Chad McRee; Another Army colonel fired
Bobo sends us a link to the Army Times reports that yet another Army Colonel has lost his job because of shenanigans and stuf. This one, Chad McRee commanded the 16th MP Brigade of the XVIII Airborne Corps, at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. This one liked to smooch on his troops’ wives among other things;
McRee was accused of using “spies” and “moles” to dig for dirt about soldiers while in command.
Multiple officers said McRee would task them to report negatively on leaders, including the 503rd battalion commander. If they had nothing negative to say, McRee allegedly would respond with statements like “you owe me,” “I write your OER, not [redacted],'” and “Why are you afraid of [redacted]? He can’t hurt you, but I can!”
“(McRee) does not trust his subordinates,” one company commander said. “Before taking command of the (company, McRee) told me it was my duty to inform him of what people are saying about him [redacted] and to give him a “pulse” on the 503d Military police battalion (airborne).”
Meanwhile, the Navy Times published a list of Commanders, XOs and senior NCOs who have lost their jobs in the Navy just this year – you know, as if we need a program for the theatrics.
One thing I noticed is that 38% of the commanders fired were female (five of the 13 listed). I wonder how the social justice warriors in the Pentagon feel about that. Most of them were removed for a lack of professional and leadership traits. I’m sure it is something that can blamed on men, somehow.
Category: Politics
Great minds think alike. When I saw the Navy list, the first thing that I did was count the females. I’m sure that after they attend BUD/S, they’ll be GTG in the leadership department.
Exactly. Looks like they need to go out and find more females to fire so it is an “equal” 50/50%.
Fine by me.
I have no patience with this kind of crap. If they can’t behave, then they should go. That applies to BOTH women and men.
Get your tiny little minds on doing your job, not your co-workers.
I’m thinking they need to fire fewer to accurately represent their number in the force. Maybe hire a few back.
Sadly enough Jonn, there are probably committees in echelons above reality working on that very thing.
His move appears to be the struggle snuggle sealed with a kiss.
Wow.
He’s just emulating the Vice President.
That’s funny!
Sounds like McRee would be great as a politician in DC. Maybe he was practicing to run for office later?
Was anyone else at Bragg back in 2000ish when that Bde had like 30 folks busted for pissing hot? On top of that a good portion of those who pissed hot were selling and distributing drugs as I recall. First thing that popped into my mind when I saw this.
Every officer who found dirt on his peers and superiors abd served it up needs to be given a Moerk Medal and then summarily shit canned. Who, outside of the WH and Pentagon, would trust or want to work with or for any one of those self-serving weasel, rat bastards now?
Word.
Perfect time to make stuff up (about non-existent people).
“Sir, I hear LT Snert was masticating in the chow hall this morning.”
“Sir, I’ve heard that SPC Mazzola is a practicing thespian. Just last weekend she did it in public in front of hundreds of people!”
You left out the one about blowing bubbles in his car.
Hilarious!
Or Capt. Tuttle jumped out of the helicopter without his parachute.
If you get that reference you’re at least over 40.
I remember him.
Didn’t he leave his SGLI to the Padre’s orphans?
I think he did.
He did leave his SGLI to the Orphans.
Hotlips drooled!
He left a grieving fiancé stateside. I believe that her name was Elaine Ricci.
Blurph!!!
Sounds like there’s some rabbis or godfathers or whatever the top dogs pulling promo strings are called these days, need to be called out in front of a formation to be stripped and whipped too.
Those responsible for shit floating to the top need to suffer.
*snerk*
http://u5aq4437zm120nck735bj1c6.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/DavidFCastiglione.jpg
Real question is why was he allowed to rise this far? This behavior isn’t usually onset out of the blue .
He maxed his run, prioritized the FRG and was a jumpmaster. To some of the kool-aid drinkers on Bragg, that’s all you need to be an outstanding leader.
So true but not just Bragg. Duck deployments and have bull shit oers but if you can max the pt test its a strait run to 07. it now looks over leadership. I have served under so many toxic leaders in the last 8 years it is incredible. Quite a few went to West Point and their buds protect them.
