How are flag officers made?
Perpetual consumers of taxpayer funding, the Rand Corporation has released a new study on how the various services select O-6’s to become O-7’s. Some of this will surprise nobody. From Military.com;
“The value of command is universal. For all the military services, time and successful performance in command (particularly at the O-5 and O-6 grades) consistently serve as the chief signal to promotion boards that an officer is proficient in their specialty and has potential to excel at higher levels,” according to the report.
Combat-related deployments are “very important” experiences to the Army and Marine Corps in the O-7 promotion process, but “not important” to the Navy and only “somewhat important” to the Air Force, it found.
To the doubters and think being a general or admiral isn’t a political position;
The Army, Navy and Air Force agreed that high-visibility assignments and maintaining personal networks are very important to the O-7-promotion process, while the Marine Corps viewed both areas as minimally important to the process, the report found.
No surprise that the Marines value skills more important than how many cameras you jump in front of and how many palms you can grease (metaphorically of course).
Beyond that, newly minted GOs/flag officers take more risk in the Navy, while the Army’s BGs can’t operate without a doctrine to follow, Air Force Brig Gens are “somewhat uncomfortable with challenging the status quo when they provide advice”, and Marine O-7’s “value discipline over risk-taking.”
More insights at the full article; Military.com
Category: Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, Navy
I often park in a General Officer’s parking spot in the commissary parking lot. Wonder what the Rand Corporations has to say about that?
Give them a year and $20 million and they’ll be happy to tell you.
Used to be a CG’s wife who used to get pissed if you did not salute the vehicle when she was in it. What a bitch.
Her husband did not seem like a bad guy, not that I would know,m as I was a young Private. But he was always walking among the men.
General Officers not only can be Females, but also have Wives as well:
“Smith Becomes First Gay General Officer To Serve Openly”
https://www.stripes.com/news/smith-becomes-first-gay-general-officer-to-serve-openly-1.185372
She is now a Major General and is still married to the same woman:
https://bluestarfam.org/ctshowcase-team-member/maj-gen-tammy-smith/
😉😎
Her uniform is jacked the fuck up.
Oddly enough, back in the days of “don’t ask, don’t tell”, lesbianism was almost always overlooked.
It was gay men that got hammered.
The transportation unit at Devens was full of lesbianese WACs. They were obvious dykes when out of uniform.
I will keep my remarks to myself….
Oh come on.
I am dyeing to know your thoughts.
What color are you “dyeing” Slow Joe? Pea green?
He’s dyeing screaming pink.
Does that make you a person of color?
No mention of race here. I wonder how that plays a role or not. Thought about it because I read this this morning:
https://www.airforcemag.com/article/leveling-the-field/
And of course because there are people that make EVERYTHING about race. There’s that, too.
SECDEF Esper recently eliminated photos of the candidates from promotion boards.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/07/15/esper-bans-use-of-promotion-board-photos-orders-review-of-hair-and-grooming-standards.html
I hope he left in the swimsuit competition.
Seriously, why, if we’re promoting people in a meritocracy, would we require pictures of them? This isn’t a Harvard admission where we assign people points for being disadvantaged. Just promote the best person.
In the USMC it was about how they looked in uniform, military bearing, etc. You can get a decent PFT score and still look like a bag of donuts.
I have seen a few of those fat bodies.
Chunkers that run like the wind.
We had a guy in my squadron that smoked like a chimney. He was rail thin, grisly, and was not known for avoiding the liquor. He could run though. He’d do the PT test in jeans, I shit you not, and would light up a cigarette the minute he finished. He’d always be at the top, outrunning all us younger guys with ease.
Since he ran so fast and had no waist to speak of, he’d always come in over 90 on the PT test. Always a chuckle when the chain-smoking functional alcoholic would get called up at the commander’s call to receive the “Excellent” physical fitness award.
There is a huge debate right now over whether race plays a role or if it is really an issue of propensity to serve in particular career fields. It is especially noticeable in the Army, which selects the vast majority of its GOs from the Armor and Infantry Career fields, followed closely by Aviation and Artillery. This is because these branches constitute the Army Combined Arms team, so officers from these branches are steeped in maneuver warfare from their 2LT days on up, almost always commanding operational company, battalion, and brigade level organizations (sometimes multiple times, these days usually in combat). The cut for operational or line battalion command (or Special Ops organizations) is extremely competitive, and the cut for Brigade command even more so- think of it this way- for every five infantry companies there is one battalion, for every three maneuver battalions there is one brigade, and most maneuver brigades can be commanded by either Armor or Infantry officers. However, minority officers overwhelmingly select service support branches like Quartermaster, Ordnance, Transportation, followed by Combat Support branches. As a result, there are fewer minority officers in the Combat Arms, meaning fewer still make the cut to command battalions, etc. The question is why this happens, and it has been debated for decades. One theory is that minority officers tend to select a branch they perceive will develop skills that will be translatable in a civilian career, others think that there is a perception among minority officers that the Combat Arms are basically a redneck gun club. I think it is a little of both, with some cultural and family influence thrown in. If your father or grandfather or big brother served as an Infantry officer, succeeded, and had a rewarding life of service, you are apt to think that is a good career path. If your influencers served in the QM Corps, learned a lot about supply chain management, and got out after 10 years to work for UPS, you might think that is a good career path. When we look at these studies we forget that both of… Read more »
Word.
