The Pentagon wants to hire officers off the street
The Military Times reports that the Pentagon wants to hire civilians who have never been in the military off of the street in pay grades as high as O-6 to fill positions in career fields focused on cyber warfare and space;
Some military officials fear that the demand for cyber operations is such that there’s not enough time for the services to grow their own cyber force from the ground up. Under the military’s traditional personnel system, it might take more than a decade to cultivate the cyber capability that the Pentagon needs, some officials say.
Currently, by law the Pentagon is limited to use lateral entry for chaplains, lawyers, doctors and dentists, and even for those career specialties, lateral entry is capped at the O-4 paygrade, or the rank of major and, in the case of the Navy, lieutenant commander.
Of course, the Navy and Air Force are fully on board.
The Navy, more than any of the other services, has pushed aggressively to expand lateral entry. Navy officials say it will help fill critical needs in existing career fields — but also to build new capability quickly in the event of a full-scale war.
“Right now the one we’re focused on is the cyber [community] because that’s the immediate need,” said Vice Adm. Robert Burke, the chief of naval personnel. “But we want this authority in place … because we want to be responsive when the need comes — we don’t want to start writing policy the minute we discover we need it.”
[…]
The Air Force is open to the idea of expanding lateral entries, particularly for people with cyber skills. “We’re still exploring it,” Brig. Gen. Brian Kelly, director of military force management policy, said during an interview in May. “We are looking at similar programs to what the Navy is talking about.”
An Air Force spokeswoman at the Pentagon added that lateral entries could have a positive impact on the culture. “We certainly see opportunity to create the kind of ‘ventilation’ and influx of ideas and talents that the secretary of defense has previously discussed,” Capt. Brooke Brzozowske wrote in a statement to Military Times.
Once, I was in an infantry battalion stationed on an Air Force base and there was definitely a clash of cultures. But, more importantly, you’d think that Edward Snowden would be an example of such a hiring process gone awry.
Thanks to HMC Ret and brian for the link.
Category: Big Pentagon
If implemented, this will not end well.
I am old enough – barely – to remember some of the issues with Army medical personnel (doctors for the most part) during and for a few years after Vietnam. Many came in via the direct appointment route after medical school. Most were fine doctors but a rather large number were abysmal soldiers who didn’t know jack about military operations. Nor did they care to learn.
There’s a mechanism already in place to gain such needed expertise while the military develops in-house talent. It’s called “hiring DoD civilian employees with the requisite expertise and skills”; physical requirements can be tailored for the position. Same security requirements, and civilians can also be required to deploy. Give a hiring bonus (or train them at govt expense), and you can at least partially protect against people leaving shortly after being hired (due to recovery of bonus/PCS costs/training costs).
Right there with you Hondo. I can’t think of a single reason why they need to do this. While there are some limited things a uniformed person can do/order to be done vs a DoD civilian, most of it isn’t relevant in these mission areas and for the ones that are applicable it would easier to have them advise an officer and let them give the order(s)
-Ish
Back in 1974 while a young pharmaceutical rep in New Orleans, I walked into this pediatrician’s office one morning and he was in a very good mood. He’d just been accepted into the Air Force’s Pony Express program that granted experienced physicians O-6 rank. The guy was almost giggling that he had never been higher than PFC in his prior service and now he was going to be a full colonel.
Shortly after, I went into the company’s military sales department where I encountered this guy at a military medical conference in Washington. Instead of using him as the very good pediatrician he was, the Air Force, in all its military wisdom, had instead made him a hospital commander, a man with neither leadership nor administrative experience and they put him in charge of a hospital full of other physicians at a mid-size base.
A few years after that I learned he had been booted from his position as hospital commander at an even larger AF hospital in California and busted out of the Air Force entirely.
And therein lies the problem. The military doesn’t just use people like this in their civilian specialties; it tries to make these square pegs fit into the round military holes of promotion schedules and job slots. If they’d simply use them as specialists and leave them out of leadership positions, I’d really have no problem with such a program, but I fear the military will never be able to do that.
We’re dealing with this same issue in the State Guard. Doctors, nurses, lawyers, chaplains, and engineers coming in as “professional skills officers”, 01-04 (depending on education level). Highly skilled, highly trained in their professions, but in no way are they ready to take command of even a platoon or serve as a staff officer. Some go on to take PME and make an effort to learn the military side of things; others, not so much. Not only that, but the demands of their civilian jobs often preclude them from functioning adequately as commanders or staff officers, even if the willingness is there.
Agreed. I worked for a USAR Medical Command for three years and two Battalion Commanders were relieved in that timeframe. They had succesful civilian practices but were wholly unqualified to lead units of that size and structure.