West Pointers? Yeah, “Ring-knockers” are often a PITA group that act like some snotty college frat. I’ve served under some damn good Officers that were USMA Grads and I’ve also dealt with the “knockers” who think their shit doesn’t stink because of where they got commissioned, they’re a bigger PITA than many other “Good ole Boy” cliques that infest many a unit!
Serious question: Have you ever served in the military?
Not asking that to criticize, but because while McCree’s behavior might seem over the top to someone who hasn’t served with senior officers, those of us who have worked with field grade or general officers (I spent a lot of time in HQ units) know that this sort of behavior is not really that uncommon among senior leaders.
IOW McCree’s behavior might have been different from his peers in degree but not in kind.
Military officers (particularly those operating on deployments in other countries) are probably the closest thing we have to royalty in terms of their absolute control and in terms of their relative freedom from accountability.
The officers in the National Guard, that I worked under, could never be thought of us overbearing in “Royal” sense or anything remotetly like this fellow. Now on active duty I did hear once of a platoon leader who would use the speakerphone spy on everyone but didn’t think much of it at the time.
Guard. Not surprising on that part.
I’m active, in an HQ squadron, and this place is rife with that fuckery. I keep my Facebook set to a stage name, never use any of my social media or personal email anywhere that’s connected to a military internet line, and keep my coworkers out of life as much as possible, because about a year and a half back, that kind of fuckery started on the enlisted side of things, and I want these blue falcon ass motherfuckers NOWHERE NEAR anything of mine.
Is that so? That’s disconcerting to hear. I never had any problem with or heard anything about officers like that after my guard time was over either. Maybe I didn’t mean the right ones….. Even a turd can float as they say.
C. Long, a Military Unit typically rots from the top down, one of my AD units in the early 90’s is one fine example. When I PCS’ed there from overseas, a lot of the long-timers there talked about the good old days under that unit’s previous CO and 1SG who were leaders that cared about their Personnel. They were replaced by ticket-punching backstabbing politician types that cared about nothing other than advancing their own careers, morale and cohesion went down the sewer pipes as well as unit performance in general. Senior ranking types like McRee who view their commands as little more than their personal fiefdoms can ruin the lives of many people in no time!
I’ve just never seen it. All the units I served with varied from indifferent to great in terms of the leadership. Never what I would describe as bad. I reckon I got lucky.
That or you just weren’t around enough to see it. I’ve been in HQ capacities as well as plenty of time as a “Line Dog”, and I can tell you that from what I’ve seen first hand that some of the officer and SNCO political clique battles I’ve seen could make anyone see the entire US Army as one big political whorehouse!
I had an interesting perspective being NBC. I worked in all types of units (ADA, AVN, Artillery, Trans, Armor and others). It exists all over. Some is just more obvious than others.
That’s EXACTLY my sq in a nutshell, sounds like, ‘cept I was here when we had tops that cared. Then the flight supers got replaced with civvies for the most part, and I’m sorry but a GS-13/15/what the fuck ever should never be that high in a HQ comms squadron, because the rot happened quick here.
Reserve component (RC) officers and senior NCOs can’t really get away with that crap for two reasons: First of all because their subordinates are only under their UCMJ authority part time, and second because very few people make a “career” out of the guard or reserve which means that the commander’s ability to “fuck your career” rings pretty hollow. I think this makes these officers a little more “grounded.”
Obviously there have been scandals involving RC leaders, but they tend to be of the bribe/kickback/good ol’ boy variety.
“Toxic leaders” can’t really surive in an environment where their subordinates can basically quit or transfer to a different unit, which is the case with most RC personnel.
I must have been especially blessed.
I did serve under a few officers that I thought were asshats at the time, but with a heavy dose of 20/20 hindsight, I was the problem most of the time.
Otherwise, I had outstanding officers and senior NCOs. They’d look after us snuffies like we were blood family.
