Military Morale Today
I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the Military Times family of publications. But on occasion, they manage to provide worthwhile military-related news.
Their website yesterday published an article titled “America’s Military: A Force Adrift”. The article is long, and I’m not going to try to summarize it here. As is often the case, IMO the Times here perhaps exaggerates things a bit, and accentuates the negatives.
Still, IMO the article seems fairly accurate – and informative.
Suffice it to say that it doesn’t really tell us anything most of here don’t already know. Short version: morale in the military has taken a major hit since 2009, for various reasons. Today, it’s in the toilet. And Soldiers/Sailors/Airmen/Marines expect things to get worse – almost certainly for good reason.
Recommended reading, and IMO definitely worth your time.
(Hat tip to the Drudge Report for pointing me at the linked article.)
Category: Military issues
We already saw this coming in the mid-2000s and I retired in 2007. Almost *everyone* who left after me or is still in my unit said I left at the right time. It’s getting worse and worse.
I had a Chief (E-9) who deployed to A-Stan on 2012 on his first in theater deployment, has such a difficult experience with the O Corps and international partners, that he announced his retirement 3 months after retiring. He was planning of going for 30 +. We were side by side for about 17/18 years. It’s bad.
OK, but when was morale ever “good?” Seems like the only time we ever hear about good times is in retrospective, i.e. through the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia. Morale is kind of like farming. You ever talk to a farmer? Either there’s not enough rain, and the crops are drying, or there’s too much rain, and the crops are rotting, or there’s exactly the right amount of rain which means everybody’s enjoying a bumper crop which drives prices down. There’s always something to complain about, always. In terms of morale, it seems like either the military is over-missioned and over-tasked, and people are being worked too hard, or it’s under-missioned and there’s not enough to keep everyone occupied so silly made-up missions are concocted. Either there aren’t enough troops which means that unqualified people are being promoted into NCO/officer slots, or there are too many troops which means that inevitably there will be good people kicked to the curb. I’ll bet every one of us has known “that guy”, you know, the one who gets to the new unit and immediately starts bitching about how messed up the new unit is and how “We didn’t do it this way back in CONUS/Korea/Germany/Saudi Arabia/Iraq/Afghanistan/Panama etc.” In the same way that the unit you were in 2 years ago seems better than the one you are in today, it seems like the “good times” are always those times far enough in the past that we have forgotten all the petty BS we had to go through then. So I’m not sure about the value of any kind of survey that purports to gauge “morale” as if it was some kind of concrete statistic. “Morale” can be synonymous with “mood” and that can change between wake up call, PT, work call, and final formation a dozen times or more. Instead of a survey that measures some amorphous, fuzzy subject like “morale”, I’d be more interested in seeing things that can be measured more concretely: Re-up rates, court-martial and Article 15 rates, desertion/AWOL rates, relief-for-cause rates, etc. THAT’S going to tell the story of… Read more »
Have to take issue with you here, martinjmpr. Been fairly closely associated with the military my entire life – even since before I joined. Even when not serving on active duty I’ve been in jobs that required frequent direct contact. So between the early 1970s and today, I think I can give a reasonable “10,000 ft aerial view” of overall morale in the military. Most of the 1970s? In the freaking toilet. The post-Vietnam drawdown followed immediately by the Carter lean years were a bigtime double-whammy on that score. “Hollow force” was pretty much an accurate depiction. Everyone knew that, and yeah – that hurt morale bigtime. Kinda hard to keep up morale when you don’t have the resources really to do much if the balloon “goes up”. That changed starting in the early 1980s. Having the resources to actually, you know, train – and having equipment that worked – worked wonders. The early 1990s seemed OK too – Desert Shield/Desert Storm were IMO overall pretty good times, morale-wise. (Winning a no-sh!t war kinda does that. [smile]) The Clinton years, in contrast, weren’t. They sucked – from my perspective, not as bad as post-Vietnam and the Carter years – but pretty badly. Same problem: “no bucks, no Buck Rodgers”. And everyone knew it. Plus, let’s just say that while everyone at least gave Carter the benefit of the doubt as CINC (he’d served), not everyone thought that well of Billy “I loathe the military” Clintoon as CINC. 9/11 flipped the switch again. Resources came back, and there were two honest-to-God shooting wars – which both went quite well initially (again: success breeds good morale, at least temporarily). Even when things went bad for a time in Iraq, the surge kept morale reasonable – because it worked, and we had enough resources to do what needed to be done. Even as late as 2009, things were still fairly good morale-wise. Then came the post-Iraq drawdown, coupled with the refusal to resource Afghanistan properly. Those hit hard; and at the same time, the Clinton-era questions of the CINC’s ability to, you know,… Read more »
Hondo, my military time pretty much parallels yours (1980 to 2005) and it seems to me that the only “common thread” is that every time a conflict ends – whether it be Vietnam or the Cold War or our current GWOT which seems to be drawing to a slow conclusion – there is inevitably a period of “letdown” within the ranks. All of a sudden, money becomes tight (where it used to be plentiful) and units are scrambling around to bite off a juicy and popular mission so they don’t fall victim to the budget axe. Otherwise decent NCOs and officers are shown the door where previously they would have been retained, even if they couldn’t make tape or had a DUI. Opportunities for advancement diminish or disappear altogether. It’s happened after every war (I think Ike was a Major for something like 15 years between the World Wars?)