I always thought that the real deciding factor for most was what family and friends had told the recruit/candidate about their experiences more than anything else.
Also, the Army is somewhat generational at the senior levels, so watching dad, mom, or another family member’s time in may be very important to these choices.
Of course, it also could all be a system where more maneuver types are selected from some colleges while more support types are selected from others…which is exactly the kind of strange method I can see the military using.
Cadet Command makes a special recruiting effort at HBCUs To overcome this bias.
USMA has a different branching process, so the issue is not as noticeable there. OCS is The needs of the Army emergency valve, so Candidates go wherever they are needed (they get to state a preference, but…)
That’s another issue- Enlisted Soldiers can contract for a specific MOS as long as they qualify. On the other hand, While technically every Army officer gets one of their branches of choice, the fact is they are required to list every branch in order of preference. So, if you got your fourth choice, it was still one of your preferences. It’s always needs of the Army.
I haven’t seen the data in a while, but most officers get one of their top two. Of course, there is a quality distribution. Infantry and MI are popular branches, and get their Fair share of the best 2LTs that put thise benches #1 on their wish list. They also get their fair share of Cadets from the bottom of the OML, while the unpopular branches (Chemical comes to mind) get a share of the top performers.
In the Air Force study that I linked to, it mentions the same kind of thing. White folk made up a larger percentage of pilots and in the land where pilots are king. . . .
The interesting thing I noticed was that on the enlisted side, reviews and testing were done below E-8 level. For those ranks, it had the common curve where whites got promoted as a higher percentage than others. As soon as it went to the promotion board (E8 and 9) suddenly it was blacks that were promoted at a higher percentage. For E9 it was Asians, as a percentage, but blacks were still higher (although by not much) than whites.
Not sure what the causation is there, but it is interesting.
You say “redneck gun club” as if that’s a bad thing.
” the Army, which selects the vast majority of its GOs from the Armor and Infantry Career fields,”
I think (and hope) those combat arms are also the fields containing the majority of officers. I would be surprised if most GOs were not from those branches.
I would ask the more recent serving members of our little motley band of Brigands, REMFs, POGs, Feather Merchants and miscreanted d’weeds/weedettes if they thought that the recent/current political environment is that much different than it was back in the days of the Cincinnati Society and since ring knockers came along? And if they thought there was anything that could be done to change that “systemic” environment? Yeah…I didn’t think so either.
I would think you make a flag officer pretty much like you make any other flag – get material, cut it, stitch it together. The design will be a lot different, since it will be shaped like a person instead of just a rectangle. But you can base it on the uniforms that actual human officers wear so that simplifies things.
I had a boss who almost got kicked out of SAMS for a paper where he tracked the lineage of every Army GO at the time and found that the best predictors for being a GO were- being a GO Aide, being the son of a GO and being the son-in-law of a GO. He suggested that promotion boards be made up of GO wives and daughters, as they were obviously genetically predisposed to identify and procreate with the best leaders.
Dude should have gotten the Nobel Prize.
Spot on the money!
Always saw the GO’s kid get identified in every school I attended. Some were good dudes, some not so much.
Is what it is.
Ok, I don’t know the numbers, but I know enough anecdotes to think there is something to that.
It could be favoritism, but there is also the fact that a successful officer can help coach,teach, and mentor their kid/son in law.
When I was a company commander, my XO was the son of a serving brigade commander in another division (I won’t tell you who was where, but I was on jump status and his dad was learning how to ski). Number 1 son, like dad, was an academy grad, Ranger qualified Infantry grad in a premier unit.
Number 2 son, like dad, was an academy grad- and got a Day Zero recycle recycled in Florida… very few Ranger students are willing to redo Mountains, but this this kid did because he couldn’t face going home without a tab.
I clearly remember how shocked they were the day the BG list came out and their dad wasn’t on it. However, his influence on them was clear, and they both had amazing careers (I was at best mediocre).
Both sons were awesome officers, and both later served as GO aides- did Dad make a few phone calls to his classmates and buddies from back in the day (did he even have to)? I’m sure that was a factor. Serving as an aide gives you GO ink (an OER from a GO, probably a top block or they wouldn’t bother writing it), but you also get to hang out with a division commander and see what right looks like.
Both made O6 and commanded brigades in combat, and I would serve with either again. So, yes, there is some favoritism in the system- but its kinda ok.
For the Air Force? Serve as an aide to a GO or serve a year at Kunsan, Korea as a Wing Commander.
So there I was, sitting in the big auditorium at the Army War College, wondering how I was faring on the most recent command selection board. Then out came SEC Army Fanning who said, and I quote: “you send me a command select list that’s not diverse enough and I’m going to send it back.” Wonder no more! White, straight, married, Christian, I suspect I had just slipped from 9.99% to 10.01% on a ten percent selection rate. Yep. Non-select even though I was a statistical match with other selectees. (Except no three star senior rater evals.) in truth, Army O6 command selection is about identifying future GOs and I didn’t have that resume, having done nothing but tactical unit jobs that made me a good O5 CDR.