Soldiers; Army doesn’t love me back
The Army Times reports that a recent survey says that a little less than half of soldiers says the Army isn’t as committed to them as they are to the Army.
This is a 6 percent increase — among troops in both components — since 2010, according to the report.
Lt. Gen. David Perkins, commanding general of the Combined Arms Center, which includes the Center for Army Leadership, said it’s important for senior leaders to understand how soldiers are feeling.
He cited captains as an example.
“They came into an Army that was expanding, the budget for the Army was going up, they were deploying, they were engaged in their craft,” Perkins said. “But what has happened in this last year? The Army is downsizing to 490,000, brigades are going away, they see we’re conducting [selective early retirement boards] for colonels, they see the resourcing of the Army is going down. So the future of the Army, in their mind, is very different from when they signed up. They’re no longer in a growth industry, quite honestly.”
Yeah,I’m going to call Bullshit on that, general. if you look at what has been happening among the force over the last three years or so, you’d have noticed that the Sergeant Major of the Army went to Afghanistan and lectured soldiers on their cultural sensitivity as the reason they were being killed by their “allies”. But the real reason, it turns out is that the troops in the war zone weren’t allowed to carry weapons.
Then the troops watch the Defense Department kick a few hundred thousand veterans off of Tricare Prime while raising their healthcare costs and raiding the $770 million Tricare surplus.
They sit through endless hours of sexual harassment training because some generals misbehaved with subordinates.
Then they see the military punishing minor offenses, like urinating on corpses, with courts martial. While they’re taking the brunt of cost cutting in the Defense Department right now, the so-called leadership is taking their cuts in four years. And they have to be told by the IG that they have 511 unused cars in their fleet that they don’t need. Their leaders are telling them that cutting costs is going to be painful – to everyone except those with stars in their rank.
The troops were the ones who pulled their weight and paid the price in the war. They even returned to the war with their artificial limbs, making sacrifices that no leader should expect them to make. And the perfumed princes in the puzzle palace hand them even more shit sandwiches when they return, while the princes eat at catered banquet tables.
And then, this general, Perkins, tells them they became spoiled from years of overspending, and they have to get used to doing more with less. F*** you, General Perkins, just F*** you.
Category: Big Army
ha ha ha… puzzle palace. I call it the 5 sided think tank. You are 100% correct in your assessment!!!
I wonder if the Navy is getting the same ‘reactions’.
i hate officers, i hate high ranking officers more. had a CO i liked once, he was murdered last year at foot bragg. by my math, that means there are no officers i like anymore
Let’s not forget about GEN Odinero lobbying for a 1% cost of living raise instead of the 1.9% required by congress to match inflation.
I wouldn’t believe obamao’s DOD/DA if they tell me that the sky is blue and water is wet. To quote Jonn, fuck you, just FUCK YOU…
They’re also cursed with a C in C that once tried to give amputee Vets the middle finger by trying to make them pay for their prosthetics! One cutback after another, just like in the early 90’s when the “Clinton Curse” began, that was one reson I ETS’ed cack then, We lived in crumbling barracks and much of the Military Family Housing was in shambles, too. A lot of those units were in such shape that Public Housing Authorities wouldn’t hand them to flunkies unless they’d been renovated, (And providing they weren’t on Military Installations)but they were just fine for Active Duty Military Families. Things like that are going on day after day while B. Hussein 0bama & Co. treat themselves to any and every luxury they desire, costs be damned! (At least Jimmeh Kahtuh forewent some luxuries and perks!)
All that, and our Active Duty Personnel are told to “Stay motivated, suck it up and drive on!!’ That can only go so far, they need and deserve better, and the current crop of Generals seem to be little more than rabid asskissers sniveling for a future Cabinet position!!
Same old Army.
It has unfortunately become a very large bureaucracy.
Clean out the Pentagon.
Jonn
Spot.The.Fuck.On….
Crap like this is why I am dropping my retirement packet.
I guess it’s true. The Pentagon is a rectangle designed by politicians.
There was another country that started grooming a politically correct military… when was it, uh 1933-1937? I forget.
This is full of win, I haven’t met or talked to anyone who doesn’t think along these lines..
They are going to end up with a hollow force sooner than expected. Hopefully, the ones that see the writing on the wall can get out or retire while they still can. Our military is in for a rough ride IMO. It’s not going to get any better.
As the old saying goes, “I love the fucking Navy as much as the Navy loves fucking me!”
But even then, we knew (or at least thought) that there was a point to sticking it out to retirement, the promises they made to us, etc. Now? Not even. Congress and the libs are in the process of eviscerating the NCO and Officer’s corps and turning our military into the next best thing to a conscript military: a huge majority of “one and done” enlistees who only came in for the college bennies. Too bad even those kids are going to get it jammed up their asses too.
