“Standards”
I wanted to apologize for not posting since last week but I had drill this weekend (we went to Irwin and shot crew serves all weekend) and I’ve been trying to get summer school knocked out.
For a few months now I’ve heard the SMA Chandler, numerous brass, and other guys with a ton of stripes and rockers talk about getting the Army back to having discipline and standards. New hair standards, tattoo enforcement (fyi I’m in favor of no tattoos on hands or neck but if somebody wants to have sleeves so be it. It’s part of the culture), if you make one mistake your gone, bringing back old traditions etc.
I just want to point out that all this nonsense that has been said by “higher” is a bunch of bullshit and it’s insulting. The Army has muscled through 11 years of constant combat and deployments. This is just typical of guys who have never served in combat or done some mickey mouse deployment coming up with stupid ideas because they have nothing better to do. Unfortunately the CSMs and Generals with a lot of stars on their chests are guys who served in the 80s and 90s military. Unfortunately these stupid ways of thinking won’t change for probably another 15-20 years when we start getting officers who were PLs in Afghanistan in 01 or were on the invasion of iraq in 03 as Corps commanders. We also won’t see future E9s for another few years who were Team Leaders in Ramadi in 04 for example.
The reason I find it insulting is I believe we have fielded the most professional and disciplined army this world has ever seen. Have mistakes been made? Of course but we fix it and drive on. I’ve seen young E5 convoy commaders, E3s running marine rifle squads at the battle of fallujah, young men deploying multiple times, whole brigades getting extended and still driving on, men living in shit outposts surrounded by taliban for 15 months etc. Not to mention our military dealing with the bullshit that has happened in these wars like a shitty ROE, the media, incoherent plans from theater commanders, retaking areas after we just pulled out and the list goes on and on. We’ve all executed the tasks given to us. Yet these POGs want to say the army isn’t disciplined and wants to go back to the “old way.” Well those old POGs can keep their old ways. Let the officers, NCOs, and enlisted soldiers who have been stacking bodies for the past 11 years walk point for a while and carry the guidon.
Category: Politics
Friggen Leg Tanker.
But teh gheys can go marching/prancing in assless ACUs in their little parades.
Nah, no mixed messages here, boys and girls.
Well said
@2 that’s what got me started on my mini rant
Well, I came in the Army in 84, and we had all of those standards to meet. Most of my NCOs and officers that had combat patches had combat patches from Vietnam, and yet we still had the BS to deal with. Do you really think that the Army will change that much when you get to senior levels (BTW, I’m on my 3rd deployment now, so I might be an aberration)? The Army and military in general is a very conservative culture – good luck changing that. Also good to know that since you were in the service in the 80’s and 90’s you have a firm grasp on just how professional the force was back then.
Well said.
I always viewed the standards and metrics as excuses NOT to lead or be a good leader.
The standards are just a RIF tactic. A way to keep numbers down. Has nothing to do with a fighting force.
I just think this old style of thinking needs to go away. The days of high and psychos, spit shined boots, division SOPs for how one should wear gear,marching around in stupid formations and having this idea that appearence is what makes a good leader is over. We are in time of the combat soldier. The guy with the chest rack, 4 deployments, spray painted weapon. The age of the combat leader is wear we are at. We need to keep it that way.Last time I checked 9/11 changed warfare and I don’t ever see GWOT ending. So why re-invent the wheel?
@6 – I agree 100% that this will be used as a RIF tactic.
@5 – A lot of us weren’t in back then. But when we got in our team leaders, squad leaders, platoon daddies, and salt-ass first sergeants were. So do we know first hand? Not exactly. Just like a soldier that gets in today doesn’t know shit about Afghanistan, but when he jumps on my track, he maybe learns a little bit.
we can have dudes and dudettes flaunt the uniform at gay pride parades, but we can’t look like a bunch of killers, even though that is what the job is all about.
we were still training to fight the soviets a decade after the soviet union fell, and bft’s and fbcb2’s still use windows programs from the 90’s, so they might as well hold on to some more outdated methods for a while.
Of course, we’re too PC to admit that the next major war we’re going to fight is against the PRC, but hey, they’re paying for it.
Good article. Straight up.
If you are going to post or blog, I would suggest a look over “edit, review and polish” before posting.
As I stated, good article.
@11
I’ve always had that problem. I never let the article sit for 20 minutes then review it. I’ll do that for now on.
I agree to a point. Height and weight should be enforced…especially on the leadership side. Hair, uniforms, appearance standards should be enforced…but that does not mean everyone has the high and stupid or no tattoo etc. Which I think is where we agree.
