A whopping 14 officers at Ft. Hood get fired
Lots of issues at Ft. Hood lately. SecArmy is cleaning house.
Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said Tuesday that he had relieved or suspended 14 Army leaders at Fort Hood including a two-star general as a result of a probe into the command climate at the Texas installation launched amid a rash of deaths among soldiers.
“I have determined the issues at Fort Hood are directly related to leadership failures,” McCarthy said at the Pentagon. “Leaders drive culture, and are responsible for everything the unit does or does not happen to do. I am gravely disappointed that leaders failed to effectively create a climate that treated all soldiers with dignity and respect.”
Maj. Gen. Scott Efflandt was the highest ranking soldier fired for his role in the Fort Hood problems. The leaders of the Fort Hood-based 3rd Cavalry Regiment, its commander Col. Ralph Overland and top enlisted soldier Command Sgt. Maj. Bradley Knapp, were also fired, McCarthy said.
The Army secretary said he has also suspended the leaders of Fort Hood’s 1st Cavalry Division — Maj. Gen Jeff Broadwater and Command Sgt. Maj. Thomas Kenny — pending the results of a new investigation into the unit’s command climate and implementation of the sexual assault prevention program.
Efflandt served as the base commander in the absence of its deployed top general, Lt. Gen. Pat White. Efflandt was supposed to move to Fort Bliss, Texas, during the summer and serve as commander of the 1st Armored Division. But he was replaced and remained at Fort Hood as the III Corps deputy commander for support while awaiting the results of several ongoing investigations.
White, commander of III Corps and Fort Hood, said Tuesday during a news conference at the base that he was given enough notice of the firings, which occurred Tuesday morning, to prepare a “compassion team” made up of a lawyer, a public affairs representative, a chaplain, a behavioral health representative and a cyber awareness expert.
“[Those fired] were notified with someone catching them coming out to make sure they are taken care of as well,” White said. “Now we will deal with the aftermath here in the command structure because there are people who will not be reporting to work tomorrow.”
The firings come following a release of a report from a civilian-led investigation that found Fort Hood soldiers have a lack of confidence in the SHARP program that has led to a fear of retaliation and significant underreporting of sexual assault and harassment cases, particularly within the enlisted ranks.
Fort Hood leadership knew or should have known of the high risk of harm to female soldiers, according to the report.
Army officials said Tuesday that they would not name the nine other soldiers fired or suspended after the probe because of their lesser ranks. Those soldiers serve between the squad and battalion level and face noncriminal, administrative punishments, the Army said in a statement.
Source; Stars and Stripes
Thanks to KoB and Jeff LPH 3 for sending this one in.
Category: Army, Army News, Big Army, Breaking News, Guest Link
Skippy sent a link my way, too. Taking an ax to Ft. Hood leadership smacks of desperation, but at this point desperate measures need to be taken.
This is what happens when the Armed Forces become nothing more than a petri dish for the social engineers. Expect things to get much worse, should be simple minded Socialist Sundowner take the helm.
This is who is proposed AW1 Rod. We may see a separate thread on this. I know nothing about this ossifer, but much as the rest of Gropin’ Joe’s choices, they moved up during the oblowme years. Another news blurb has evidenced that his choice for HHS had neferious actions in re the Clinton Pardon of connections, ie…a coke dealer.
Not sure who all is guilty here/there but I do agree with AW1Ed, make some changes but was an ax/chain saw the best way. In re of what all has happened there and Berliner’s post, you may notice that a lot of these cases involve personnel of a specific shade of tan. It’s obvious that all of the SHARP training in the world is not helping.
Linky for the proposed SecDef:
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-to-nominate-a-four-star-army-general-for-secretary-of-defense
Story from 2015:
“A Fort Hood soldier pleaded guilty Wednesday to a long list of charges stemming from a scheme he hatched to run a prostitution ring using young female soldiers.
Sgt. 1st Class Gregory McQueen, a non-commissioned officer, faced 21 specifications of misconduct stemming from the prostitution scandal. He pleaded guilty to 15 of them, including allegations that he worked with another soldier to bring at least two low-ranking women into his prostitution ring, but denied complicity in six other charges, including sexual assault.
If convicted, McQueen could get get a maximum sentence of 40 years and six months.”
But WAIT… There’s More!:
“A recent lapse by the U.S. Army to disclose a Fort Hood veteran’s criminal record to the FBI is the latest example of the military failing to document criminal convictions.
