Mattis to refocus training on warfighting
According to Fox News, Secretary of Defense Jmes Mattis has directed the service chiefs to concentrate training on fighting wars and to spend less time on the social aspect of service persons’ time;
The secretary wants each service to examine its military education to “regain a concentration on the art and science of warfighting” and look into the hours of “mandatory force training that does not directly support core tasks” such as flying jets, jumping out of planes, and hundreds of other U.S. military missions essential to defending the United States and its allies.
One official with knowledge of the discussions surrounding the memo told Fox News, “servicemembers spending too much time on senseless training that is really a waste of time.” One U.S. military officer said there is “too much sexual harassment training” and not enough time spent at places like the shooting range, for example.
Imagine the culture shock – leadership that wants it’s trigger-pullers pulling triggers.
People make fun of the Desert Storm “100-hour War”, but they don’t understand that we had been training for exactly that war for more than a decade. It was like a very long Table XII run at Grafenwoehr. We’d had tougher runs at the National Training Center. The reason it only lasted 100-hours was because we were trained properly for it. The Joint Training Center was geared towards fighting wars, until the 90s when it was retooled for “Meals-on-Wheels” operations and the fighting force lost it’s edge that it had to resharpen in the crucible of combat in the GWOT.
With diminished funding for defense, it only males sense that the Defense Department refocus on fighting wars and away from fighting boredom. I hear that we’re still fighting wars somewhere.
Mattis also wants the working group to look into “hiring practices for the [DoD] civilian workforce,” which some senior military officers have complained has become too large in recent years despite Obama-era cuts involving tens of thousands of uniformed servicemembers.
“There are more civilians working for the Pentagon than there are uniformed troops in the Navy and Air Force combined,” Katherine McIntire Peters, deputy editor of Government Executive Media Group, wrote in a recent op-ed. Peters put the Defense Department’s civilian work force at 770,000.
That’s 770,000 people that we’re paying to not pull triggers in the Defense Department.
Thanks to Mick for the link.
Category: Big Pentagon
Wait what? Train war fighters on how to fight wars? That will make all the social engineers sad, and send them to their safe places with their transgender sparkle puppies, aromatherapy and crayons!
Mandatory reading…”Art of War”, by Sun Tsu!
Mandatory reading….”The Art of War”, by Sun Tsu
Refreshing to see that there’s an adult in charge at the DoD.
Amen!
I read an article I think in Defense Weekly last year that put civilian employees in the DOD at 810,000. An awful lot of straphangers who don’t fight isn’t it? We needa lot more military and a lot less civilians in the DOD.
I disagree. Having a civilian workforce frees up the trigger pullers to… do the actual pulling of triggers. The fewer soldiers you have tied up pushing paper, cooking meals, maintaining computers, etc., the more people you will have ready to fight actual battles. I would also argue that the system is cheaper overall, as you don’t have to send someone off to basic training and AIT for months before they can start being productive (a drill sgt used to say that the Army had already spent $10k – $15k just to get me to Ft. Benning), and then keep paying for benefits like BAH, Tricare, pension, etc. (civilian employees get their salary, 5% TSP matching, and partial health insurance, contractors get whatever their company gives them).
Where we could argue is if it really takes 810K to do that job. I highly doubt DoD is running at maximum efficiency.
I’ll agree and somewhat disagree. Much of the civilian workforce growth over the last 25 years have been in position which were uniformed and either civilianized or contracted. A good share, probably a majority of these positions require extensive experience and expertise that is only gained in uniform, so we almost always have to hire retirees into these positions.
Sure, the position costs less than having a uniformed member sit in it, but only if you assume away the retired check (and any disability).
Note: this is a separate argument for questioning if the work needs to be done at all. The number of officers, NCOs, USGs, and contractors devoted to the yearly service posture statements come to mind. This was 16 single spaced typed pages when I entered the service, now its this: https://www.army.mil/e2/rv5_downloads/aps/aps_2016.pdf
Sunk cost fallacy. That (presumably military) retired check and/or disability payment would be paid to the individual in question regardless of whether or not they were working for DoD – or were working at all. It’s thus irrelevant to any discussion of the cost to DoD of filling the position.
I wasn’t exactly sure where to make my comment; I’ll do so here. While I have no doubt that the Pentagon’s staff is bloated, I also have no doubt that defense contractors and civilian DoD employees do fine work, which helps to keep our trigger pullers alive.
I can make this statement as I am a civilian who formerly worked with a large military contractor until the end of the Cold War. My advanced engineering degree and scientific skills were considered very valuable, as were the skills of numerous individuals (mostly, but not exclusively, white and Asian-American men) who’d worked in our defense industry since the end of WWII.
