Why The Service Can t Get Its Message Across

Army Times | July 8, 2002 | Sean Naylor

[Stand Watch Listen]

The Army must change its culture if it is to succeed in communicating the importance of Transformation to its own soldiers and to the American people, according to a report delivered by an outside consultant with close ties to Vice Chief of Staff Gen. John Keane.

As they stand now, Army communications efforts "are seriously inadequate… [and] grossly under-resourced," writes Victor O’Reilly in his report, "The Communication of Army Transformation: Issues for Immediate Action," delivered to Keane April 16. Army Times obtained a copy of the report. Army leaders did not respond to requests for comment.

O’Reilly, an Irish citizen, is a novelist who first met Keane in the mid-1990s in the course of researching material for his books. When O’Reilly, who describes himself as "something of a military buff," moved to the United States last year, Keane asked him to produce a report evaluating the Army’s Transformation effort. The April 16 paper on communication issues is a part of that larger report, which has yet to be completed, O’Reilly said.

O’Reilly interviewed roughly 60 people, including four-star generals, division commanders, journalists and Washington consultants, before writing the report. He said the most frequent reason cited in these interviews for the Army’s inability to properly communicate is its culture, particularly in relation to the officer corps.

That culture, he said, "regards communication as unimportant, and too much direct involvement as career threatening; or as a minimum, damaging to one’s comfort zone."

O’Reilly lists several factors that explain why the Army’s culture places so little emphasis on effective communication:

** "The fact is that the media have not always covered the Army as accurately or conscientiously as they might have." Rather than prompting the Army to try harder to "promote better understanding," the reaction of many in uniform "has been defensive, a very understandable desire to keep the media screened and distant," he writes. "Unfortunately such a tactic rarely works."

** In the past, the Army’s size and the number of Americans who had been draftees meant it had no overriding need to explain itself to the public.

** War fighting being a team activity, the officer’s "natural desire [is] to be seen as a member of the team — as opposed to being singled out by the media," O’Reilly writes. "In contrast, the media likes to personalize issues. To be singled out by the media has long been seen as the kiss of career death."

** The media’s coverage of the Vietnam War created "a serious rift" between the press and the Army, a breach in trust that has yet to be fully restored.

Because officer education fails to stress the theme of effective communication, "a culture of media aversion" has developed, which harms the Army, O’Reilly writes.

The author says the service and its public affairs community have become reactive rather than proactive, and that this hurts their ability to communicate what O’Reilly says is the positive message contained in Army Transformation.

"The Army’s very successes and cultural conservatism are currently working against change," O’Reilly writes.

"The primary problem is that Army Leadership, for some considerable time, arguably for decades, has not considered communication as being of fundamental importance," he writes. "As a consequence, resources of every kind, including involved direction, moral support and appreciation, have been in short supply."

The service’s public affairs operation has too many different offices with overlapping responsibilities, so reporters covering Transformation can become confused about where to turn for information, he says.

The Army has even had trouble communicating its Transformation message to its own soldiers, according to O’Reilly, who says the troops are the service’s most important constituency.

O’Reilly recommends a four-fold increase in funding for Army Public Affairs, and creating a new position — director of communications — who would have responsibility for coordinating all the Army’s messages, including those handled by Public Affairs and Recruiting Command.

This person shouldn’t be a soldier, according to O’Reilly. "In my view, the Army would benefit largely from bringing in somebody from the outside," he said in a July 27 interview.

[Valin]

"The fact is that the media have not always covered the Army as accurately or conscientiously as they might have."

Understatement alert!! Understatement alert!!