Army to cut training for trigger-pullers
The Columbus, GA, Ledger-Enquirer reports that Fort Benning plans to cut training for 35,000 combat arms trigger-pullers in 2012.
The post will train 96,000 soldiers this fiscal year — which began Oct. 1, 2011, and ends Sept. 30 — compared to 131,000 for fiscal year 2011.
That revised number is dramatically lower than previous projections, said Gary A. Jones, director of public affairs for the Maneuver Center of Excellence.
“We previously projected our fiscal year 2011 number of personnel to be trained at about 145,000,” he said. “However, the Army’s announced personnel draw down and the departure of U.S. forces from Iraq in 2011 have affected training requirements across the Army.”
Ya know it’s one thing when you talk about cutting bloated weapons programs, it’s quite another when you’re saving money by cutting the training of the people who are at the bayonet point of our foreign policy and national security. Fort Benning trains the infantrymen and the cavalry and tankers at every level of their careers. That 35,000 number means that there will be fewer small unit combat arms leaders.
Given how the media has recently been given a voice in the way the troops are trained, you can be sure that there won’t be cuts to their training in the laws of land warfare or sensitivity training in regards to sexual deviancy. So what training do you suppose they’ll cut? Probably the training that will be paid for in blood in the next conflict.
Category: Military issues
What next war? This is the era of peace.
“Given how the media has recently been given a voice in the way the troops are trained, you can be sure that there won’t be cuts to their training in the laws of land warfare or sensitivity training in regards to sexual deviancy.”
Ha! Yeah, exactly.
You know, whenever some liberal or Ronulan complains about the cost of the military, I always say that I have no problem with cuts so long they’re trimming the fat. There’s plenty of fat to trim in the defense budget, mostly overpaid civilians.
But then when it comes down to actual cuts, this is what we get. We’re slashing the infantry, the core of the Army, the thing that all other MOS’s are designed to support.
When it comes to cutting the military, it’s always the muscle we cut. ALWAYS. Because the Left’s main goal is to cut as down, to undermine our military power. They hate us.
Another thing…
Do you recall the endless stream of news stories about the stress put on military families as a result of continued deployments?
Considering the fact that we are still in Afghanistan, there’s really only one way this can play out. The soldiers who remain in the newer, smaller military, will basically never see anything except Afghanistan. They will have to shoulder even more tours with no down time.
This is all by design, not by accident.
I didn’t take away from the story that cuts are being made to the training given to infantrymen; rather, that the cuts would be made to the number of infantrymen trained. That being said, surely the Army can find other skills or expenses to cut, rather than the heart of its core competency.
Army Basic Infantry training already lags behind that of the USMC, though recent positive strides have been made with lessons learned in theater.
There are thousands of ways to cut extraneous training funds without hurting the force. We can start by not sending so many people to Airborne school as an incentive program, since only a fraction ever serve on status.
Just a note from a detailed Recruiter winding down his tour…
11X (Infantry Recruit) jobs have been scarce for over a year now. A couple of years back, prior service applicants could only be retrained as Infantry, EOD, or SF (unless they held one of a few jobs we took back); now they only have the last option. It looks like CAT IIIB’s (people who score 31-49 on the ASVAB) are gonna have a hard time getting in from here out as jobs are few and far between.
#5,
I’m with you about Airborne training. I’ve yet to go but have had a couple of chances/slots (BNCOC and a childbirth took precedence). There’s part of me that still wants to go and part of me that realizes that, outside of going to a unit on jump status, the badge is just another pretty item for my uniform and ERB. Airborne is perhaps the most attended, yet underutilized, training in the Army.
Has the Army caved to the practice of firing cops, firefighters, EMT and teachers before touching bloated bureaucracies and politicos?
This is really not as tragic as it sounds.
If you think about future requirements.
@8: Please enlighten us on what, exactly, those requirements will be?
@9- the future requirements, of course, will be a force of reasonable size necessary to enter another war woefully unprepared, with too few troops having too little experience. Once we charge enough of ’em into combat, the ones still living will have invented ingenious methods to cope with poor equipment and training, just like we did in WW1, WW2, Korea, and Vietnam. Think of all the money we can save in healthcare, retirement, and equipment costs!
I mean… look what the Washington Naval Treaty did for us. There were no naval battles anywhere in the world after WW1, because that marvelous document limited naval forces and eliminated the incentives for countries to start an arms race. We need a new Washington Treaty, but for land forces this time. Poof! No more war!
@#9, now you’ve done it, OT. You’ve gone and fed the troll again.
He has no idea, no clue, but if your intent was to send him scurrying to Wiki to look it up, well played. Maybe it’ll still be there when the guys from the institution show up with the jacket that fastens in the back.
@2 – Right. When the Pentagon was completed toward the end of WWII, there was leftover space inside.
Since then, the DoD bureaucracy has spread like a cancer all across northern Virginia.
How many soldiers, Marines, sailors, and airmen are in uniform today compared to 1945? What is the ratio of O-6 positions to E-4 in 1945 and today? How about answering the same question for general officers?
If we’re looking for positions to cut, those staff jobs in Northern Virginia (and their counterparts in major commands) are the first places to look. There is just no way those positions contribute to the military’s real mission of waging war in defense of the nation.
The problem is, I fear, that those positions are protected by senior officers and various Congresspersons. The system is designed to promote officers who “get” that idea and won’t upset the current way of doing business.
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Of course the accountants, the media and the gadget happy brass at the Pentagon (those who avoided deployments and commanded desks and test/eval units) hate the troops.
Sad really.
@12: The Ground Combat Vehicle. Look it up. At one point the stupid thing was heavier than Hitler’s Maus. Big Army STILL wants it as they shed troops. Why are we still in Europe? Cut or redeploy all the brigades in Europe (and no, we don’t need Airborne units abroad, that’s what C-5’s and C-17’s are supposed to be for).
Why are Strykers and MRAPs riding on RUSSIAN charter flights? Because the perfumed princes at the Pentagon want more fighters and keep forgetting about the logistics.
Start cutting 0-5 and above. Especially if they don’t have a combat patch. Cut the GS positions too. The chief cause of the staff bloat, Sen. Byrd, is in the great cloakroom in the sky. There is no reason NOT to cut those positions.
The problem rests with DoD staff and accountants in the GAO, OMB and idiots in the media. Why did we have no bid contracts to KBR and Haliburton? Because the media and COngress kept yelling about defense. Troops “cost too much”, Clinton downsized the entire DoD.
There needs to be better lobbing by AUSA and other vet advocate groups to save the “tail” and the “teeth”. It’s shameful that Strykers need to fly on Russian aircraft. That the KC-X is still in “development”. That we’re cutting units but rotating to Europe.
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Of course this means that the amount of training will be cut. If you remember that Fort Benning isn’t just Basic Combat Training and Advanced Individual Training facility. They also teach PLDC, BNCOC, ANCOC, IOBC, IOAC, Ranger, Airborne, Master Gunners and who knows what else. Cutting participation in those courses damages our leaders’ preparedness to take soldiers into combat.
This is not good.
Regardless of your various associated backgrounds,professions, education levels, philosophies or political beliefs, one fact will always remain constant.
The Infantry closes the gap.
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