Remember when the war started (10+ years ago) the economy was OK, and the bonuses paid to fight were bordering on mercenary-like wages. Stop-loss got in the mix…economy tanked and “we” kept fighting the war. “We” still are. Now the military is being cut using various civilian models- cuts that don’t make sense to an organization that is based upon killing and blowing things up…not making money. The military leadership throughout the services promoted those who toed the party line-(e.g.social experiments-no matter how insane it would be to the fighting soldier).
And the soldier feels outed? The military is not a job…no matter how hard the recruiter presents it or how congress tries to make it.
When the Chief of Staff (AKA tabless cunt Odierno)nixes a 1.8% raise and backs the 1% raise…I wouldn’t feel the love either.
Yeah, be all you can be….f#cked every which way to Sunday…..
who knew Army of One actually meant: When we no longer need you, you sons of b1tches are on your own
They only want you when they need you. Next, they’ll be expecting the troops to pay for their own deployment expenses, and weapons, and ammo — mind boggling, but if I can cook up something like that out of nothing, so can someone else.
I’m just waiting for it.
The military lives by the premise of “what have you done for me lately.” Otherwise I think they could give a shit about you.
I got out as a sergeant because the retention NCO told me he couldn’t give me what I asked for and then turned around and gave it to a PFC in my platoon who had gone AWOL a week prior to deployment… So there’s my Army sob story. I felt snubbed and left with a shrug. Childish? Maybe, but there is a reason they retain a higher percentage of dirtbags than anything else.
Playing devils advocate here, if you’re told you’re only going to have $100 this year to spend on your business which will probably get reduced to $95 as the year goes on, would you support a pay increase when you’re already laying people off, you can easily replace the ones you have, and you’re already spending $50 of that $100 on paychecks? There are places where I’m sure GEN Odierno would like to cut back that don’t involve firing people, but Congress keeps protecting their own pet interests by telling him no. Before sequestration, he told Congress the Army had a solid plan for dialing down the budget and end strength over a 5 year period. That flew out the window pretty quick thanks to Congress.
TMB–but they’re all hot cock (no pun intended) to give gay “married” couples BAQ/VHA/bennies.
So again, who’s being fiscally frugal again?
@19 I’m all too familiar with that proposition in the private sector and with non-unionized, non-contractual employees things happen exactly as you point out. Of course it leads to some tremendous turn-over especially with low ski
The major difference being of course that those very same employees have the right to bail out on you without repercussion at the first sign of you being a turd….military personnel have no such out when their leadership starts f#cking them over. They signed and are obligated to stay so it’s easy to see where when things change after the fact that morale suffers and the soldiers view this as they (soldiers) are honor bound to keep their contractual commitment then why isn’t the Army honor bound to keep their side of it.
This is how my first paragraph should have read…I hate when actual work gets in the way of my writing…
@19 I’m all too familiar with that proposition in the private sector and with non-unionized, non-contractual employees things happen exactly as you point out. Of course it leads to some tremendous turn-over especially with low skill set employees, it’s more difficult to pull that off with high skill set employees in the private sector because there really is no over abundance of high end, educated employees in any field these days.
During OIF, the then COL Perkins got alot of flowery praise from his former boss ret. COL, and Fox News contributor David Hunt. Sounded like the guy was a leader of men and knew the business of warfare. Now Perkins wears a bunch of stars…I guess speaking pentogonese & turning into a PC jellyfish is the cost of membership.
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Spot on assessment worth quoting:
“The troops were the ones who pulled their weight and paid the price in the war. They even returned to the war with their artificial limbs, making sacrifices that no leader should expect them to make. And the perfumed princes in the puzzle palace hand them even more shit sandwiches when they return, while the princes eat at catered banquet tables.
And then, this general, Perkins, tells them they became spoiled from years of overspending, and they have to get used to doing more with less.
F*** you, General Perkins, just F*** you.”
@20 Wasn’t DOMA shot down? If that was the case, I think the DoD is stuck giving gay married couples the same dependent benefits as straight couples. It’s either that or wait for the next set of lawsuits and Congressional hearings and have to do it anyways.
Why is the poem “Tommy” on repeat cycle in my head . Still true after these years. “Tommy” sees and the retired Tommys vote.Why do the politos think they are smarter than HISTORY ?Veit Nam 20 years later ?No plan for winning, promises broken, the same old song and dance. Joe
Oh, Mr. Lilyea, you had me at “F*** you, General.”
I have no regrets about my 25 years. Heck, the first 10 I should have been paying the Navy I was having so much fun. Seriously.
But, after retirement and even before, I realized pretty quickly that the Big USN does not give a rat’s ass about me. I get the retirement check, but they’d be happy if I just kicked the bucket and went away. Saves them money.