How would this even work? I’m confused. Would these people have to run through basic? How do you “hire” someone in at O-6 who will likely be in their 30’s or 40’s and expect them to have even a clue about culture, etc.? Wouldn’t it be easier to just create a civilian corps similar to the GS-scale? Who the fuck let the Good Idea Fairy out?
This isn’t as new as it sounds, as its how the Army (and to a lesser extent the Navy) handled wartime expansion/mobilization from 1775 to WWII.
The last time I can find it having been used outside of the medical field was for Joseph Carroll, who was brought into the Air Force as a temporary O-6 in 1947/48 to establish the Air Force Office of Special Investigation. He later developed the Air Force IG and became the DIAs first Director.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Carroll_%28DIA%29
(Bush 43 was going to use the temporary direct promotion authority for the initial judges in Guantanamo, but it was sidetracked.)
I’ve got move questions than answers at this point (what about former/retired members who gain special skills, or who were retired because we didn’t their skills at the time)?
FWIW, One of my neighbors is a former officer I served with early in my career when he was an LT. He left the service, went into private industry in the IT field, later worked for several intelligence agencies in IT, and now is a senior executive responsible for security for a Microsoft. I would feel more than comfortable with someone of his caliber returning to the service as an O-6 or higher if it was in a cyber related role (not sure how he would feel about getting his pay cut by 55% though)
They just go to OIS.
I hear there’s a sign-up bonus for Muslims and transgenders, too.
Nail. Head. Direct Hit.
The Politburo has been cleansing the officer corps of independent thinking warriors for years. Now it is time to start seeding it with political officers and useful idiots who will more easily comply with Dear Leader’s guidance.
Some animals are more equal than others.
Ho Lee Fukk
They already do it with physicians…but they function as…physicians
Yep. That’s what happened to me. I applied for a job at an Army facility in Washington, DC that combined computer imaging work and forensic pathology.
They called me back and said they liked me but they would only hire me as a commissioned officer. I asked why. The answer was basically that they wanted to make sure that I had signed away all my rights. At the time (around 1990), there was a big difference in what happened to you if you did things like talk out of school, criticize the President, or screw up on a security issue. Civilians also had a few more rights when it came to deployments; once I put on the uniform I found myself in a few places I hadn’t planned to go. As a civilian, I could have quit. As an Army officer, I pretty much had to do what I was told and suck it up.
So, I walked into Officer Basic as a CPT and walked out as a MAJ.
Works for me, as long as they’ll accept retirees not as recalls. I’d love the bump to O-6, and I already have most of the Navy cool guy O-6 awards to pin on my uniform.
Stupid.
Most lateral entry Officers were soup.
Mostly competent in their fields, but still fucking soup.
Not only zeros, but Chief Petty Officers as well.
A CHIEF? with absolutely no sea time or other deployment type? A Chief that has never been TAD to the mess decks or ship’s laundry?
A Chief that has never been through the ranks as an enlisted man? A Chief that cannot help guide a JO through his first tour? (Because he knows less than the JO)
I’m gonna go home tonight and wrap myself tight in my DD-214 Woobie.
http://www.navytimes.com/story/military/2016/06/19/navy-forges-ahead-plan-hire-civilians-chief-captain/85877884/
Yeah, I just checked out that article. I suspected that the Flag supporting this for cyber was Jan Tighe. I was in that community and her supporting this is not a surprise.
She just don’t get it and never did.
If I am not mistaken, they did the same thing with Navy SeaBees during World War 2. It was a recruiting method to get skilled men to give up “draft exempt” jobs to enlist for essentially the same job in uniform.
I can certainly understand why a senior skilled person, with 10-20+ years of experience of leading teams of other skilled workers might balk at being called “Private” and being told what to do by a 2nd LT with no experience at all.
I had forgotten about the SeaBees as an example.
The Army still has the regulation on the books to do this, and has possessed the authority to execute direct appointments since the 9/11 National Emergency was declared in September of 2001.
http://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/pdf/r601_50.pdf
If I was Congress, I would be very skeptical in granting DOD new authorities, since it didn’t bother to run a test program with the authorities it already possessed.
Please Do not even compare my Hard Scrabble no non-sense Brethren with some nose picking computer turd millennial.
That is Apple Computers to Dump Trucks.
I am pretty sure that rank abuse would tend to be used by someone feeling pretty Entitled to begin with.
I say if they are going to do that, bring back the technician or specialist ranks, at least on the enlisted side.
I really liked how they were worried that the current pay scale wouldn’t be giving an O-6 with one year of service as much as an O-6 who spent 20-30 years of his life earning it. Or the millenial west pointers who dont like the current promotion system.