It depends on what “community” in the reserve component you are in.
The Civil Affairs community has more than their share of toxic / incompetent leadership. A few years back I used the NCO “support” channel to call out a commander because she lied, violated every army value, turned the unit into her own personal play-thing, etc. I got sent to Afghanistan (I wanted to go there anyway) and she got promoted. The 1-star that didn’t do a thing about the issues was promoted as well.
Its crazy to think that a flag officer would be afraid of an O-5, until that O-5 is identified as a female. Then all he worries about is getting his next star, not doing anything about the toxicity.
It was like that in the early 90’s as well after the Clinton Curse began. Past performance as well as abilities and competency went out the window and political correctness was enforced by law!
Yes, I saw quite well. I didn’t comprehend it as much because I was a lowly E-5, but it was very evident. Everyone was worried about getting a pink slip so they became suck-butt champions.
That makes sense. After the guard I didn’t really see anything like that either but perhaps I wasn’t paying close enough attention. I would have loved to see this guy or anyone else try to lay one on my wife though. FRG stuff was not her cup of tea.
Spot on…in a civilian work environment like my shop he’d be gone so fast there’d be skid marks where he’d been sitting. He might even have had charges filed to make sure his career was completely fucking ruined for being a shitbag lecher….
Additionally were it my wife and we were civilians, we’d both be in jail for a little fisticuffs…I’d smack the shit out of that asshole, with a bat if need be.
VOV: if you don’t think this kind of thing goes on in some commercial firms and/or civilian government agencies . . . you’re kidding yourself. Backbiting, double-dealing, internal spying, preying on spouses, you name it. And when it’s someone senior doing the deed, sometimes they’re able to get away with it as easily as a senior guy in the military – if not more so.
The only real differences are the degree of legal authority a senior military officer has over his/her subordinates and the ability for the subordinate to leave at will. But in terms of ruining a career and potential for abuse of authority, in a larger civilian organization otherwise the differences are minor.
And don’t get me started about senior union officials.
And don’t get me started about senior mafia officials.
There, I fixed it for you Hondo.
I always thought the military was heavily political (in the sense of ‘playing politics’, not Rep-Dem) but after working in private industry for almost 30 years, I realize my assessment was very naive. You ain’t seen politics till you work for a big company.
Dead on, Hondo. I live through this every day. My agency is special, though. It started out rotten from the middle and the rot spread outward in both directions. They’ve been trying to fix it for 14 years with no success.
“Military officers (particularly those operating on deployments in other countries) are probably the closest thing we have to royalty in terms of their absolute control and in terms of their relative freedom from accountability.”
There’s nothing that says “Royalty” like a 4 star General or Admiral. You can feel the power coming off of them. They can kill you with a stare. It used to crack me up to go to briefs by 3 stars given to the big boys. Every other word out of the 3 star’s mouth was “sir.”
I work on a brigade staff…CSM before I got here was relieved, and the one we had three years ago was as well. Decent guy, but he’d served well past his tolerance. Had a battalion CSM relieved recently for alleged offenses. Fortunately, the two BDE Commanders and BN COs have been STRAC.
I have a disdain for field grades regardless. Nothing personal, just “f’in business”, as my Drill Sergeant used to say. Since serving on staff I’ve learned that Majors and Master Sergeants are the two most corrupt ranks in the Army. Naturally, many of them go on to advanced CSM and General Officer ranks…
To clarify: Majors and MSGs are the two most corrupt ranks, but those that go on to more senior ranks multiply that corruptness.
I know this is your site John, and you can say whatever the hell you want, but I do not understand your need to disparage female service members in this piece?
Besides, there are far too many variables to determine if the higher rate of females being relieved is due to your implication that females on average a poorer leaders.
From what I have seen the problem is probably associated with the fact that male commanders tend to get a pass for being assholes and really have to be insane asshats to get relieved.
Where exactly did I “disparage” females, Lars? I guess “disparaging” means pointing out the facts of the discussion in your world.