About 6 months, maybe 9 months, after I retired, I ran into one of my community’s admirals at a store. I had known him pretty well when I was active duty. We chatted several times one on one. For better or worse, I was relatively well known in my specialty. Anyway, I asked him how he was doing and the SOB looked at me like I had a horn growing out of my forehead. It’s like I had never been in his community. For chuckleheads like him, it’s all about him. We’re just a bullet on his FITREP. Just a number.
I realized then that no matter what I did in the USN, that none of us are indispensable and that life rolls on. What we’re left with are lots of great (and not so great) memories and hopefully, the glow of knowing that we did a good job for our country.
That’s good enough for me.
For as much good as US military is doing they could disband them all, sell the bases and scrap all the hardware. Our leadership, both political and military have no clue how to use our forces. Our citizens are not safe anywhere in the world. Tinhorns and bandits have no respect or fear of us. The military is used as the third worlds piggybank. Put all the small arms in armories and send all the troops home to collect unemployment. Why keep an empty force that is a shadow of it’s former self. Pull all of our forces back to conus. Tell the rest of the world that we will have no recourse to aggression except our nuclear strike forces. We will no longer bark, we will bite first and not worry about how many “innocents” perish.
The Army will keep the stored arms oiled, the Navy will be a submarine force, and the Air Force will retain it’s strategic missiles, no fancy jets or heavy lifters. Each service will be run by a one star flag officer. The pentagon can be used for low income housing, there will be no DOD beyond a hand full of GS-4’s supervised by one GS-8. No more AirForce one,no Marine One. If the dear leader wants to go to Marths’s Vineyard the secret service can drive him up there in a Ford Taurus. Once the Defense budget is zeroed out the money saved cannot be spent for anything else. Am I worried about an invasion, absolutely not. Because as Adm. Yamamoto said, there will be a rifle behind every blade of grass. You won’t have the US military to kick around anymore Mr. President. You’ll have to carry your own damn umbrella, asshat.
Jonn, you hit the nail on the head and it holds true across all the branches of the military.
“Yeah,I’m going to call Bullshit on that, general.”
Me too, Jonn. Perkins is a textbook example of dogturds with stars, part of the problem.
If these army grunts want to be hearted, they should have joined the air force.
Compliance = loyalty, bend over!
“F*** you, General Perkins, just F*** you.”
Spoken like a true Platoon Sergeant.
@29- Brother, you said it!! The Marine Corps could give a shit less about me any more!! I was obsolete the day I retired.
The current administration and its yes men generals and civilian “leadership” seem bound and determined to turn our military into a hollow force like the one my father retired out of when Jimmy Carter castrated the force. The fact they are doing it so brazenly amazes me.
Jonn, you are absolutely correct in your assessment. It seems that we have a bunch of general officers who have forgotten what it was like down in the trenches (if they ever really knew) and don’t have the testicular fortitude to stand in the door and do what is right for our active duty troops and for our veterans.
It is sad and infuriating to watch this slide into the abyss. Our current commander in chief does not have a clue what to do with the military and he has surrounded himself with like minded people.
Jonn: You are absolutely right. I was a senior captain during the drawdown of the 1990s, and retired just before this drawdown started. My wife is a battalion commander in the reserves, so I’m still paying a lot of attention to things. The thing I’ve noticed most about this drawdown compared to the last is the tone of senior leadership. In this drawdown, from the Chief of Staff and Sergeant Major of the Army on down, you hear things like “it’s time to get rid of the deadwood,” and things of that nature. The problem is, that’s not who they’re going to be cutting, especially in the officer corps, where they make the cuts by individual year group based on some computer model of the force they think they need. If your year group is understrength, you’re safe no matter how bad a performer you are. If your year group is overstrength, you’re gone, no matter how good a performer you are. That’s just the way of the system. But senior leadership won’t SAY that. Nope, we’re cutting the deadwood. Forget about evaluations, what’s your weight? Oh, have five deployments and a couple of Bronze Stars under your belt? Well, you got a 190 on your last PT test. That’s passing, but not passing enough. Pack your shit and get out, dirtbag. They’re looking for things that they can cut people with by looking at some arbitrary standard, and not performance. Because that would require someone to use judgement, and we can’t have any of that–it’s too hard. I’m disgusted by the whole thing, frankly.
@37 – That’s the direction our society/culture is heading: Celebrate mediocrity in spite of the realities, ignore the real problems, hold no one accountable and diminish the force.
I’m so glad I retired too.
[…] have corrected this immediately, before any of us hear about it. this goes along with the “The Army doesn’t Love Me Back” post I wrote the other day. It’s one of those things that Army doesn’t do well […]