Let me see if I truly understand this. The DumbOldDoofi in WDC realized (suddenly) that they’ve been ditching people who were highly talented and well-trained in exactly those skills (cybergeek tech nerd stuff), and now they need to replace them.
They finally figured out that they were wrong.
Okay. When I quit giggling, I’ll let you know.
If memory serves, this was done during WW II for people with specific skill sets but in non-leadership positions. Not that I am advocating it, but the Army could resurrect all the specialist ranks and tech sergeants. One advantage over hiring them into military ranks vice as civilians is they would be under military rules and you could actually fire them when they don’t perform to standard unlike most government civilians. That said, I do think it is a bad case of the good idea fairy flying around with his magic wand of stupidity. Someone needs to swat that Muldoon.
When I was going through LDO indoc, I was walking out of the school building a full commander walking towards this boot brown bar. I was just about to snap off a salute, when lo and behold the commander saluted me! Along with a cheery “good morning, sir!”
He must have been thrown by the rack of ribbons I was wearing.
Guess that’s our future.
Why don’t they just ramp up the Green-to-Gold program to snag some of those little hackers coming in as Privates?
Or for that matter, send cyber recruiters to DEFCON in Vegas this August. Oh wait, they do that already… or they did…
Next thing you know there will be posers claiming they were hired right out of a barroom.
Oh, wait….
Joe Cryer was recruited by SEALs in a video arcade and went straight to the teams without basic training or BUD/S because he excelled at Donkey Kong according to him, anyway. The VA believed him.
He must’ve watched, “The Last Starfighter.” That was a cool movie, so cool that Joe Cryer twisted that to a game of Donkey Kong, which sent a signal to the SEAL recruiter that they had SEAL team material in the arcades, they better hurry up and get him… 🙄
And of course there was Sticky Bums Reynar.
Sitting in a bar one night in Butte, MT as an underage illegal Canuck and was in Vietnam as a Marine the next day.
Damn, those Marine Recruiters from back in the day sure knew their stuff./smile
I’ll just wait for the recall letter to show up in the mailbox.
Yeah, let’s give some neckbeard hacker with 5 terabytes of porn in his system colonel’s birds and put him in charge of people! Give him some lawful authority over female subordinates. With the sexual misconduct scandals already surrounding so many senior officers, I’m sure there won’t be any more problems there!
I don’t have to be a veteran to be able to see that is bullshit.
I know what’s really going on. Some of our glorious leadership wants to bring in some of their friends and family into the military, without having to put the years in.
I have sadly heard some doofos saying, “oh, i wish i had someone as smart as you under my command”.
Just my two cents.
Did one of Joe Biden’s sons take the fast track to a mid level Naval Officer commission only to be booted when he pissed hot during his in-processing?
This has a long historical precedent.
It is not how the military has operated in the last few decades but prior to the volunteer force these kinds of high grade appointments were not uncommon.
Just because you’ve always done it that way doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
I am not saying it is a good idea. I don’t think they should be brought in higher than 0-3. They do that with economists now as well.
The problem appears to be that none of the senior officer corp are capable of managing highly technical cyber warfare operations. Or effectively advising commanders how to do so.
However, bringing senior officers in off the street will create its own problems that I think outweigh the benefits.
Army Recruiting SSG in Chicago in the late 70’s. For medical care went to the US Public Health Service facility a couple blocks from my office. My Dr. heard about shopping on base and I knew they were eligible to shop so I offered to take her to Great Lakes Naval Training Center. When I picked her up I was surprised she wore her USPHS khaki uniform with her “chickens” on the collar.
Walking to the Exchange we walked by a platoon of “just shorn” recruits. Their CPO called them to attention, did an about face and saluted her. All this 0-6 could think of doing in response was wave at them and say “hello boys”. I gave her a short lesson in saluting when we were out of their sight.
I guess there is no longer a Civil Service for hiring civilians.
..or hiring contractors.
There actually are some Law of Armed Conflict issues which impact can impact what a contractor or civilian can do. Just like contractors and civilians don’t fly armed drones.
Heaven forbid that a major emergency happens in this country to where the state governors have to activate members of the unorganized militia. But, if something like that were to happen, the already appointed cadre of unorganized militia officers won’t be enough to manage the new activated militia body. Instead of everyone being activated as privates, people are going to be positioned into the higher paygrades based on experience, age, and other combination of factors.
Funny, one of the more famous conscription cases heard by the Supreme Court was Butler v Perry (240 US 328 [1916]), which actually concerned a requirement under the Militia Clause and various state laws for able bodied men to work on state road maintenance crews.