It was the implication of your last paragraph;
“One thing I noticed is that 38% of the commanders fired were female (five of the 13 listed). I wonder how the social justice warriors in the Pentagon feel about that. Most of them were removed for a lack of professional and leadership traits. I’m sure it is something that can blamed on men, somehow.”
The implication you intended readers to recognize is that women were largely relieved for “lack of professionalism and leadership traits” and the rate they were relieved is roughly double the rate men were relieved; and thus the social justice warriors in the Pentagon” are wrong for believing women are equally capable of leadership.
If you meant something different in your last paragraph then I apologize but that is how I read the intended message.
Whatsa matter Larsie-parsie the candyassed Rudy-poo, did you run out of bong water to drink, thus you’re here spouting off for any attention you can get? GFY!
Much like C. long, he needs the attention.
No matter what the consensus, right or wrong, he will take the other side of the argument. It is the only way he is ever recognized.
Again, much like C. Long, he is like a graduate student. A handful of misplaced idealism in one hand and a few coins in the other.
Quickly dismissed and easily forgotten.
Gets old.
Yeah you’re right, but I couldn’t resist giving him a good stomping, I like the PT! 😀
No, you got it right, but my intention was to disparage the social justice warriors at the Pentagon. As I’ve said a thousand times, I’m all for women in the military, within their individual limitations, you know, like men. Equally, not on some sort of skewed playing field.
The implication, Larsie Limp-Dick, is that they were promoted to fill a quota, not because they were competent or worthwhile.
Yeah Lars. Until you’ve seen a flag officer cower down because of a female O-5, you have nothing to say about this.
Far too many dirtbag females use the fact that they are female to get away with whatever they want.
In Iraq our battalion commander was relieved because in 2005 he “talked” to two female officers because their lesbian behavior was becoming a distraction to the mission. They were violating regulations, but he got fired.
I could go on and on, but this is the world we live in. And these are the hands we’re given.
Thanks for the anecdotes. I worked in a division HQ and I have seen a flag officer have a very rough, career ending, interaction with a female. However, neither were innocent.
In fact, given the constant stupid cutthroat bullshit I saw in my time in service I am certain that women are not the problem. We should be removing the damn sociopaths of both genders.
And once again, we see Commissar appeal for the intercession of his Patron Saint, Our Lady of Perpetual Baseless Outrage.
Lars, had Jonn wished to make that point, he would have. He didn’t. The fact that he didn’t shows clearly you’re barking up the wrong tree here.
In fact, that point is obvious to anyone of average intellect or better. I’d have expected a “fine graduate student at UC-Berkeley” to have figured that out without being told. I guess UC-Berkeley’s admissions standards must have really slipped in the last 2 or 3 decades.
You seriously need to take the ideological blinders off. Start thinking for yourself – assuming you’re capable of doing so.
I don’t see the implication L. Taylor saw but I do see his inference clearly. He’s on his little radar screen looking, looking, looking for blips, anything to raise his I-spy-with-my-little-eye-a-social-injustice flag. Problem here is that blip he thought he found was a fire fly on his screen.
Its as if he thinks he’ll get an ARCOM for busting those of us with DD214s and Retirement letters or something.
What a maroon.
And what ol’ Lars has missed is that the OTHER 62% of females did not do that shit.
But that doesn’t fit the meme, does it?
Fortunately, I can vouch for the fact that there are plenty of women who do NOT use ‘I’m a girl, you can’t pick on me’ to get ahead. There are quite a few in the corporate world, in fact.
It’s just that 38% that make others look bad.
Apropos of nothing in particular …
According to CNN:
Of the total AD military force, females compose about 14% of the total force, about 14% of enlisted and about 16% of officers.
There are about 36,000 female officers and about 180,000 male officers for a total officer force of about 216,000.
Seems to me that relieving 5 of 36,000 is not statistically significant – that is 13.8 per 100,000 female officers.
Seems to me that relieving 8 of 180,000 male officers is not statistically significant. That is 4.4 per 100,000 male officers.