The Dallas Morning News reported that former Army 1st Sgt. Gregory McQueen pleaded guilty almost two years ago to more than a dozen military charges for attempting to run a prostitution ring in Fort Hood.
But the conviction didn’t show up in a state background check when a foster-care agency hired McQueen in March to care for abused children.”
Punchline: Army Sgt 1st class Gregory McQueen was a low-level coordinator in Fort Hood’s sexual assault and harassment program.
not defending this asshole but that ‘low-level coordinator’ position sounds like the kind of
“OK, we’re tasked with having a senior NCO run this at company level – which platoon sergeant isn’t that overloaded right now?” sort of thing that gets delegated out onto whomever isn’t there to defend himself.
That’s exactly the point made in the report.
**thud** **thud** **thud**
“A US Army Sergeant in an Anti-Sexual-Assault Program Pimped Female Soldiers at Fort Hood,” by Pamela Engel, Business Insider, 13 Mar 2015, https://www.businessinsider.com/army-sergeant-gregory-mcqueen-ran-prostitution-ring-at-ft-hood-2015-3
Weekends are gonna canceled for a few years.
Hollow leadership will catch up with you sooner or later.
Folk have said “the carpets at Fort Hood are very lumpy” from having things swept under them for years.
Now it going to be non-stop
Wall to wall SHARP training
With 12 hours of power point
7days a week for god knows
How long
I’m glad I’m out. and no where
Near Ft Hood-rat
A few points: I took some time to read the actual report today, and these leaders deserved to be relieved. They will be lucky if they are not charged with dereliction of duty, and I hope to God the 15-6 doesn’t find some deliberate cover ups or worse. This has nothing to do with a social experiment. It is what happens when NCOs and junior officers allow a complete lack of discipline, fail to lead, and betray the trust of the American people, and General Officers and Senior NCOs look the other way so they can report compliance with regs. At the heart of this are young American Soldiers who looked to their leaders for help and were turned away. Finally, I often see this notion that various flag officers or officers in general can’t be trusted because they ‘came up’ under Obama. Let’s pit this in perspective: The services hold their own boards that recommend officers for GO promotion. While the president does approve the recommendations and nominate these officers to the Senate, remember that there are roughly 650 Flag or General officers on active duty at any given time- over 200 in the Army. Of those 650 Generals and Admirals, 50 or so are four stars- I think 20 or so in the Army alone. In other words, the President is only vaguely aware of who most of them are until they are four stars up for a key billet like Chairman service chief, COCOM command, or are in a key command billet. On top of that most generals and admirals on active duty today have been in the military a minimum of 30 years, so even the relatively junior BGs and RDMLs today were commissioned in 1990. This means they served under both Bushes, as well as Clinton, Obama, and Trump. The older guys were commissioned under Reagan. So, yeah, Austin was promoted to 4 stars and was selected for CENTCOM command under Obama, but he was commissioned in 1975, served in every key developmental position from PL through company, battalion, Brigade Command, and finally promoted to… Read more »
“This has nothing to do with a social experiment. It is what happens when NCOs and junior officers allow a complete lack of discipline, fail to lead, and betray the trust of the American people, and General Officers and Senior NCOs look the other way so they can report compliance with regs. At the heart of this are young American Soldiers who looked to their leaders for help and were turned away.”
What you have failed to see is that the social experiment you deny had anything to do with this shit has utterly gutted the NCO and Officer Corps by allowing the dregs of the ranks to get away with pretty much anything by simply saying they are the victims of hazing, sexism or racism.
I try to keep my finger on the pulse of today’s military and the amount of crying and complaining by the junior enlisted is fucking sickening.
“…allowing the dregs of the ranks to get away with pretty much anything by simply saying they are the victims of hazing, sexism or racism.”
https://www.army.mil/e2/downloads/rv7/forthoodreview/2020-12-03_FHIRC_report_redacted.pdf
Read the report. On page 81 it specifically addresses and debunks what you are talking about.
On the contrary, there was universal fear of retaliation, exposure, and ostracism for reporting SHARP violations on Ft Hood. NCOs in 3CR acknowledged there were problems with sexual harassment and assault but accepted no responsibility.
The NCO and Junior officers at Hood failed to lead and take care of their Soldiers, and the senior NCOs and officers allowed it.