There was a change, in one of the southern states, to attempt to refocus that state’s defense force from basic soldiering to doing things related to emergency response. More like addressing natural disasters or the aftermath of a terrorist attack, and not the “Bang Bang” stuff that many joining the state defense forces expect to do.
On a more local level, one city could “deputize” citizens to direct traffic at intersections, instead of using them for the “bang bang” portion of police work.
In an emergency involving repelling an invasion, restoring law and order, putting down rebellions, etc., the militia law would add more bodies to the existing state defense forces.
In areas of the country where large scale natural disasters are a significant possibility (Pacific NW Earthquake, Katrina level hurricane) its probably not a bad idea.
I was in the Seattle area a few weeks ago when State of Washington, DOD and FEMA were having their large Cascadia Earthquake response drill. The one question I was left with was, “Aren’t all of these units practicing here going to be in ground zero of the event; and therefore be less able to respond that outside units?” Much of the Katrina response had to come from outside the state, IIRC, due to the size of the zone of devastation.
Not all of the units, we sent two helicopters from Tucson to that exercise (and also supported the Katrina rescue operation).
Yea it did. Surrounding states sent police, troopers, firefighters and rescue teams. And, IIRC, Blanco told Perry Texas state troopers, police, fire and EMS, TxNG personnel HAD to sign up for the LaNG before they could enter HER state. Worked my ass off on that and Rita. 🙂
Unless they are Federalized, that’s a legal hoop that likely has to be jumped for authority and liability reasons.
I’m very surprised the Army can’t find enough Signal officers to fill the ranks. Most Signal officers I’ve known and worked for after 2000 or so would’ve jumped at chance to work in cyber warfare. Recruiting command may need to offer a college loan payback program to fill the enlisted gaps.
They need to offer way more than paying back college loans. The BEST people will not put up with all the military bullshit, if they can even make it through MEPS and the background checks. The GOOD people might, but not for the pittance of an E-4 salary when they could be making $100k+ just a few years after college. Maybe a significant sign-up bonus might help here. If anything, I think they need to recruit these people as warrant officers: people who are excellent in their field, but don’t have to put up with too much military bs or management.
So the newly minted 24 year old, MS in Computer Science down the street who weighs a buck-ten soaking wet is ready, if need be, to pick up a weapon and defend his post? Right. I am only assuming they will have to at least go through some measure of boot camp. More than just, “Okay, Gentlemen, that concludes your UCMJ briefing. Now to the important matters. The O-Club is on Sixth Avenue, the PX is three blocks down from there and you will be assigned your quarters after this briefing. That is all Gentlemen and welcome to the military!”
Isn’t that what the Air Force does already?
Is there another plan that’s better to lure a top quality candidate?
With all the lies the military tells about compensation and benefits lately what idiot would leave a quarter mil salary where their ass is kissed all day long by an employer for the joys of being told what to do, when to do it and where to do it for half pay or worse?
My step-kid has a job like this in NYC, the company has weeknight drink nights after 5pm on premises with entertainment, paid travel vouchers, ridiculous health care coverage, tickets to sporting events in box seats at Barclay’s, Yankee Stadium, etc…they even rented a theater to show Star Wars before the general public could see it for the nerds in their IT department…what kind of cyber worker leaves that for the rigid military system and less pay? My daughter left Air Force intel for a job paying far more than she’d ever learn in the military, paying for school for two kids and looking at nice homes in good communities is a whole lot easier when you get paid a nice fat 6 figure salary.
If it isn’t attractive to the workers with the skill sets you need, you won’t get them. These kinds of workers on the civilian side don’t need the military in any way shape or form, if they can’t do what they want to when they want to and how they want to the military is going to need to really consider other options.
This is probably not the best option available, but I understand the concern that the guys on the outside are smarter than the guys on the inside. Especially when there’s not much chance the guys on the inside are going to catch up any time soon because the military has a bad habit of fucking people regularly and the news is getting out. So somebody should come up with a plan, and one that’s better than this.
Damn skippy. As proud as I was of being an enlisted Marine and doing Marine things, the bottom line is that I was treated like an enlisted Marine. “Hey, drop your MOS skills and go be a used car salesman er I mean recruiter for 3 years because we told you so.” “You’re going to get screamed at by powertripping douche bags and like it because there’s a rigid rank structure.” “I hope you like unpaid overtime, because the CO needs it for his promotion to LtCol.” No fucking way I could make a career of that nonsense despite hitting E-6 in under 8 years.
Well that and I did far more relevant work as a contractor than I ever did in the military.
