4 ms·

Army officer here, currently a Captain in the Army Reserve. Most of what this guy says is spot-on but there's one big thing that he missed. Perhaps this does

Army officer here, currently a Captain in the Army Reserve. Most of what this guy says is spot-on but there's one big thing that he missed. Perhaps this does not apply in the Air Force but I suspect that it does: Senior leaders in big organizations like our military have an unfortunate unwritten mandate to /create/ things: policies, organizations, rules, procedures, etc. This mandate is enforced by the officer evaluation system which demands quantitive measures of performance, eg. "Implemented XYZ policy and achieved 98% compliance rate across Battalion's 510 Soldiers". It sounds like a good idea to that leader and to the rater and senior rater who evaluate him but in actuality, it creates a shitstorm of busywork for his subordinates and over time, it becomes impossible to get anything meaningful done because of the never-ending load of mandatory upper-leadership-directed tasks and training requirements. It's a huge fucking mess. Every time I go into somewhere like an Army hospital and I see something posted about the Commander's new policy on electricity usage or whatever, I immediately think "bullet point on this guy's OER". Seriously, people are making careers out of this bullshit. The Army is a never-ending stream of computer-based training requirements. Our Soldiers spend weeks of every year in front of web browsers, trying to complete some horribly broken Flash-based interactive training that "teaches" them safe driving, STD prevention, social engineering awareness, etc. It's all crap and you know that some Colonel got a star for spending $2MM to implement them. If you want to improve military efficiency and increase troop morale, start rewarding people for eliminating programs. I would love to have a bullet point on my OER: * Successfully eliminated five outdated computer security training programs, saving the Army $15MM/year in program costs and 750,000 hours of Soldier training time.

lifeisstillgood 14y ago
A couple of questions if you don't mind 1. Private security firms are apparently taking over huge swathes of the not-actually-being-shot-at roles. Are those "soldiers" required to do the same policy busy work? 2. US Armed forces (incl reserve) is nearly 3m. Is that simply too big? 3. I thought the patten quote earlier solved this one - no policy or training DVD tells you what to do, it's telling you how.
- Tloewald 14y ago
  It seems to me that the root of the US militaey's problems is that it's a giant peacetime military. Until WWII the US military was small in peacetime so that when there was a war promotions based on real performance eventually overwhelmed the peacetime leadership. It's impractical for the US to have a tiny military, but reducing it by 2/3 should be doable if anyone has the political means.
  - chrissnell 14y ago
    That's already happening. We're thinning down rapidly and we're doing it in a smart way. Attrition by the stupid. Do cocaine at a club on the weekend? You're gone. DWI? See ya. Fail body fat standards continually or fail to pass the physical fitness test? You're on your way out. Keep only the best.
    - tanzam75 14y ago
      That's a start, but it only gets rid of the stupid people. It leaves the people who are great at checking things off on a list. As long as they stay out of trouble, they might muddle along for decades, until finally retiring as an O-6.
  - stan_rogers 14y ago
    Sorry, but that's just not the case anymore. There's a lot more to weapons systems now than simply figuring out which end to point at the thing you want to hurt. Even getting a straight-leg infanteer up to speed takes more than a couple of weeks these days, and that doesn't begin to account for any of the more sophisticated tools that need trained operators and maintainers. There are some trades (MOCs) you can populate relatively quickly, but there are a whole big bunch of them that take years in peacetime (though you could break some of them down into smaller specialties and fast-track it to months at the expense of having people who know the whole system in wartime). It stopped being about getting a horde of young men to walk slowly and bravely into machine gun fire a long time ago.
    - 14y ago
bilbo0s 14y ago
Well... He didn't really miss that though. If the military were to ameliorate bullet points 1, 2 and 3 from his list, then your issue would be resolved as well. It's all part of the same perverse incentive generating machine that is administration in the military. Just as a matter of full disclosure... USMC Officer, though things are probably much different now. (I went through PLC when there was still a Berlin wall.)
jcurbo 14y ago
Former USAF officer here, and what you said absolutely applies to the Air Force. It trickles down to the enlisted ranks too. I think right around the time I got out (2010) there was a big push to cut back on useless training AF-wide but I don't think it really worked out. Too much bureaucracy and micromanagement.

lifeisstillgood 14y ago

A couple of questions if you don't mind 1. Private security firms are apparently taking over huge swathes of the not-actually-being-shot-at roles. Are those "soldiers" required to do the same policy busy work? 2. US Armed forces (incl reserve) is nearly 3m. Is that simply too big? 3. I thought the patten quote earlier solved this one - no policy or training DVD tells you what to do, it's telling you how.

Tloewald 14y ago
It seems to me that the root of the US militaey's problems is that it's a giant peacetime military. Until WWII the US military was small in peacetime so that when there was a war promotions based on real performance eventually overwhelmed the peacetime leadership. It's impractical for the US to have a tiny military, but reducing it by 2/3 should be doable if anyone has the political means.
- chrissnell 14y ago
  That's already happening. We're thinning down rapidly and we're doing it in a smart way. Attrition by the stupid. Do cocaine at a club on the weekend? You're gone. DWI? See ya. Fail body fat standards continually or fail to pass the physical fitness test? You're on your way out. Keep only the best.
  - tanzam75 14y ago
    That's a start, but it only gets rid of the stupid people. It leaves the people who are great at checking things off on a list. As long as they stay out of trouble, they might muddle along for decades, until finally retiring as an O-6.
- stan_rogers 14y ago
  Sorry, but that's just not the case anymore. There's a lot more to weapons systems now than simply figuring out which end to point at the thing you want to hurt. Even getting a straight-leg infanteer up to speed takes more than a couple of weeks these days, and that doesn't begin to account for any of the more sophisticated tools that need trained operators and maintainers. There are some trades (MOCs) you can populate relatively quickly, but there are a whole big bunch of them that take years in peacetime (though you could break some of them down into smaller specialties and fast-track it to months at the expense of having people who know the whole system in wartime). It stopped being about getting a horde of young men to walk slowly and bravely into machine gun fire a long time ago.
  - 14y ago

bilbo0s 14y ago

Well... He didn't really miss that though. If the military were to ameliorate bullet points 1, 2 and 3 from his list, then your issue would be resolved as well. It's all part of the same perverse incentive generating machine that is administration in the military. Just as a matter of full disclosure... USMC Officer, though things are probably much different now. (I went through PLC when there was still a Berlin wall.)

jcurbo 14y ago

Former USAF officer here, and what you said absolutely applies to the Air Force. It trickles down to the enlisted ranks too. I think right around the time I got out (2010) there was a big push to cut back on useless training AF-wide but I don't think it really worked out. Too much bureaucracy and micromanagement.