Falcon Commander relieved
The Associated Press reports that yet another O-6 has been relieved. This one, Colonel Patrick Hynes was commander of the 2d Brigade, 82d Airborne Division, the famous Falcon Brigade;
A statement released by Fort Bragg on Wednesday said Col. Patrick Hynes was removed by the Division Commanding General, Maj. Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr. because of a loss of confidence in his ability to command.
A spokesman for Fort Bragg couldn’t be reached for comment.
I guess there’s something wrong with that particular generation of officers because they seem to be dropping like flies, and it’s all branches, not just the Army.
Category: Big Army
What in the holy hell are they putting in the water down there? Cannot wait to hear where he dipped his wick to get relieved…
Some serious discipline/leadership problems across the board in the Military right now.
Old Army officers and new Army Soldiers?
The people being relieved were taught and promoted by the people now firing them. So who is really to blame. The student or the teacher.
I agree with ANCCPT. It’s more about “who’s in charge” there is no more of “let’s talk about this”. The higher ups sends down the orders and you WILL do it. If you can’t, you WILL be replace. END OF STORY.
Unfortunately, he may have been relieved for doing his job. Take Gen X soldiers add a Command Climate Survey and the ball starts rolling. Add minoriries and females to the mix and watch out!
Generation X Soldier here. 😀 We’re the youngest of the Cold War Veterans, we’re currently retirement eligible, or have already retired… I’m eligible to retire but am not doing so. Most of us will be retired from the military in a few years.
Not only that, but we’re also the generation that are in command positions like the one above.
We’re the last of the old military. 😀
Sadly, we tried to fight to keep the old military school of thought in place… but lost to political correctness, touchy feely combaya, kinder gentler, etc, that ran over us like a tidal wave during the Clinton era.
Did you mean the Generation Y Soldiers and the millennials? 😀 They’re the ones that we had to adjust to instead of the other way around.
These firings began in the late ’90s, and have increased in numbers since then. In the above officer’s case, this may be a case where misconduct was involved:
http://www.militarycorruption.com/pathynes.htm
Gen Y is correct, my mistake!
I am a Gen Xer too, served all of my time in Clinton’s Army. I can confirm all of what thebesig said:.
I had written a novella length rant about that, but I decided to spare y’all. Suffice it to say that I agree.
That is all.
I agree. We are going the way of the dodo. When I took over my Platoon I had a Squad Leader the didn’t even know how to do a patrol base.
Yeah. (Age 44 here.) Whiners get taken seriously now. Hurt feelings are life-threatening injuries these days.
I want to know more before I say anything. ‘Loss of confidence’ doesn’t tell me anything. That’s a generic phrase that means ‘nothing further to say’.
Maybe his leadership skills were too good or not good enough. Maybe he hurt some low-level person’s feelings. Maybe he came to work drunk as a skunk. Maybe he pinched someone’s butt or got caught with his pants down. Or maybe he objected to dumbing down the military and other things that some people are reporting.
There are no details, so I wonder just what is really being hidden behind a news release smokescreen.
While I saw officers (back in the Olden Times) who were the poster children for poor or no leadership skills, they didn’t go very far. Is this report simply the tip of the iceberg?
The relief follows a misconduct investigation of some sort. No details have been released on it, so I’m guessing that it’s still on-going.
Hmmmm. Looks like it’s apropos to “stay tuned for future updates” on this one.
Indeed. Even the Spring Lake Mafia is mum on this one, so I’m thinking it’s pretty serious.
As an officer (admittedly AMEDD, but still an officer) I have to tell you that in my experience, the officers that get elected for commands and staff jobs are NOT the best people for the job. It’s all about how well they backslap, asskiss and schmooze. It’s why I’ll probably not make it past LTC, if they even let me back in after my stint in the IRR to go to grad school. I tend to insist on stuff like meeting standards, military customs and courtesies and just in general acting like professionals. “You’re being too hard, ANCCPT. Let this one go’. ‘We don’t really act all ‘military’ around here ANCCPT. It makes people uncomfortable’ ‘We can’t counsel him cause of his weight ANCCPT, cause he’s on a profile and plus he’s friends with the CSM, and that’ll get us nowhere’. Enough to drive you fucking insane if you try to do the right thing so it’s not the good ones that get picked up.
that’s the joy of being retirement eligible. I don’t care who I piss off! And I’ve accepted that I probably won’t get promoted any time soon, if ever.
I retire in 32 days. I am having a blast pissing people off.
ANCCPT, As an AMEDD officer your vote still counts. I have worked with some stellar AMEDD guys, expecially one of your brothers in Kuwait, a first rate officer. I must say in this particular instance I have to disagree you. The command selection process (outside of the medical world) has improved so much over the past 10 years that it is almost a different system entirely. Don’t get me wrong, it still has a long way to go, but the Army has removed a lot of the “good ol boy system” through a more centralized control board. As far as you getting back into the system, if the AC won’t take you back, please consider the Army Reserve in a TPU role or in the IMA program.
As for this guy, I’ll reserve judgement till the reports come out. The cynical side of me thinks he was being considered for a star and someone decided he’d rock the boat. The more cynical side of me thinks he did something that isn’t wasn’t in line with our values. Too bad; honorable career shut down early.