There were multiple incidents where NCOs didn’t know or seem to care where their Soldiers were. They didn’t have up to date job books:
“In one case, a Soldier
was reported as AWOL on August 30, 2016. Pursuant to Army regulations, this Soldier was declared
a deserter on September 27, 2016. On October 6, 2016, this Soldier was found dead at his
residence. Apparently, his unit NCO(s) knew so little about their Soldier that in looking for him they
only checked an old address in Copperas Cove”
“The FHIRC identified several examples where day-to-day Soldier accountability was loosely
enforced, leading to an initial presumption that a Soldier who fails to report is AWOL. In other
instances, there was little to no effort expended at the unit level to even try to identify whether a
missing Soldier’s absence was involuntary, or the circumstances suspicious. The status of AWOL often
became a default designation without fact gathering or any documented due diligence.”
“Several disturbing trends were identified. FIrst, there was almost universal agreement that the NCOs did not know their enlisted Soldiers well enough to know if they were truly missing or AWOL. Most NCOs when prompted at group interview sessions could not produce a ‘leader book’…”
I work with Soldiers every day, and what sickens me is how many officers and NCOs think they are just managers and take no responsibility for leading Soldiers.
Jumping Jeepers.
” NCOs did not know their enlisted Soldiers”
“There were multiple incidents where NCOs didn’t know or seem to care where their Soldiers were.”
That isn’t an Army. I expect attitudes like that in the civilian world (from bad managers or foremen) but not in a decently functioning military.
How do you build esprit de corps or unit cohesion by treating the military like a 9 to 5 civilian job, where soldiers are basically in the Army only 8 hours per day?
Now I harp on my bete noir, the volunteer Army. I am convinced that this is partly due to the necessity of making military life seem to be as easy and pleasant as possible for prospective recruits. Join the Army and we will give you a private room and no mommy and daddy looking over your shoulder and nagging you about making your bed or doing your chores. And a big allowance to spend on whatever you want!
Fort Hood… they look for a missing soldier (dismembered) and find a different (dead) one they thought just went AWOL for whom they didn’t look.
Heard bad things about Hood for years – both command climate and location. I was only there for 2 weeks TDY, so didn’t get the full experience. Did make me appreciate Bliss, and I never thought I’d hear myself say that…
Bitching about GOs is an age old tradition that goes back to the Greeks. Austin is a good man and decent leader. I don’t blame him for the rise of ISIS, that was a forced error from Obama.
I can’t really say I met Austin but he did pin a BSM on me (Among others) back in 2011 in Fallujah. It was nice to see a 4 Star go out to the troops even for a photo op.
The failed leadership at Hood was its own nightmare.
His LTC aide when he was CENTCOM Commander was a royal jackass though. Just sayin’.
GEN Austin has an eye popping 9 DSM awards. The 2nd most ever for any general/admiral. GEN Dempsey has the most w/ 12. Most four stars have maybe 3 or 4 DSMs at the end of their career. Ike & MacArthur had 5, and Schwarzkopf had 6 for comparison.
Not really a fair comparison on the fruit salad. McArthur had 3 DSCs and the MoH (earned as a General for abandoning the Philippines).
Austin was also known as Vader because of his height. I don’t know how tall he is but he is a good bit taller than me and I am 6’3″.
Gen Austin was S-3 then XO of 2-22 Inf Bn and then 1st Bde XO when I was the Retention NCO for 1st Bde 10th Mtn at Fort Drum, NY. The 1st Bde Cdr for later became Vice Chief of Staff of the Army (Gen John “Jack” Keane).
Gen Austin (and Gen Keane) were both very level headed and easy to work with. General Austin’s nickname was Darth Vader due to his deep voice. He later became CG, 10th Mtn with duty as Commander, Combined Joint Task Force 180, during the War in Afghanistan. I remember reading that he was known for carrying an M4 rifle there.
Excellent explanation. Blaming politicians for their own failures and shortcomings seems to be the “go-to” excuse for military types.
Hood has always been rough and clearly has gotten worse. My heart goes out to anyone that has been harmed by poor ‘Leadership’. There’s no excuse. Learn the lessons needed, move on.
Hopefully it gets better, post haste.
If the post was just named after an American and not some traitorous Reb… /huuudge s
Not to worry R-D, saw a little blurb the other night, the proposed defense budget of 780 some odd billions of USD include a provision to change the names of ANY facility named after one of them thar damned insurrectionist Johnny Rebs AND a pay raise for the troops. Soon as Ft Hood becomes Ft Manning it will all be OK.
