The military promotes ‘yes men’ to the highest levels.
LtCol. Scheller is the Officer that was drummed out of the Corps because he dared to call out the incompetent Generals who blew the Afghan pull-out that got good men killed.
Very succinct summary of what ails our services: people move up primarily by never risking anything.
Considering that the military services exist for risk, the current system guarantees failure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OehvY94N-WA
“Why our Generals were more successful in WWII.”
Amazing analysis.
We are currently being led by cowards... Sorry, but if you are still holding a commission then you are sadly killing your troops... you are part of an organization that poisoned the entire service with a vaccine that everyone now knows that...
1) Didn’t keep you from getting COVID
2) Didn’t keep you from spreading COVID
3) Military Leadership knew that COVID wasn’t a threat to the the formation at the time.
4) We now know there are significant documented harms from the Vaccine... including death and a lot of permanent disability
5) The vaccine is still being given even though we know all of the above and you have to request a religious exemption...when what you should have is a sanity exemption.
Our Nations Officers are Cowards... the funny thing is... they know... and they know you know.
So guess what... recruiting is down. If you think I am letting my grandson join up while they intend to poison him... you got another thing coming...
Stand by for an intelligent argument to the contrary.
Our military is rotten starting with the Joint Chiefs and CRT- Wokie Milley.
The military is a special case, and the lack of leadership there is especially painful.
But corporations have made similar mistakes. Check boxes. Keep metrics (that are rarely looked at). Get promoted. Showing leadership is often a quick way to get fired. Only fools try to lead. It’s a thankless task. Be a mindless Yes Man and have a solid career.
We used to be a different country.
An informative but sad article. Hackworth wrote the same sort of thing, with lots of examples, about our worthless military leadership in Viet Nam.
I understand this article author’s anguished desire to make things better, but he is failing to see the forest for all the trees.
Think about how fast our communications are now compared to WW2. Think how hard it was for the Pentagon or the equivalent War Department to get communications to all the millions of soldiers, sailors, and Marines. And look at how tiny our instantly in touch military forces are today in comparison to WW2.
Then explain why we have more general officers and admirals today than we did in WW2. I’ll wait.
The first thing that needs to be done is to eliminate at least 2/3s of all senior officers. There is absolutely no justification for the bloated load of brass in military and naval offices. Get rid of them! They make staff work and complicate decision making to justify their existence.
At least reduce to the officer to enlisted ration of WW2. Easy to justify, right? It’s the last war we won.
The ROE was so bad sometimes there were 5-6 levels of approval needed to take out targets. I will assume the LTC could not make that call as he did not have the authority. I’ll bet the Washington NCA or Centcom could only make that call if the forces on the ground were not under a direct attack.
I don’t know about officers but the enlisted promotion system in the Navy is the fairest I’ve seen. It is totally color blind, gender blind, and relies almost entirely on job performance, earned qualifications, and in-rate knowledge. And yet, men and women of all races and ethic groups are represented in each promotion cycle.
I read the article. Some quick thoughts (as someone who served):
1. Ultimately, your immediate superior is the one best suited to evaluate you. I don’t see how that ever changes.
On every OER or PRF I’ve seen, those in the chain of command also have the chance to weigh in.
2. There is also a lot of risk if you take that authority for evaluation away from the immediate superior. It raises the possibility that you will be the lead of someone other than that person. That could be even more disastrous.
3. The nature of combat is that something will always be FUBAR somewhere. I doubt changing the promotion system will eliminate that. If done incorrectly, it may well increase it.
4. It a good idea to come up with objective measures of performance for every military specialty. However, that is easier for some specialties than others.
My dad worked for the military, and he regaled us at dinner nightly with outrageous tales of bootlicking, responsibility dodging, credit-hogging, desperate know-it-allism, outstanding stupidity, and unbounded wastefulness, all aimed at pleasing superior officers. What the article describes has been with us a LONG time, and the answer to the question is “No”.
This is on General McKenzie’s head. His intelligence staff, his operations staff, his logistics staff.
And there isn’t a fifth star. He should have resigned in protest over the plan to pull out in the fashion we did after giving up Bagram.
What ails the military is pretty simple. Fighting men had mothers, daughters, wives they would fight for. Their lives had purpose and meaning outside of the military. The also had swag. Not today. It’s promotion based in n skin color or sex since the 80s… it’s why I got out. I see no honor in their quota system.
I once sat in on a meeting where we were considering the radar cross-section of ships. One of the best ways to help this is to minimize “apertures” (antennas).
I suggested that we fire half of the admirals, so we would eliminate half of the orders given, thus we would be able to remove half the apertures reducing the ship RCS, making it more survivable.
The room got quiet for a moment as they processed my suggestion before deciding that i must be joking.
I didnt push the matter, as nobody really wanted to hear from the engineer, but while my analysis had intentionally humorous flaws, there was a certain logic to it that nobody could deny.
For Later
From personal experience; those who were promoted first were the super PT studs, because nothing says “I’m a great leader” like being able to max and exceed physical requirements. Then the networkers(AKA butt kissers). The rest of us had to be fit, competent, and wait our turn.
I’ve seen first hand where soldiers who shouldn’t have gotten past MEPS get sent to the front of the line for promotions while others who excel on PT, weapons qual, know their jobs, and go above and beyond have to wait out and receive their mandatory time in service promotions.