I received my first professional job in 1983, during the Reagan-era defense build-up. The first Saturday after my employment, I sat near the flight line at Moffett Field NAS in Sunnyvale, CA, watching the Blue Angels perform. I was so happy and proud to think that the skills I had would help to bring some mother’s son home, alive! Even if I would never meet that person.
But the Cold War ended in the late 90s, and so did our opportunities, as American engineers and scientists engaged in defense work. Many talented people left the contractor community (which was collapsing) for commercial opportunities or for civilian DoD employment in the Pentagon. Many are still there, today.
I don’t think of them as “the fat,” “unnecessary,” or “irrelevant” simply because they don’t pull triggers. Rather, they are the people who work on larger systems that protect our warfighter (you); and because I’ve seen their quality, I know they are doing the best darned job that they can.
Please, do not diss the commitment and skills by our fine American defense industry scientists and engineers who are committed to mission.
A mixed bag in my experience. There are many civilians who contribute mightily to the effort, but many who are rank and file bureaucrats that retard and stonewall processes. I’ve had some recent experiences with them in our command. Most get it, have great experiences, and put their shoulder to the wheel. Others, unfortunately, are bottom feeding oxygen thieves. I’m currently reading Robert Gates’ memoir, “Duty”. His comments regarding the pitched fight at the Pentagon to get our troops outfitted with MRAPs are shocking, disappointing, and down right frustrating. They illustrate the problem of an entrenched bureaucracy very well.
Only if the civilian employee is doing the job a trigger puller is doing. I don’t see any civvies doing grunt missions. I only see them doing pay, and admin jobs. Thus they free up no one, and on top of it, the politicians used that as an excuse to reduce the military in size, so no trigger pullers were even there in those jobs, they were now gone altogether. There are enough civilian DOD employees to almost staff the Air Force and the Navy right now.
Ummm… this is fake news, right? No? Awww, man! I was just getting used to listening to everyone whine about social this and power point that. Ya mean all that crap is going into the dumpster where it belongs, and people are going to do what they’re supposed to do – fight wars?
Can I send GEN Mattis some roses or something?
Just read that Trump said TGs will not be allowed to serve in the military.
Just read that too. I’d like to see that in an official notice and not a tweet. Heads will explode.
Well, that takes care of any future Bradley Mannings out there!
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-the-military-will-no-longer-allow-transgenders-to-serve-in-any-capacity/article/2629714
“President Trump announced Wednesday morning the military will no longer allow transgender individuals to serve in “any capacity” in the military.
“After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you,” Trump said in a series of tweets that remained unfinished Wednesday morning.”
Ray Mabus hardest hit.
Bout time that fucking nonsense was scrapped.
How much money do 770,000 sand crabs cost? That could go for other more important things, couldn’t it? Like ammunition and real-time training?
Is there any way to cancel that whole TG thingy before they remodel all the bathrooms?
When we had the furlough a couple of years ago, I did a little digging and think the civilian workforce budget came out to around $5 billion. I was curious about how much all that kerfuffle actually saved the tax payers. So lots of money for me and you, but chump change in terms of the overall DoD budget. 770k is a lot of manpower and, inefficient or not, someone else (i.e. uniformed personnel) would have to pick up the slack if all the civilians just went away. The work doesn’t just disappear.
All I can say is its about time. I thought I had to sit through some bullshit breifings before I retired in 2010 but my son the AF MSgt keeps me informed of some of the stuff they have been spewing the last few years and it is mind numbing.
It would be nice if you could spare us a few samples of it. I’d like to know how my tax money has been wasted.
Me, too.
“With diminished funding for defense, it only males sense that the Defense Department refocus on fighting wars and away from fighting boredom.”
Freudian slip?
What the hell are you talking about?
A typo resulting from K and L being right next to eachother on the keyboard, and you see a horrible right-wing conspiracy. Or are you just trying to be an ass?
I’ll take “trying to be an ass” for the Daily Double, Alex.
I thought it was funny with the other news of the day. Not sure where you got anything else out of it from.
GEE WHIZ, you mean they’re gonna force cutbacks on the amount of Death by Power Point PC briefings? That’s going to make many leftist TARDOs go nuts and eat all of their crayons!
It bothers me that the military hasn’t made sufficient effort to retool its forces for the fight it has instead of the fight it spent the Cold War preparing for.
We’ve been involved in counter-insurgency warfare in Afghanistan for over a decade. If you roll back to Vietnam, we’ve had that kind of war for 24 of our last 50 years of history. But I feel like the Pentagon is still building a military to win World War 2.
When we geared our forces up to win World War 2, it involved making tremendous changes to doctrine, tools, equipment, from where the War Department came from. We retooled to fight the Cold War, and that is where we still exist.