But the “good old days” weren’t always that good. I seem to recall during the height of the Iraq war, for instance, there was much furrowed-brow concern about “troop burnout” after multiple deployments, inadequate equipment or equipment not getting to the troops who needed it, rampant waste and abuse, sub-standard performers being kept in the ranks to keep numbers up, etc etc.
Or as Roseanne Rosannadanna liked to say “It’s always something.” 😉
The error is not in saying these things aren’t happening, the error is in assuming that there was some mythical time in the past that was better, some mythical “perfect era.” There never has been and there never will be.
Measuring “morale” without quantifying it into something objective is like asking “how high is up?” or arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin – you can make the numbers say whatever you want them to say.
When the president is a Republican, you can bet the Dems will be howling about how the Prez has disemboweled/over-committed/misused the military, and when the prez is a D you can bet the Republicans will do the same thing.
The lack of traditional military vision and purpose is eclipsed by the never-ending drumbeat of messages/mandatory training about sexual assault, suicide prevention, alcohol abuse, resiliency, racial sensitivity, political correctness, wear your seat belt, don’t beat your wife, don’t steal from the government. It makes military life unbearable. After a while, you get the impression that the military is a depressed child with anti-social tendencies in need of supervision rather than some of the finest citizens our country has produced.
Today, an officer no longer selects the best qualified soldier to lead the mission. He or she has to pick the one who won’t file an IG complaint for discrimination. Even a mere investigation without derogatory findings will be a career ender for a JO.
A Command can’t have a morale event without risking a serious command climate accusation today. If a sailor or soldier files a complaint about sexual harassment against another soldier or sailor, the accused (who took the sexual harassment training and knows how to game the system) will get his buddies to say that this sort of behavior is normal at the command in order to save their own asses. Ultimately, the Command will face allegations that the end their careers.
And God help an officer who tells two gay members to stop kissing while in uniform (as he would with two heterosexual members.) Or what happens when the Air Force asks you what your opinions on gay marriage are?
Then, for political gain, Sen. Gillibrand has done her level best to make it seem like the military is a hotbed of rape and sexual assault.
It’s no wonder good people are heading for the exits. The military has become a social experiment for the politicians.
Adirondack: With the exception of a few specifics like the gay marriage issue, your comment could have been written in 1995 or even in 1985.
My point: ’twas ever thus. There’s always something to bitch about. 😉
Martinjmpr…My first, last and only “bitch session” about something to anyone with authority was with my Top. It resulted in him listening to me quietly and then saying, “You done now son? Here’s what I got for ya about all that. ‘A bitchin’ troop is a happy troop’. Now get the hell outta here and back to your duties ASAP.” From then on, all my bitching was kept to myself or amongst those of similar rank.
Here’s what I want to know. In the article, a Captain with 19 years of service, and a prior enlisted service O3E paygrade is giving us a sob story about how he’s scrimping to get by.
Let’s look at his take home pay before taxes:
BAH for Stafford, VA(the article lists his home location as Stafford, VA): $2307 with dependents
Basic Pay for O3E: $6,726.01
This is before taxes and doesn’t even add in BAS (if he qualifies for it)
Tell me, how are you needing to “scrimp” and “use coupons?” Do you know how to budget? Seriously. I don’t believe this guy’s financial situation, unless he made a lot of stupid credit choices earlier in his career. He must be spending money like Scarface or MC Hammer to be so broke he’s needing to cut coupons to save on groceries.
Can anybody else enlighten me on how this cat is so broke with his sob story?
I agree; however, you underestimated his family’s income. BAH for an O-3E stationed at the Pentagon is $2868–tax free, of course. His wife, a Reserve 1SG, would be bringing in $527 in drill pay if she fast tracked and only has 8 years in; as a 1SG I wouldn’t be surprised if she earns a little extra pay working extra drill periods to take care of her Soldiers. Not to mention the $4500/year TA she should be receiving to offset her education costs.
He saved $1000 a month by moving to Stafford? Hell, my rent in Alexandria was only $1140 when I left in ’08 ($940 when I first arrived in ’04). That put me 12 miles from Fort McNair and maybe 10 from the Pentagon and Fort Myer. Sure, it was an apartment, but the management company was recommended by MDW and a nice townhouse could be had a little further south for not much more. Reading into the article, he owns a house near Fort Hood, two of his four kids still live with him, “and both parents’ cars are paid off”–so can we assume that they financed a car or two for the oldest kids?