To take your opinion further I would say The promotion boards are a joke and should be tailored for actual leadership and soldiering skills not nonsensical repeating of mundane and often useless facts.
Warning: Old guy boring story. Got to Camp Lejeune around 85 after 18 months in Oki. Found the Sgt Maj lecturing some NCOs on the importance of wire brushing rocks before painting them red and gold. Apparently, the paint DOES NOT stick to the rocks if they aren’t wire-brushed clean beforehand. And I didn’t even know rocks were supposed to be painted.
Side note on that particular Sgt Maj. First tour 60-65. Second tour 72-88. Apparently, he was pursuing rock-painting in the civilian sector during Vietnam.
The system corrupts the most noble officers – the higher the rank the more politicized. Hard charging JOs who have ambitions for General/Admiral one day – realize quickly to adapt,conform, and get in line supporting policies / initiatives passed down from above. Rocking the boat and resisting asininity only gets your career derailed and early retirement as LTC/CMDR – if your even that lucky .
Senior brass actively research the values & policies of Presidential candidates & potential SECDEFS. Call it “sucking up”, but GOs/FOs want to ensure they are compatible for and fully support any new administration. Why not right? The POTUS & SECDEF are ones who sign off on their nominations for more stars and that next big job. This is a nut that won’t ever be cracked. POTUS & SECDEF drive the policy train – General and Admirals WILL get in line no matter how asinine the policies or ELSE. The crap soon rolls down hill to the chiefs and then to the indians – same as it ever has. Check back in a hundred years – same old same old.
The POGs are out LOL Give em hell
Hell yeah Pathfinder I get what you are saying.
The “old way” now: sucking ass, ArmorAll-ing HEMTTs and going “Perception is reality!” back in the 1990s. Ghey.
http://www.examiner.com/article/military-mom-s-breastfeeding-photo-causes-controversy-and-outrage
I dont want to hear dick about how low my boots are bloused or my sleeve tats!
“So do we know first hand? Not exactly.
Just like a soldier that gets in today doesn’t know shit about Afghanistan,
but when he jumps on my track, he maybe learns a little bit.”
(Quoted from No. 8)
Some “POG”‘s are good fighters — we in the Signal Corps had some Specialists in The Battle For Hue (NOT myself) that took over and fought off the enemy, and even captured the enemy commander. The Signalmen were NOT trigger-puller MOS; they were Radiomen .
Fighting Force (No. 6’s phrase) Standards should be (not parade “standards”) — perhaps some attempt to do both .
I don’t pretend to know firsthand — I was a REMF — you may have heard what that means .
“. . . WHO took over . . .”
(grammatical error)
These changes are just the RIF and “Peacetime Army.” Happens after every major war (Cold War included!).
An old saying: “Long wars means short promotions”. The war is winding down and cuts are to be made. Where and how do you start? Again, I am not shocked at what the clowns are proposing, seen it before!
As for the:
“I believe we have fielded the most professional and disciplined army this world has ever seen.”
I disagree…. they’ve ALWAYS been great. Leadership was the difference! I was taught and believe (with only two exceptions) that THERE ARE NO BAD UNITS, ONLY BAD LEADERS!
@2 Homerun. “Urinal=less” Navy ships to make them “Sex=neutral”, My Little Pony patches on on ACUs at a My Little Pony convention AND allowing uniforms to be worn at gay pride rallies, plus the Air Force looking at $26/gallon “bio-firendly” fuel……….PC gone wild…..
I just have to wonder. . .. those higher-ups that want to ENFORCE their standards, if they were to have actually LIVED those same standards on their way up, how high up would they have actually gotten??
Not sure where to start here. Is your argument that because you’ve deployed and perhaps the senior folks haven’t, then you should be able to disregard all that army crap? Should everyone be able to just do their own thing now? Are you advocating the elimination of uniform standards of appearance in garrison?
I’m not advocating that at all. I just think it’s BS that we’re going to this mentality of “hey there buck sergeant with the tattoos and sideburns you’re good enough to lead men in combat but not good enough for garrison” which is the wrong answer. Then focusing on dumbshit like saying I have to be clean shaven and have a haircut on leave (what happened to those anti-terrorism briefs of blending in?”). If they want to trim the fat then get rid of PT failures and the E8s and E9s who have ghosted the past 11 years.
This sort of thing happens after every conflict. Not a whole lot that we can do about it really because during a draw down those who are charged with doing so look for any excuse to reduce the numbers.
Meanwhile, Pathfinder, I would simply suggest that just as you adapted to life under fire that you find ways to adapt to life NOT under fire.