Why aren’t there organic counter-insurgency units? Why do commanders have to find a role and logistically plan and move large amounts of artillery and air defense assets? Why do infantrymen get re-tasked into civil affairs and MP roles?
How about the war the Red Chinese are preparing to fight? Or the Russians? Or any other likely enemy? The daesh-bags aren’t the only ones out there that wish us harm.
I thought the lesson from the last few industrial wars was the nations that were best prepared didn’t fare as well as the ones that were quickest to adapt.
I think the trillions the DoD has spent over the last decade plus to not win the war in Afghanistan does more to undermines our military prowess more than launching an aircraft carrier helps us. The Pentagon spends billions on fancy toys, civilians to maintain and train them, and they have little value compared to a well trained, motivated man with a rifle.
The men who invaded Normandy practiced an amphibious assault on a European beach. I feel like under current DoD guidelines they’d be practicing cavalry charges against Mexican bandits, with a little beach training peppered in.
Quickest to adapt, like embracing new technology: might be worth remembering that German had most of the hottest tech on the planet in WWII…and look where they wound up. The edge goes to the side who can manufacture the most and keep resupplying; rarely to the side with the right ‘fighting spirit’ (see: South in the Civil War.)
Most of the financial issues with recent wars is that “bloodless” wars are hideously expensive. If we fought like we did in WWII. Iraq and Afghanistan (or their remains) would have been settled in months.
I’m skeptical a large scale industrial war will ever be fought in the age of nuclear weapons.
I think the Germans & Confederates provide excellent examples of armies that had limited advantages on paper, but fought well above conventional wisdom for an extended period.
This is part of the long history of preparing to fight the last war versus the next war. Or in our contemporary case, the current war. I don’t feel we’ve politically or militarily adjusted to the reality of how to fight & win in Afghanistan in a similar way as we saw in Vietnam. And seeing how our defense budget is being used on fighting & winning a conventional war that may someday come and be fought, it seems like a bizarre misapplication of resources.
I would like the political or military leaders to take some level of responsibility to win that war, and make unpopular choices with defense contractors, voters, and DoD bureaucrats to do it.
That’s a rather dangerous attitude to have, Tex. At this point, it is literally planning to fight the last war, with all the usual problems it entails. True, the nuclear question is not easily answered. But then again, machine guns, chemical weapons, and aerial bombardment were once supposed to be the great war-enders. And what about cyberwarfare? Some hacker kid disrupts a few things and society comes crashing down, or so they say, anyway.
Some of our adversaries are still superpowers, or close enough. If the Russians ever decide to throw down, it’s the Fulda Gap, more or less. Probably less likely to include nukes, as nobody really wants that stigma, even in victory. If the Red Chinese do, it will be Pacific island-hopping like WWII. Probably more likely to include tactical nukes as the detonation sites would likely be at sea, far from any continental landmass and thus much less visible.
Will these scenarios come to pass? Who knows? Hopefully not, but not preparing for them is a bad idea.
I’m just talking about different priorities.
We have a war we’re fighting in Afghanistan. We should either make strategic sacrifices on preparations for other contingencies in order to put the resources into winning that war. Or stop fighting the war.
I think a lot of the military acquisition and development of projects is based on political decisions and not military need. And the decision on how to fight the war in Afghanistan (RoE, troop levels, risk aversion) are also driven more by political considerations than military needs.
The Germans had the hottest tech? Yeah, but we were first to come up with the A-Bomb which did a nice job of convincing japan to give up!
A bomb is the perfect example. Nobody built it before hostilities began. It didn’t seem feasible.
We don’t know what circumstances the next war will be fought under any better than military planners of 1938 or 2000 did.
Einstein and other physicists urged American construction of nuclear weapons in -1939-. The feasibility was obvious, so much so that they correctly predicted that Germany would try to develop it.
Japan also had a nuclear program.
We simply dedicated far more effort and resources, and our effort was essentially un-bombable. Thus we won that race.
“With tears in my eyes, I’m begging you, pleading with you…..”
…..Where is the temple to Saint Mattis where I can give an offering?
If it includes sacrificing a live hippie, COUNT ME IN!!!
Halellujah!!
Thank God adults are back in charge that know what our military is for.
My daughter (E-5 serving now) texted me about this and Trumps Tranny Ban with a big Hell Yeah!
2+2 = 4
Boys have penises. Girls have vaginas.
Now let’s get to war fighting.
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Is anybody else disgusted that this is even noteworthy? Or needs to be said at all?
Civilians (AKA Sand Crabs) working for the government are like seagulls. They eat, shit, and are government supported.