The quote from the SSG at HAAF could be my own: “I don’t have to go without food or anything like that, but I don’t like to live paycheck to paycheck. Basically everything I do from one month to the next is all covered, but by the end of the month the paycheck is gone.” I’ll trade the good Captain my income for his. I’ll keep my five kids (all at home), vacant house (which consumes nearly all of my BAH), and stay-at-home spouse, though.
Sorry to harp on a single example from the story, but CPT Wolford does seem to be exaggerating just a bit, unless he is even worse than I am with money and credit.
I didn’t think I was the only one who couldn’t believe this guy’s penny-pinching. Tally up CPT Wolford’s total salary (to include BAH) before taxes and the guy’s making six figures. Two cars are paid off and his wife is bringing in drill pay. Two of his kids are out of the house, but may require some support now and then.
His story still doesn’t add up. Six figures and you’re worried about pinching pennies by using Redbox and coupons? What is he doing with all his income? Going on a vacation via a luxury leerjet to Dubai and staying in 5 star resorts for 3 weeks at a time once a season?
I thought I was rich when I was making $36,000 a year. Rich. I was frugal, but splurged on dates with my wife and an occasional shopping trip to places like Burlington Coat Factory (a discount store at that!).
If you’re making six figures like CPT Wolford and you can’t live an AMAZING lifestyle with that kind of disposable income, you’ve got some issues.
Well, two things that come to mind as possibilities are “child support” and “alimony”. If I recall correctly, those come out of post-tax net, not pretax gross.
You’re also leaving out taxes – which due to our nonlinear income tax scheme (thanks, “progressives”) takes a much bigger bite out of someone making around $75k/year taxable than someone making $36k/year taxable. (The BAQ and BAS are non-taxable.) And unless he’s buying a house or condo there, he’s probably not getting any major tax deductions.
Plus, if I recall correctly Safford, VA is a pretty high-rent area (it’s about 30 mi or so south of DC in NoVA). It’s an outlying commuter area for the DC metro area. Not sure you’re going to cover rent and utilities on O3E BAQ for a place that’s worth a damn there if you’ve got a family.
Dunno if that’s what’s going on here. But if it is, those three could certainly tighten up the guy’s financial situation bigtime.
The old saying goes,”There’s only two good outfits in the service. The one you just came from and the one you’re going to.”
From the article:
“From July 8 through Aug. 7, 2014, Military Times conducted a voluntary, confidential survey of readers…the voluntary nature of the survey, the dependence on e-mail and the characteristics of Military Times readers may affect the results. Statistical margins of error commonly reported in opinion surveys that use random sampling can’t be calculated for this survey.”
In other words: the entire article is based on bullshit. Well, not the entire article – the stats about pay and bonuses are valid; and the months of in-depth interviews have value. But the opinion numbers are, by definition, meaningless. The only opinions they reflect are those of the writers, and folks with something to bitch about.
The CPT profiled must have a lot of debt. I live just fine on my O-3 compensation. My wife is a homemaker and my daughter is in her first year of college. We are the best compensated army in history. People just like to bitch. I own both my vehicles and I am fast track paying off my house near the Puget Sound.. The trick is spending less than you make….
If we really want to measure “morale” we’ll look at things that can, you know, actually be measured like the % of officers and NCOs who choose to stay on active duty vs. going out into the civilian sector, because it’s not what people say in an anonymous Military Times survey, it’s what they DO that shows where their “morale” is.
Has there been an increase in insubordination, drug abuse, article 15s, court-martials, percentage of military members “chaptered out” for misconduct or failure to meet the standards? If there truly was a “morale crisis” then you would expect to see all these things, wouldn’t you? You would also see a general decline in the quality of recruits as the military lost prestige in the eyes of the civilian community (as was the case in 1980 when I enlisted and the reaction of a lot of people in my suburban, middle-class neighborhood was “Why? Can’t he get a REAL job?”)
I want to see the numbers. Without those an article like the one in military times is nothing but opinion – meaningless.
I do just fine, thankyouverymuch, on my E7 pay…why? Because my wife and I live within our means. Those who bitch about compensation need to evaluate their spending habits and realize that with things like housing and health care being paid for that they are doing pretty well. Dont like it? Jump into the civilian job market and see how you do.
As for morale itself among the troops, I think it sucks. But morale among the first 4 ranks is typically bad, as they almost always would prefer to be at orgies, listening to Mick Jagger music and badmouting their country…
I always listen to their gripes if I have time…and then ask them how they would fix it. Sometimes I get good input back, other times I just get blank stares.