Pentagon to trim flag officers
William sends us a link to a Washington Post article which reports that the Pentagon is planning to cut the number of generals and admirals serving.
Pentagon officials said they have eliminated 27 jobs for generals and admirals since March, the first time the Defense Department has imposed such a reduction since the aftermath of the Cold War, when the collapse of the Soviet Union prompted the military to downsize.
The cuts are part of a broader plan to shrink the upper ranks by 10 percent over five years, restoring them to the their size when the country was last at peace, before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
While it’s a good idea, we can all rest assured that they won’t be firing anyone who needs to be fired. Those guys who’ve spent the war years entrenching themselves in non-deployable slots will see their efforts come to fruition while the actual trigger pullers with brains and ideas will shuffle off to the South Carolina coast.
The last time they cut back the General Officers’ Corps we got Wesley Clarke.
Category: Military issues
Give it a chance….I was surprised that they shuttered JFCOM.
The long knives are being sharpened. No cutthroating-just plain old backstabbing.
One of the advantages that the USA has had over the Chicoms is that the Chicoms haven’t fielded an army in over 50 years; hence, they don’t have any officers or NCO’s with combat experience …, unlike the USA, which, of course, has [many] officers and NCO’s with combat experience – veterans of several wars and “police actions”, also.
It is disturbing that, at a time when the Chicoms are buiding up their navy and war readiness, members of the Obama Administration and Democrats in Congress want to downsize our military. Democrats can not be trusted to protect the USA.
Obama is the most dangerous threat to this country in our history. Besides being an empty suit, a street hustler and a pretentious, decadent dilletante, he is a madman in my carefully considered opinion …, and IOwans think that we need Ron Paul to replace him??? Oy vey. God help us. 🙂
We need to trim 25% to 50% of our Flag officers.
Why does the Navy need one Flag officer per ship/squadron???
Marvin…get outside the 5-sided funny farm and flag officers are pretty rare. COMSUBPAC was the closest I had and he ran four sqadrons of boats (about 45 in total.)
Crap floats to the top. Still they won’t cut s hard as NCOs or other officer ranks. They will just them retire and not backfill.
We have More Flag ranks now with a Mil force of under 3million all told, that in WWII when we had over 12 Million. a BG at Natick to ensure bar tabs are sewn into ACU crotches? seems a QM CWO could handle that billet and wouldnt need the 15 man staff of powerpoint rangers, to get the general coffee. Most of these Officers “Combat” experience was in 1991 on Bde staffs of maybe as Bde cdrs. few have CIB’s, and fewer are modern day Pattons, Walkers, Collins, Ridgeways, Gavins.
If anything, ensure the NCO corps not only isnt gutted, but highten the standards and training now that there is time. we don’t need a repeat of West Germany based units in the mid 1970’s with Anarchy going on among the E4 Mafia. We have some fine Combat leaders who need to learn how to deal with Peacetime leadership(aka Chickenshit garrison) also.
Many of the billets are coming from Iraq, the intent is to take us back to the pre9/11 level. The problem was there was way too many back then.
“The last time they cut back the General Officers’ Corps we got Wesley Clarke.” or Shinseki, Sullivan types. This is absolutely true. The kind of officers who survived the cut-backs of the early 90s and became the services senior leaders were disproportionately the go along to get along types. They didn’t make waves or offend anyone, they were safe. It was they who led the USA into a decade of morass.
If you want to fix the Army Officer Corp stop commissioning so many of them. We have more Officers by design and this is completely not needed.
Each president leaves his mark on the Officer Corps. This is especially true for War-time presidents and two term presidents. A majority of the JO’s have only known war. There are now majors out there with 3-5 deployments under their belt. They know how to fight, and some of them, especially ones in 82nd and 173rd and other such units which are constantly deploying, tend to have little patients for the fluff. There are a lot of hard charging Captains and Lts out there. Everywhere you look are combat patches.
The lessons of the Bush era might well come down to “any means necessary” and while its debatable some of the subtler points men like LTC (ret) Allen West have proven that motto time and again (sometimes to their determent) But what was the Motto of say the Clinton years “look pretty and don’t cause a scene”? As long as you did your job, and looked pretty doing it, you could get ahead. Promotions and indeed the Officer Corps as a whole was cut throat. This does not engender respect with the troops.
Obama hasn’t sent memorandums per se to the troops but the sacking of McCrystal over something he didn’t even say (which was sadly about the most honest thing to be said about his handling of the war) sent a clear signal. Girls stand at Parade Pretty. NCOs you need to love you troops when you council them, and for God’s sake, do not tell the truth if its not what we want to hear.