I second that. When I left the Navy in 1974 and found a job in Chicago, my pay was 250% of what I’d been paid by the Navy. Why in the hell would anyone with any sense go back to something that doesn’t pay squat, never mind the social aspect of it?
I’m in favor of a body snatch approach to filling the personnel need in cyber crap.
It’s not like hackers are real people. They’re nerds who’ve gone rogue. Fuckers hack into other peoples’ stuff just for shits and giggles. Let the rest of us get some payback.
Snatch them. Make them slick sleeve privates. Confine them to their duty station with chains. If they misbehave, don’t feed them.
With all due respect, but you don’t know jack shit about hackers, their culture, or even, it appears, basic human rights.
Yes, what a great idea! Let’s not only kidnap people, convict them without trial, and sentence them to military service. No, let’s also put them in in front of sensitive systems and force them into labor! Yes, I’m sure the deprivation of their basic liberties will act as a great motivator.
May you fellate a cactus and choke on it.
Lighten up, Francis.
This, at least on the surface, just sounds like crazy talk. What possible advantage, to either the individual or the military, is there in making highly skilled technicians who would do most of their jobs in a comfy office somewhere stateside into members of the military? If their skills are so special, why should those valuable skills be cluttered up with stuff like military bearing et al?
Had a family member who was the WWII equivalent to this. He remained a civilian employee with the occasional short trip to fix something, install something else, or tweak things in harm’s way, but otherwise was designing and planning stuff.
Are cyber guys really required to be in theater? Often enough to become military members? Sure, docs and chaplains need to be close to or at the front. Not even certain that JAGS need be these days.
Sounds like an excellent reason to revive the old specialist ranks, maybe merge the officers into the warrant officer structure. Mr. Technowhiz is valuable – make him a WO1 grade 8 where he collects a fat paycheck but doesn’t ‘command’ crap but a paycheck. If he says in and amazingly turns out to be worth a damn for anything but software, maybe by the time he’s a CW3 or CW4 you let him actually lead, otherwise he stays a WO1 or 2 and just collects grade bonuses. Sorry to all the good warrants out there – but it’s workable.
WAIT. Maybe they will recruit those “Call to Duty” RPG players. LOL
Just let me know when the military decides that they require the skills of a Vice President of a proud woman owned company that sells software to the Federal Government. Then he could use that military discount at Home Depot to buy a mailbox with a door.
To be fair, Edward Snowden was a contractor, not a government civilian.
A lot of it has to do with the fact that “it’s all about who you know.” Also, the nerdy HR people have a bias for hiring other people that came in through the system the same way that they did – that is to say, no military background and lots of college.
Story time. So, I worked as a mid-level contractor at DIA. I worked with a guy who was a junior contractor. Both of us put in for a government civilian position at that agency.
My credentials: 10 years of relevant experience (mostly overseas, some austere some not so austere environments), active clearance, 5 point veterans preference, masters degree in international relations (got it online while working full time and it was regionally accredited).
His credentials: 6 months of relevant experience as a contractor, active clearance, no military experience, masters degree in homeland security from a brick and mortar.
Guess who got the interview? Not me. I later found out that not only are the majority of DIA employees not military personnel, most don’t even have military experience. Yet for some reason I guess they are deemed more qualified because they went to George Mason or whatever. How’s that for your nation’s “military intelligence agency?”
It hasn’t gotten better.
The Agency is now not taking in any lateral accession, so if your an experience retired E-8/W-4/O4+ they don’t care about your 20+ years of experience, you can come in as a G-7/8 and try to work up the ladder.
Political Patronage (hacks) comes to the Military.
What could go wrong?
uhhh, Ash Carter, Secretary of Defense, Eric K. Fanning, Secretary of the Army, Deborah James Secretary of the Air Force and Ray Mabus Secretary of the Navy
They have decimated our Military. Enough said !
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When I saw the headline, I assumed the pentagon meant *police* officers…for the gate. This is much worse.
Why not just make them GS’s, or whatever payscale, and stick an O3 in there to keep the troops in line. All they’re doing is limiting their pool of applicants to the ‘cyber warriors’ who can do enough push-ups every 6 months. Besides, the military rotation cycle ensures that very few get really good at their jobs, and those who do are quickly rotated out for ‘well-roundedness.’
This was used extensively in WW2…But primarily in areas like Industrial Production, not directly on the battlefield. The Navy still has LDO’s (Limited Duty Officers) and taking someone in, paying them O-6 pay and having them run a dry dock facility forever, makes a lot of sense. The Army approach would be to force the person to transfer every 3 years, or make them a W-4, which defeats the purpose.
Isn’t this what the Warrant Officer program was partially for?