It’s not a perfect system, but then again, there is no such thing. What you might see as “fair” would not appear to be so to someone else. Fact is that the military in general spends most of it’s time NOT fighting but being prepared to fight the next battle. So, the warriors are the expendible commodity while the planners for the next one are the ones needed both in peace and during war.
Yes, it is nice to have warriors in on the planning, but if you expect to be among those left to plan for the next one then you adapt to how the military looks right now.
You will probably never agree with everything that goes on. Most of us did not. But, we learned to adapt because we were more valuable to the future battles having been in on the planning for them than taking our experience with us to the civilian world.
“I’d like to have two armies: one for display with lovely guns, tanks, little soldiers, staffs, distinguished and doddering Generals, and dear little regimental officers who would be deeply concerned over their General’s bowel movements or their Colonel’s piles, an army that would be shown for a modest fee on every fairground in the country. The other would be the real one, composed entirely of young enthusiasts in camouflage uniforms, who would not be put on display, but from whom impossible efforts would be demanded and to whom all sorts of tricks would be taught. That’s the army in which I should like to fight.”
— Jean Lartéguy
Unfortunately, we can’t afford both. So we seem to oscillate between the two, depending on whether or not we’re fighting a war.
We certainly can’t afford both kinds of armies, I like the quote though…
Can’t afford the current single army either….can’t afford the GWOT if we are being honest…in the 10 years of this current conflict we have spent the wealth of the nation and accomplished very little in terms of real security…most American are far more likely to be killed by another American than a terrorist….that’s a fact whether folks like it or not; nobody kills Americans better than Americans…
So for our debt of 13 trillion dollars which leaves every single person in the country owing the government $50k and our unfunded liability means every Taxpayer is on the hook for a million dollars, what have we to show for the debt? Pathfinder states he can’t see the GWOT ending, if it doesn’t we will join Greece as a nation that can’t pay its’ bills…we have jeopardized our security by financing our debt with our former commie enemies (China)…it’s great to say we have these brave young men and women protecting our interests, to what end?
Whether we like talking about money and debt or not it’s the one thing that nobody seems worried about, but the most significant danger to the nation is not a plane flying into a building and killing a few thousand people, it’s the fact we are losing our businesses and our ability to create wealth to our ever increasing debt and debt service..and we have a fool in the white house who thinks adding a few trillion more in unfunded liability will be a net positive…and our two candidates for the White House are not talking the hard talk…like it or not at some point we will have to pay this debt, and the only way to do that is higher taxes. Of course as a nation we are lazy procrastinators who won’t put a candidate in office who advocates higher taxes for everyone and less services…so we get what we deserve, crushing debt, less credit, and a stagflating economy…
I’m starting to think the doomsday preppers are not so crazy after all…
VOV: I think you might want to go relook your numbers, amigo. Per the CRS, best estimates for DoD costs associated with the GWOT, including projected costs through FY 2021, is approximately $1.8T. That’s a rough average of about $90B/year. Given annual Federal spending of roughly $4T, that’s not an unsustainable cost if we get a handle on spending in other areas.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf
The 20-year GWOT cost is projected to be roughly 3/8 of a single year’s Federal spending. And GWOT costs to date (approx $1.3T as of Mar 2011) represent less than 10% of the $15.9T national debt we have today.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
To date: Appropriations :1.3 trillion Addition to Pentagon Base Budget: 324 billion Interest on war appropriations:185 billion current vet med and disability:32.6 billion state department aid to war areas:74 billion homeland security budget for GWOT related activities: 400 billion subtotal : 2.3 trillion Unfunded liabilities projected to 2020: unfunded liability to current veterans : 102 billion (500 billion owed to 2051 so 12.8 billion per year) cost for aid to 2020 to vets/vets families : 295 billion or 36.8 per year us government projected direct war spending to 2020: 453 billion Interest payments to 2020 (unfunded currently) : 1 trillion dollars… Unfunded subtotal : 1.85 trillion Cost to 2020 for GWOT: 4.1 trillion dollars Source data US CBO and department of treasury spreadsheets available online no direct links you have to download and parse the data… I come up with about 200 billion a year for current and projected costs to 2020 just for prosecuting the war…certainly not an insurmountable dollar amount, but nothing to sneeze at either. I’m new to a lot of this blogging and I realize I need to put more straight numbers out instead of ranting which I am prone to do. My point is the expense is not a small thing and is symptomatic of a larger problem, we are spending more than we make regularly and we are starting to reach critical mass. The social security trust fund debacle is just a few years off at this point and the fact is nobody wants to talk about paying for any of this, any talk of higher interest rates or taxes makes folks crazy. The reality is we will be at critical mass with our debt service in the next 15-20 years, this is an ideal time to address this issue and make folks aware that it’s time to pay more and expect less because that’s just how it is right now whether we like it or not…this is 50 years of p1ssing away money like it was water, and 10 years of active GWOT did nothing to help that. We always talk about business… Read more »
I’m on the fence when it comes to this subject. I can understand the disdain that many Soldiers have for such “new” policies and suggestions, but I realize that such standards are far from new. At Fort Campbell in 2002 we had to get a fresh haircut by the second duty day of the week. Tattoos were common, but rarely (if ever) seen while in the duty uniform. Summer PTs were the only uniform that showed sleeves or leg tattoos.