Problem is the numbers are so small as to be meaningless – relieving one additional female changes the rate from 13.8 to 16.6. Any number that sensitive to change doesn’t mean anything.
No doubt Real Soon Now we will be hearing from the SJW that there is something wrong with any institution who relieves a disproportionate number of females. Something wrong that can only be fixed by relieving more males.
The population of interest here isn’t “all military officers”. Rather, the population of interest is “military officers of the service concerned in the grade(s) of interest”. (An even better population would be “all commanders from the service concerned in the grade range of interest during the past several years”, but that data isn’t readily available.) That proportion varies substantially by service and by grade range. The list of Commanders relieved Jonn cited was from the Navy. It concerned commanders in the grades of O4-O6 that had been relieved of duty. In 2013 (latest figures I could find quickly), in the paygrades O4-O6 the Navy had 2,791 female officers – and 18,198 male officers. That means that only 13.3% of the population of interest – or a bit less than 1 in 7.5, or 2 out of 15 – was female. See page 18 of http://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2013-Demographics-Report.pdf Based on those numbers, one would expect about 2 of 15 Naval commanders in the O4-O6 paygrade range relieved would be female. That’s based on the assumptions that (1) the proportion of female Navy COs in the grades O4-O6 mirrors the proportion of female Navy officers in that range of paygrades, and (2) leadership skill is gender-neutral. The former assumption may or may not be valid. I believe the latter assumption to be true, but know of no practical way to test it. For a group of 13 Navy COs in paygrades O4-O6 relieved, that means (in whole numbers) about 2 would have been expected to be female. Since gender is binary (regardless of what anyone in the PC-crowd tells us) one can calculate the actual probabilities for 0, 1, 2, etc . . . using Poisson tables the binomial distribution if you like – but that would be overkill for this discussion. The actual number of female commanders relieved was 5. Unless females are literally 2.5x as likely to be selected for command as their male counterparts, that discrepancy between expected (based on demographics) and actual does seem significant. The reason for the discrepancy at this point is not known. An assignment as a… Read more »
I was told there wouldn’t be any math…
I blame our schools!
(Couldn’t help but finish the Madworld reference.)
Hondo and Jonn you worked a lot harder at this than it did … by the way, I am on your side but never mind about that … you might notice that your “2.5 times as many” is not hideously out of line with my “3.1 times as many”. While I used much sloppier data and a much larger population, the numbers come out roughly the same – that is somewhat comforting to me.
There are 2,791 female officers in your population. Five were relieved. That equals 0.17 percent – about 1 in 558. When thinking about using that number for prediction I find it amazingly small. One person in 550 gets promoted who fails and that is somehow a problem? What about the 550 who succeeded? This has the marks of a working system. What would I change to improve statistics like that without risking a much large breakage in some unexpected place? Everything can be improved but it seems to me that it would be pretty foolish to say that this system isn’t working.
I could invent all sorts of reasons for this difference based on my poor upbringing, social status (or lack thereof), age, gender (or lack thereof), shoe size, nose length, and so forth but I will restrain myself. Maybe someone has looked at this difference, done some analysis, and tried to explain why it exists. I would like to read that.
I think that none of us is as dumb as all of us. I will wait for some factual work instead creating an ignorant opinion, wrapping both arms around it, and hurling myself into the abyss. I say “don’t know means don’t know” and that unexplained differences are not always indicators of enemy action. Next year it might be twice as many or half as many and the difference would not be meaningful either.