It is sloppy reporting or civilian-mindedness to use the word ‘fired’ in a military context since you don’t get discharged but reassigned? Or is it the fact that re-assignments are routine, but this isn’t?
Fired is a general term with no actual meaning. Leaders are generally relieved (commanders especially), but others are generally just reassigned.
Sometimes people are suspended pending an investigation. In this case, the 1st Cav CG and CSM are suspended, which means they will stay in the billet, but someone (one of the ADCs) will be given assumption of command orders during the investigation.
If the investigation finds wrongdoing or simply that they are not fulfilling their duties they could be formally relieved or just moved out of the position early. Either way their career is over.
What is being missed is that Fort Hood is not the only place this is a problem. Every major installation around the world is a mess.
this really isn’t about who was president per se, but about the popular culture, the long war, and the joke that is professional education in the Army.
In our pop culture, other people are merely resources to exploit. Oh, they use words like “love” but it all boils down to sexual exploitation. The more obvious the exploitation, the more popular the song, movie, show, or book.
In our Army, we did little but deploy for 12 years. An entire generation of senior officers and NCOs now lead the Army who never saw a training schedule, don’t believe in formations, and think that running the barracks like an apartment building are normal. Even little things like proper uniform wear and head gear outdoors is problematic.
Last is the laughable state of NCO and officer education. Let’s be honest, it was never “great”, but it has become nothing more than a block that must be checked. Big army has cut the number, time devoted, and subject matter to the absolute minimum they can get away with. This is not a budget issue, but an extension of the deployment cycles that required more soldiers than the Army had.
In all, the Army is experiencing the same problem it had at the beginning of the VOLAR…and the solution will be the same. Hard, standards based, battle focused leaders who conduct no compromise, standards based training.
Soldiers busy in the field are not hanging out in garrison with nothing to do.
Indexing punishments with rank should also help, muchly. Greater rank should automatically incur greater spank.
The misconduct that costs a PFC his rank should get hard time for senior NCOs or Officers. They know better, and their misconduct is more damaging as it is based on greater trust and responsibility.
Can’t hack that? GTFO.
The “prostitute junior EMs” crew deserve nooses and short drops. That, of course, assumes we can’t use them for bayonet practice targets. The betrayal of trust there is catastrophic. Those who tolerated it or ignored it or covered it up must also dangle.
Lots of good points here.
First, the Army is a reflection of society- probably to the greatest extent of all the services.
Second, we are trying to fix professional education but it is a tough fight because we let it go for so long. When Perkins and Daily were running TRADOC they really worked this hard but got a lot of pushback.
Before the wars you could not be promoted without going to school. We started granting waivers for NCOs and deferring school for officers. The thought was that combat experience trumped formal professional education.
The result was a tactically proficient cadre of leaders that did not understand combined arms maneuver, logistics and supply discipline, and most importantly the ethics and legal responsibilities of leadership.
Leaders did not understand how ‘garrison life’ was time dedicated to building readiness through training and maintenance. Commanders didn’t know how to build a training plan to prepare their units for deployment because someone else did that for them.
This came out in the AAR for the first Decisive Action Training Environment at JRTC in the early 2010s. The unit was so used to FOB life that they couldn’t secure themselves tactically, Soldiers weren’t getting fed because NCOs and officers were used to having all of that done for them, and they were getting sick because no one understood unit hygiene and field sanitation.
I disagree with the idea that the “combat experience trumped formal professional education” was the logic behind waiving/provisioning school requirements.
The thought was simply that it is unfair to deployed soldiers if their home-station peers are able to advance past them simply because they could attend those schools.
I agree with most of what you say, otherwise, beyond the idea that deployment necessarily led to tactical expertise. The opportunities for field problems, to include the tactical level, have always been much greater in garrison than during deployment (though those opportunities have almost universally been squandered.
I’ll concede that they better learned tactics as adapted to that specific culture, environment, and objective – but their actual tactical proficiency was narrowed.
Freeing the heck out of Atropia does have its limitations and garrison is over-rated.
Atropia and the major training centers aren’t the only option for garrison training (Krasnovia will never die!). We didn’t take full advantage – that’s different.
I don’t agree with the premise, but it was the rationale nevertheless.
During that period virtually everyone was deployed- there was no such thing as a home station peer.
There were a great number of home station peers. They were definitely in the minority, but enough to fill the available promotion slots.
