General reports discipline problems to the press
Some general by the name of Lt. Gen. Mark Hertlin told a gaggle of reporters that a “cancerous” lack of discipline infects the modern force;
Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling told a group of reporters over breakfast that only a small percentage of soldiers lack proper discipline, but he stressed his concern that it be fixed, now that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down and more troops are returning to their home bases.
“In some cases there are discipline problems that we have not paid as much attention to as we should,” he said, adding, “If you allow that to go unnoticed it becomes cancerous.”
Hertling said soldiers need more training in the Army’s professional values. And he said officers and commanders are guilty of too frequently overlooking what he called “acts of indiscipline.” He cited as an example a failure to adequately punish soldiers for offenses such as drunken driving.
My problem is not that the general sort of paints with a broad the entire force, it’s the fact that he thought it was a good idea to tell reporters. The same type of indiscretion damaged the public’s perception of the military after Vietnam. The military always rebounds of it’s bouts with disciplinary problems, it certainly doesn’t need the press, who don’t know an MRE from an M16…and certainly not the SFGate.
it took 6 years for the Army to decide that drunk driving was bad after Vietnam. It took four years before they decided that enforcing weight standards was better than threatening to enforce the standards. It took ten years for them to put emphasis on the NCO professional education system.
I’m pretty certain that the discipline problems the military is facing today are not as bad as they were after Vietnam, because the military is packed with professional NCOs and officers who learned their lessons from the post-Vietnam generation. But the leaders who stayed in the military after Vietnam didn’t need the media to help them rebuild the professional force, and they certainly don’t need it now.
Thanks to Tman for the link.
Category: Military issues
Probably more than anything this is an acknowledgement that the extended wars are coming to a close, and peacetime standards (and the chickenshit regulations that officers busy themselves with during peacetime) are going to be put back in place.
Robert, that was a direct hit, target destroyed.
@1 has it dead on balls accurate. My question is….how are they going to incorporate the PT belt into all aspects of garrison life?
Robert what are you talking about? they try to put those chicken shit regs into effect DURING combat.
The discipline problem is there, and if anything it has more to do with the society we defend. Work ethic in the society as a whole is seriously lagging. You tend to see evidence of this in the Army first because really where else do 20 year olds get put in charge of anything? The society at large takes longer to notice such things because the guys that are the glue of the company/policeforce/firestation etc stay in place a lot longer, and career progression as a whole is a lot slower. It should be noted however that even in the midst of this rescession where jobs are scarce MANY people are getting fired for work ethic issues.
Further the discipline problem in the Army is only exacerbated when BCT and AIT are not tough enough. The doing away with Bayonet training, and the overemphasis on “core” workouts instead of ya know actual ARMY PT. While D&C isn’t the MAJOR part of what a soldier needs to know there are some that graduate BCT with out knowledge of even basic D&C. The “softening” of the smokings, and the absolutely retarded PC rules, means that the discipline, and desire to get a first time go on everything is lost to the new Privates. In short, if there is such a problem it can be laid squarely as BS TRADOC rules.
I sure had trouble adapting to garrison life after serving in Nam. I also had trouble with new draftees who showed up drunk or high for their shift.
@4 – “The “softening” of the smokings…”
This was the beginning of the end in my experience.
I tossed a question to you in another topic yesterday, but it got buried so quickly by other comments, I lost track of it. When were you in 2/16? My last assignment was 4th BDE…so we may have chewed some of the same ground and known some of the same people.
I think this is a PR play on the General’s part. He’s putting us on notice that times are changing. Either that or he’s have trouble getting traction on the matter and he’s using the press to lead the way and put pressure on those who don’t currently enforce the Army standards like they should be.
Hopefully among those changes (what with the wars winding down and all) is the demise of GO 1B(C, D, E, or whatever its up too).
The rather disparaging comments regarding draftees during the VN era is starting to piss me off. Was there separate training for draftees? Were there separate coffins? Some 30% of the KIAs in Nam were draftees. And how many of those who returned as draftees stayed in the service and retired from the service.
So what the General is saying is he and his officers haven’t been doing their jobs for the last 10yrs. Discipline comes from the top. He is just trying to get combat soldiers ready to become stagnant again and under the thumb..happened after WWII Vietnam ect
I would be a hypocrite to say that don’t have some discipline issues. The Army is a microcosm of society.
However, I would never tell that to a group of reporters.
I think the LTG needs to retire for speaking out of turn.
#5 I absolutely hated garrison life after I got back from Iraq in ’03. Before I deployed in ’03 I had only been at my first duty station for 2 months. That was 2 months waiting for the turkish parliament to decide that we could launch our offensive from their land. All we did during that two months was PT and half days.
When I got back to the states in ’04, that’s when I got a good dose of Army dumbfuckery. “Oh you want me to empty the connex and inventory every item then load it back up and repeat the process for every single person in our chain of command? Sure!” If I could have stayed in Iraq for the whole of my 4 years in the Army then I would have been a happy man. I never did get an article 15 though, so I wasn’t really a discipline case anyway.
Instead of worrying/emphasizing about DUIs, how about worrying/emphasizing pay, promotions and worthwhile training? Looks like a politician, powerpointer, who is wearing a general’s uniform.
@2-17 the maligning of draftees i think comes from popular media like Platoon and Apocalypse Now. However there were indeed huge discipline problems in the Army in the mid 70’s to early 80’s If that was because of draftees, or drugs etc, is debatable.
@#5,#11 I think we all have a TON of stories of dumb fuckery. I have a great story of inventory perishable items (to include 2×2’s and 4×4’s. In a Hawaiian Rainstorm. It all got soaked and thrown into the connex. three months later we had to reinventory the same items, because the were covered in mold and mildew.
CI I was there from Feb 07 to Oct 07 then back again in Dec of 08-Apr 09 LONG story
@Doc – “LONG story”
Sounds like it given the dates….
I was in the Brigade from 05-08…retired as soon as I could after redeployment from Baghdad.
#9–Exactly, if the leaders had been enforcing discipline and the standards all along there would not be the “problem” he perceives to exist. I was in RVN and after and I worked for some squared away NCO’s who took no shit from the Privates and if you didn’t act they way you were taught in BCT and AIT they gave you school of the soldier training and you straightened right up. This Hetrling is the same guy who developed the new PT test because he is an Iron Man participant and thinks everyone else should be too. If the senior leadership in the Army, officer and NCO did their jobs instead of worrying about their next job or report card they would not have this problem.
@16. DaveA–I am applauding. By the way, were you a draftee?
the draftees I served with in Nam were excellent soldiers. It was the ones I served with in garrison at Beaumont that made me question the wisom of their service. No offense to the draftees that served in NAM Mr. air Cav, they were strong and resolute.
Interesting thing: LTG Hertling, the current USAREUR CG, is the one who created the new APFT. If you’ve been deployed or in Europe within the last 6 months, you’ve seen his “Army Values…are MY values” commercials on AFN.