Well, Richard – I’m pretty sure that all 2,791 female officers in the Navy with paygrades 04-06 during 2013 weren’t COs – nor were all 18,198 males. So the 0.17% figure you calculate is accurate but doesn’t really tell us anything meaningful. An officer who’s not a CO cannot be relieved of command To put it another way, the actual population we need to consider (as I noted above) is Naval COs in paygrades 04-06 during the period of interest – not “all officers”. Officers who are not COs should be excluded, because they’re not relevant to the discussion. Unfortunately, we don’t have that data – so we’re forced to assume Navy males and females are selected for command with equal likelihood, and that the fraction of female commanders in that grade range is thus equal to the fraction of officers who are female: 13.3%. That assumption may or may not be valid. I also clearly noted that fact above. FWIW: I got curious and ran the binomial numbers for the case at hand: 13 events with an event probability of 0.13297. Turns out the most likely result is actually 1 (31.2% of the time), closely followed by 2 (28.7% of the time). 3 and 0 were next at 16.1% and 15.6% of the time, respectively. 4 occurred 6.2% of the time. Cumulatively, 0 through 5 accounted for 99.59% of the probability overall – you got 6 or more roughly 0.41% of the time. 5 or more occurrences was extremely unlikely; that had a likelihood of a hair over 2.1% – or roughly 1 chance in 50 (4 or fewer out of 13 occurred almost 97.9% of the time). Yes, that could have occurred through random variation alone. But it should raise eyebrows, because that would be a very rare thing (e.g., a roughly 50:1 longshot). Again: that’s based on assuming that the fraction of female O4-O6 Navy COs is the same as the fraction of female 04-06 Navy officers, 13.3%. If the fraction of female COs in grades 04-06 is substantially different than 13.3%, the numbers would need to… Read more »
Gentlemen, please keep it civil. You’re killing us with Math….
Math is the epitome of civility. Contrary to popular belief, “!#%*” is NOT the mathematical notation for “GFY”. (smile)
See here young man! That 2,7xx number was yours, not mine! I am not above making shit up when I am trying to fool you but I used that number specifically because it was your number.
Please note, my entire point is that both of the numbers are too small to be meaningful.
Methinks we are off the main track here. I bow to your superior research and time to type. I have a job and my boss expects me to blog on my own time.
(sigh) Suit yourself. But one final observation before I “sign out” here.
You don’t seem to grasp the fact that the 2,718 and 18,198 numbers were only used to estimate the percentage of female Navy O4-06 COs due to the absence of better data. By themselves, those numbers mean nothing. I thought I’d made that clear above; apparently I hadn’t made that point clearly enough.
That percentage and the number relieved for cause is all that’s required to determine whether the number of females relieved is in line with what should be expected or not. Assuming a fair process and equal distribution of leadership skill by gender, relief for cause should be expected to be equally likely for both males and females. Thus standard binomial statistics can be used to determine expected values.
The best way of determining that percentage would be direct calculation. However, that would require knowing (1) how many total Navy 04-06 COs there were during the period of interest, and (2) how many of them were female. We don’t know that, so I used the next best estimate available: the percentage of females in the population from which the commanders were drawn.
Finally, a sample size of 13 is small – but not to small to identify a potential problem or perform valid analysis. Sometimes you only have relatively small samples like this. You’d want to repeat the trial if possible. Conveniently, that can be done here by analyzing the same data from previous and future years. Its entirely possible this was a one-time anomaly; it’s also possible that it’s not. We simply don’t know at this point.
But the fact that it occurred at all as a roughly 50:1 longshot flags it as something worth investigating further.
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Turd Bolling leadership 101.
Saw way too much WPPA (West Point Protective Association) and BOBs (Brotherhood of the Badge) in the day. Those are just a couple that I’m sure are alive and well in today’s Army as well. It’s a shame…
“Good ole Boy” cliques are always a pain in the ass as well.
Toxic leadership, male or female, is nothing new. Look no further than the Navy poster child for that, one Holly Graf.
Her issues were well known even at the Academy. Her tirades were legendary. But why was she promoted, retained, and given command (twice!) even after a well known pattern of conduct which would have torpedoed a man’s career long about the O-2 level?
Yup, fear of being labeled sexist, etc., enabled her to be promoted, to become someone else’s problem. E-8 Moerk is of much the same mold. Jump the CofC over Facebook posts? Here’s your ARCOM, have a nice day. Not one word about backstabbing your chain to get there.
We used to take care of issues (and people) before they could do real damage. Not anymore.