the hallmarks of a system dominated by politics, not meritocracy and if it's happening at the junior level those same officers are going to bring those habits with them when they promoted to higher ranks Edit: They had the "do you understand that" pauses when I was in the program as well. After indicating that I did not understand I was taken aside and told that if I planned on continuing in the military then I should not be voicing any doubt. It was not told to me as a threat but as career advice, and they coupled it with techniques for finding out what needs to be done when you don't have information such as nodding politely and saluting your commanding officer, immediately forgetting what they said, and then finding a seargant to ask what should really be done. My school's program may have been an outlier but I heard the same stories and advice from the upperclassmen, the teachers who we're actual officers and enlisted, and enlisted members we met on base visits [0]https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/29/politics/military-uniform-redesign-aquaflage/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/29/politics/military-uniform-red...