3 ms·

I think you are saying that if you are not ready to lie on a form, you do not belong in the military, and thus it is an appropriate control during recruitment?

by xbar 2y ago

psunavy03 2y ago
Life exists in shades of gray. If you read the article, it spells out this dilemma quite clearly. The problem is that the military generally ran on a pool of recruits post-Vietnam who were largely effective and got the job done. This happened despite military doctors setting sometimes-unrealistic standards for who could get in at all, or who needed voluminous amounts of paperwork for a waiver of standards. Kids hid conditions, and recruiters made tough calls to balance what kids truly were a bad fit (asthma, major mental issues, morbid obesity) as opposed to the track star who merely had a broken leg once. Now Genesis came along and made everyone strictly play "by the rules," and exposed the problems with this kind of black-and-white thinking. It turns out the standards the military was REALLY operating on were not the standards they thought they were getting. And the standards they REALLY were operating under got the job done, whereas the strictest standards they COULD apply would result in not being able to staff the force, because doctors were not willing to incur enough risk. Ultimately, it becomes a question of whether or not to break a rule at potentially little or no consequence to accomplish an important goal, or to be so pedantic at applying the rules that the organization cannot achieve its goals. The FAA and airlines have the same problem. Scores of airline pilots hide and fail to report medical conditions so as not to lose their jobs. And eventually someone goes nuts and tries to crash a commuter plane. But for that one nutjob who obviously shouldn't have been flying, there's scores of airline pilots fudging their paperwork and seeing docs off-network for cash who nonetheless safely and effectively fly their aircraft. So what IS the standard, or what should it be? Because the black-and-white standard then becomes just a lie doctors tell themselves to avoid risk.
- mlhpdx 2y ago
  I think we agree that it’s the rules that need to change. The software just made that clear, and those making it don’t get to change the rules — their bosses bosses do.
rawgabbit 2y ago
We are taught to never lie. The problem is that the military is also a vast bureaucracy and is a bit schizophrenic in that the left hands knows don’t do that again but the right hand keeps doing it. One example is that the Army has been struggling for decades with impossible to achieve unit mandatory training. We call it pencil whipping, lying to ourselves, and it is a known problem and yet the problem keeps growing. The best we can do is to follow the letter of the regulation. https://www.ausa.org/articles/no-time-literally-all-requirements https://www.ausa.org/articles/no-time-literally-all-requirem...

I think you are saying that if you are not ready to lie on a form, you do not belong in the military, and thus it is an appropriate control during recruitment?

by xbar 2y ago

I think you are saying that if you are not ready to lie on a form, you do not belong in the military, and thus it is an appropriate control during recruitment?

psunavy03 2y ago

Life exists in shades of gray. If you read the article, it spells out this dilemma quite clearly. The problem is that the military generally ran on a pool of recruits post-Vietnam who were largely effective and got the job done. This happened despite military doctors setting sometimes-unrealistic standards for who could get in at all, or who needed voluminous amounts of paperwork for a waiver of standards. Kids hid conditions, and recruiters made tough calls to balance what kids truly were a bad fit (asthma, major mental issues, morbid obesity) as opposed to the track star who merely had a broken leg once. Now Genesis came along and made everyone strictly play "by the rules," and exposed the problems with this kind of black-and-white thinking. It turns out the standards the military was REALLY operating on were not the standards they thought they were getting. And the standards they REALLY were operating under got the job done, whereas the strictest standards they COULD apply would result in not being able to staff the force, because doctors were not willing to incur enough risk. Ultimately, it becomes a question of whether or not to break a rule at potentially little or no consequence to accomplish an important goal, or to be so pedantic at applying the rules that the organization cannot achieve its goals. The FAA and airlines have the same problem. Scores of airline pilots hide and fail to report medical conditions so as not to lose their jobs. And eventually someone goes nuts and tries to crash a commuter plane. But for that one nutjob who obviously shouldn't have been flying, there's scores of airline pilots fudging their paperwork and seeing docs off-network for cash who nonetheless safely and effectively fly their aircraft. So what IS the standard, or what should it be? Because the black-and-white standard then becomes just a lie doctors tell themselves to avoid risk.

mlhpdx 2y ago
I think we agree that it’s the rules that need to change. The software just made that clear, and those making it don’t get to change the rules — their bosses bosses do.

rawgabbit 2y ago

We are taught to never lie. The problem is that the military is also a vast bureaucracy and is a bit schizophrenic in that the left hands knows don’t do that again but the right hand keeps doing it. One example is that the Army has been struggling for decades with impossible to achieve unit mandatory training. We call it pencil whipping, lying to ourselves, and it is a known problem and yet the problem keeps growing. The best we can do is to follow the letter of the regulation. https://www.ausa.org/articles/no-time-literally-all-requirements https://www.ausa.org/articles/no-time-literally-all-requirem...