Hi Hate Me,
I agree that the issue is squandered opportunities.
It is the reason for this that can be debated. For many years, garrison time was essentially a period of minimum manning in “reset”. Hard to take a Company to the field for meaningful training when it is surviving on 30% manning.
WRT not prioritizing PME, I believe the real culprit was end strength vs necessary strength to sustain combat ops overall. The Army has not maintained an end strength that allows both training and operations equally may have been just prior to VN, although I believe the Army’s historical view of itself from that era is somewhat less than reliable.
However, whatever the cause, we cannot dismiss the watering down of PME in terms of relevance, vigor, and priority as an important causative factor–particularly for the Sr NCOs.
Anecdotally, I personally experienced Sr NCOs who had no idea that checking the barracks, inspecting TA50 and making sure their troops washed their goat smelling asses were primary troop leading procedures that they were personally responsible for. Even some of my 1SGs seemed to believe that their job was primarily to sit in their office and process paperwork.
This did not occur in a vacuum, and the larger context goes all the way back to the drawdown post DS/DS not just to OEF/OIF period.
“The result was a tactically proficient cadre of leaders”
I disagree. I am a big fan of OJT (on the job training), but it cannot totally replace schooling. Something always gets left out because particular units/commanders/etc. don’t do it that way so gradually it is forgotten or never learned by anyone.
My comment in its entirety was that the leaders did not understand combined arms maneuver, logistics, and what leadership really means. In other words, combat experience alone cannot prepare a leader, especially for the next level.
In 2010, then TRADOC CG GEN Bob Cone held a commander’s forum where the various school commandants were briefing their strategies for the upcoming year. After the third or fourth briefed that their branch had the most combat experienced leaders since Vietnam, Cone stopped everyone and said (and I paraphrase), Yes, they may all have combat experience but not in their current position or grade. So, your E-5 team leader has a combat tour as a rifleman, but hasn’t been to BLC. Your squad leader deployed as a team leader, but hasn’t been to ALC, and so on.
This is also true of officers who deferred the Career Course, CGSC, etc., in order to deploy with their unit.
Where this deficiency was showing was when we had to do combined arms operations and when leaders had to make independent tactical decisions, not just employ a battle drill. It led not just to operational failures, but also to systemic problems with ethical leadership, which in turns degrades cohesion and morale.
I read your comment in its entirety. The part I disagreed with is the part I quoted. I agree with the rest.
In my limited experience (RVN) we had people coming directly from AIT and leaving a year later as E5 squad leaders and, occasionally, E6 platoon sergeants/leaders. They were led and “trained” by officers who had less than six months experience of “active service” and often directly out of training. They may have been tactically “acceptable” but I doubt they were tactically proficient. Particularly if their next duty station was in a different type of unit, e.g. going from an airmobile unit to a mech unit
Let me rephrase. You need both experience and training/education to be proficient. Relying solely on one or the other, particularly when you promote too fast, is a recipe for disaster.
I was brought up in the Army by Vietnam veterans and the horror stories I heard from them about the Army in the early ‘70s are shockingly similar to what I was seeing in the 2010’s
I am waiting for Joe to slip up and call GEN Austin CornPOP.
Yes, we all knew that failure of leadership was the problem. Competent leaders would never have allowed this to develop in the first place, and those who inherited it would have corrected it before it became systemic.
That is the easy part.
Identifying and correcting the massive errors is altogether different. It looks like there are at least some folks in the upper echelons willing to take a good look at it and take actions necessary. We can hope that there is more than window dressing behind these firings.
This is the Army’s Tailhook.
We’ll have to wait and see if the reaction/over-reaction is similar to Tailhook.
For all the individuals relieved or suspended, the Army is hoping they’ll see the writing on the wall and retire to save the time, trouble and expense of a court martial. AND the retirement board can probably look at their records and recommend retirement at a lower rank (it has been done before).
A problem so big they couldn’t find an E-4 or below to pin it on…
Name edited to protect PII.
AW1
amazing, indeed–the shit didn’t roll downhill. Not very far, anyway.
Call me crazy but as a former team leader, squad leader, platoon leader, company commander, battalion commander, and lots of other positions, the search for AWOLS largely resides at company and below. In my BN, I talked to company leadership about it, ensured it was happening, and never said a word about it to my boss. Plus made sure they got the OCIE back because I’m not doing a FLPL on that.
what do you expect when you let the politically correct make the rules?