I agree in the former case, ANCCPT. If it was the latter, my sentiment is, “Good riddance. Should have happened earlier, but better now than when wearing stars.”
Relieved for allegations of misconduct after and investigation, those allegations must have some teeth for it to rise to the level of being relieved.
What comes next golden parachute to retirement?
VoV…Lemme get this straight. You’re saying his chances of O-7 are slim to none, that about it?
Even though “loss of confidence” is pretty generic, I’m thinking there must be something to the misconduct allegations. A normal change of command was already sceduled for July; there must have been something serious going on if his boss isn’t going to let him serve out his last couple of months.
Well, we’re at war and things that would have been swept under the rug during peacetime are career killers now. Combine that with the drawdown and it’s like the sinking of the titanic: Everyone who can get on a lifeboat will do so, and devil take the hindmost.
It’s all about being “comfortable” now, forget that the Army’s about imposing our will upon bad guys by blowing stuff up.
Stuff like the potential issue with the above Soldier tends to get swept under the rug during time of war. Come peacetime, that same stuff haunts people.
Unfortunately, we’ve been switching back to the garrison/peacetime mode for the past two to three years. Throw the drawdown on top of that and you’ll get “the stupid” factor increasing exponentially.
The same thing happened after the Soviet Union dissolved and we went into what people thought was a “new found peace period” and we went full momentum with the drawdown.
“The stupid” and the “zero defect” issues are going to get bigger as the drawdown continues.
Well, it may be something like he expressed an unwelcome opinion on Benghazi, or something like that. Release of further data is required before an intelligent opinion can be formed.
Considering what the military relieves for these days good luck to this guy.
Here is a good example of PC shenanigans affecting higher.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/04/23/army-colonel-suspended-over-insensitivity-claims.html
What (or who) did he do?
No word on that yet. Best I can tell, people who know seem to be unusually tight-lipped about what happened.
My bet is on/over a woman.
Maybe he didn’t braid his hair correctly.
As a member of his brigade, we certainly all had confidence in his command. I would not be surprised if this was the result of someone’s sensitivity and idea of political correctness which is destroying our army. AIRBORNE.
Since this came up I’ve been perplexed. Folks don’t survive the wickets to get this dream job and step on their crank (ok, there have been exceptions). I always dreamed of getting back to where I started, the 82nd Signal BN (ABN), just to serve with the legacy of NCO’s that shaped my Army experience (the Officers come and go).
All I can say is I served with him when he was a battalion commander and when he was falcon 6 and I have yet to serve a senior commander that instilled as much confidence as him in his safety brief as a Bn commander he was honest and as a BCT commander I would see him at the lowest level of training helping Paratroopers learn there job giving newer team leader and squad leaders advice. I think he was set to get hisstar and so someone didn’t want him rocking the boat.
It is because of a woman!
I was lucky enough to have served with this man. He was the best officer I have ever had the pleasure to serve with and is consindered I man I would follow to hell and back w/o question. I know what happened, it wasnt a womman, miscounduct or anything close to what has been sugested.It was trumped up BS and the 82nd loss. he is a great man, husband and father. He should be appointed to G.O.It is sad to see all this crap posted by poeple who dont know him. It was all polictal.
Honor Graduates hardly ever develop good units when they’re in charge! That’s my analogy of Army promotions, most of these guys are masters of themselves and how to manage their relationships with their bosses and the NCOs have learned this trend in another way! Nobody cares about the guy who’s actually good, and makes great units. I wonder what category he falls in? I thought the Falcon Bde was doing better than the others on Bragg, I guess we’ll have to see what this Cdr actually did, or what kind of environment he created or lack there of….etc. The Army’s hurting, badly!
You mean the Gen-Y and millenial soldiers who have spent the last decade fighting two wars? Easy where you toss the blame “Airborne”.
@SJ it happens all the time. I know of two guys who had spotless records till O-6, then got canned. Both for adultery. One was my old brigade commander in 2-1 Cav.
A lot of hot air being released by many who don’t know. I can’t speak on the allegations, but I can tell you that this Patrick Hynes was the real deal! I covered down on his brigade as an O/C at Fort Polk’s JRTC, then later served with him on the 1BCT staff in Iraq as a “filler.” I can say that then (LTC Hynes) and the brigade Commander, (then) COL Charlie Flynn were two of the finest officers I have served with in 31 years of Army service. STRIKE HOLD!
Just my 2-cents worth. During the last big Army drawdown (90-92 timeframe), a lot of LTs and CPTs were given early-out options. I saw a lot of good officers take it and run while many who knew their chances were better where they were, stayed. Not all of who stayed were the “cream of the crop”. It isn’t a least bit ironic to me that a lot of our senior officers who seem to be having “issues” are those who stayed in back then. The lesson will be repeated in 20 years after the results from the upcoming drawdown bear fruit. The good ones go and the others stay.
He learned from the best. His served as General Patraeus’ Executive Office in Kabul in 2011. Hynes was an ego-centric, arrogant, self absorbed, conceited, angry, moody, impatient, toxic leader. A real arse. What comes around, goes around I say. Glad to see the Army policing up its ranks and not succumbing to entitled “West Point” graduates. Good riddance.
You dont know shit about this man, yes he went to West Point but you would not know it if you met him. he was far from a ring knocker. Kabul Meister get your facts straight before you trash man or his career.