The Army is about discipline and being dress right dress–particularly in garrison, but also in theater. In April 2003 we were cuffing our DCU sleeves, keeping our pants unbloused, and hadn’t shaved for weeks. Combat operations ceased and by May we were back to looking as STRAC as possible for grunts who hadn’t had a proper shower for 45 days. Is it bs? Perhaps, but it reminded us that we were still representing the US Army.
Not being allowed to roll the sleeves on the BDU is another example of seemingly bs standards that I grew to respect. Reservists did it, POG units did it, but not the 101st. Seemed dumb in the middle of summer, but since then I’ve survived Louisiana and Georgia summers in ACUs just fine.
What is complete bs, however, is the authorization to represent the military in uniform at gay pride events. To me, the military should be about the sum of its parts, not individuals within its ranks. Neck and hand tattoos are bad enough, but now we get to have more “look at me” types showing off their lifestyles and personal choices.
VOV: 1. No government program or effort is financed solely from borrowed money. Therefore, one must estimate the amount of money borrowed to support that program or effort. The only legitimate way I can see to do that is based on the federal deficit as a percentage of federal outlays for the fiscal year of expenditure. Since 2001, worst case that’s been approx 25% if I recall correctly – and the historical average since 2001 is considerably lower than that. Legitimate interest costs associated with the GWOT are therefore far lower than you indicated above. I’d guess the true amount is somewhere around 15% or so of the number you quoted, but I haven’t had time to do the research and the math. 2. Allocating programs that started as GWOT support but which have been “rolled to base” is similarly not legitimate. Those programs were folded into the general DoD budget because they have widespread/long-term utility for DoD and thus are now capabilities that are not GWOT-specific. 3. Not sure I buy including all of the DHS spending, either. While that may have been spurred by the 9/11 and the GWOT, much of that had been previously identified as desirable due to the potential for terrorist attacks. It took 9/11 to make us realize that the threat was deadly serious in many areas – and that we should actually spend the money associated with fixing those issues. 4. Also not sure I’m buying the “aid to vets/vets families” as a GWOT cost – or precisely what you’re talking about there. If you’re talking about things like foodstamps, GI-bill, etc . . . . , much of that would be required in any case. Not sure how you’re going to sort out how much of that to allocate to GWOT vice what would have been expeted under peacetime circumstances. 5. The VA costs for GWOT support to date are given in the CRS document I cited. They’re far less than $32billion – since 2001. I don’t know where you got the future projections. But if you’re using projections for the VA… Read more »
No single standard exists which is why we see overweight women, officers, pogs/remf, and grey ncos.
No single standard exists which is why we see gay pride uniform day.
The standard will be used very deliberately on who they feel is expendable…..ie that csm with 25 years in or that fullbird with his chest of medals he did the writeup himself will still be protected.
They wont be able to use that on any percieved minority or women because they will hire lawyers like the POG at tradoc that screamed they don’t like me because I am a black woman
Good enough to fight and bleed.
But not good enough anymore.
Get out.
Gee thanks Army.
Hondo, thank you a civil, point by point takedown…
I also think we agree the budget is a disaster. I did not mean to imply that the GWOT is the sole source of our problems, certainly re-reading my post implies that. I meant to point out that a nation that can’t pay its’ bills often can’t prosecute foreign wars/foreign aid/foreign whatever effectively. Nor can we provide health care to all our citizens just because we passed a bill saying we can, nor can we pay the promised benefits to all our citizens who paid into Social Security because we’ve stolen the money…we being the government of the US. Every facet of the current and future budgets need to be looked at, unfortunately debt service is debt service and will be difficult to renegotiate…so our budget flexibility comes from cutting variable budgets and increasing taxes…I don’t see how we get past this without increasing taxes because slashing the budget is not a politically survivable decision, and most politicians like to be politically survivable.
That was awsome and I couldn’t agree more!!