Army seeks solutions to generals gone wild
The Army Times reports that the Army is looking for ways to teach generals to be more ethical in their behavior, after a number have been disciplined in recent years for misbehavior and conduct unbecoming flag officers;
In the past nine months, the Army found two senior officers guilty of misconduct, forcing them out of their jobs and demoting them as they retired. One lost two stars; the other lost three.
“We recognized senior executive leaders, with varying amounts of stress, lacked a holistic program that focuses on comprehensive health,” said Gen. Mark Milley, the Army’s chief of staff. The military has strived to combat stress disorders, suicide and other problems, he said, but the focus often has been on enlisted troops or lower-ranking officers.
Yeah, it’s odd that these delinquents can recognize poor behavior in their subordinates, but not in their own public lives. Maybe it’s because they figure they can get away with it. “Losing stars” is no real punishment, but losing their entire pensions and benefit packages sends a message to the others. Good old boy handjobs under the table don’t send the message that the Army should be conveying.
These “men”, and I use the term loosely, haven’t learned about ethics in their decades of military service, a flag officer drum circle isn’t going to do it, either. Hammer a few dicks flat and the whole crowd will clean up their acts.
Category: Big Army
Somebody made poor choices. Not only the subjects of this article- but selection boards as well.
“—-lacked a holistic program that focuses on comprehensive health (?)” I know yer not shitting me, so I’ll not ask.
Why don’t they just go home and fuck their own wives for a change?
They aren’t aware that adultery or stealing money is wrong? Really?
If that’s true the problem isn’t these officers, the problem is the organization putting them into positions of authority.
This kind of behavior is not something that suddenly appears out of nowhere. It’s there all along, but either ignored because OFFICER!! and forgiven, or hidden most of the time until they get caught.
It won’t stop unless it’s stopped early on.
WE had a officer in my squadron who forgot to latch the canopy on his A-7 when he toolbox a cat shot. He limped the airplane back around and landed it.
Rather than place of the blame on his shoulders where it belonged they blamed it on maintenance so that his career wouldn’t be impacted and it wouldn’t reflect badly on the higher ups.
Man….that was such a great show. And Connors was a hell of an athlete. Played pro basketball and baseball and was drafter into the NFL. Not to mention, but he also served stateside during WWII. Don’t make them like that anymore.
Maybe we need to make THEM suffer through the death-by-PowerPoint presentations everyone else has to for starters?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?ebc=ANyPxKpWH9f-7tRae4dZXgk5r4u3W9yw9vUOia5XPmYD_pZ1xAgCPFf7xpwRdKgmYvdu1p7WRWvjbG7BBHYObPAtr4h8w1yvbQ&v=toVIGUXya2E
“We recognized senior executive leaders, with varying amounts of stress, lacked a holistic program that focuses on comprehensive health
It is easy instead of this kind of crappola statement just say “General Scmuckatelli screwed up and he is gonna get hammered” and then hammer him in front of his command.
This will work just as well as a little plastic dogtag and wallet card suddenly and miraculously made everyone live up to the 7 Army Core Values. Nothing but eyewash.
IMHO, this falls under “Can’t fix stupid.”
If someone (male or female) choses to be led by desire/emotion/lust rather than by reason, duty, and ethics, no amount of outside intervention will help.
That said, it is also a reality that every one of us needs an accountability partner, battle buddy, whatever one wishes to call it – to help us keep ourselves on track. None of us can play the Lone Ranger and expect to keep it all on track.
How about combining a course about accountability that leans heavily on the punitive articles of the UCMJ?
If senior officers are allowed to sit around and come up with solutions how to address this, they’ll only develop solutions that will benefit them.
In the Army, general officers take a “General Officer Legal Orientation” course at the U.S. Army JAG School–it covers criminal as well as international and other kinds of law. There’s a “Senior Officer Legal Orientation” course as well for at least some colonels. (Mind you, as commanders, they refer all the courts-martial anyway and know very well what this stuff is.)
You can lead a horse to water…
“You can lead a horse to water…”
Indeed.
“You can lead a horse to water…”
Me: That horse has 3 choices, drink, drown, or learn to breathe through it’s ears.
How about promoting the best and brightest instead of the most PC or who can kiss the most ass
Longer vacations and more PT… yeah, those are solutions.
I thought the Army solution to every problem was:
Drink more water
Do PT
Reflective belts.
you forgot “Powerpoint”
In the white name tape Army it was take 2 salt tablets and drive on. Reflective belts hadn’t been invented.
Well, two points: First of all, as to the question “why do they do it?” it’s kind of like the old exchange: “Why do you rob banks?” “Because that’s where the money is.” IOW generals steal money and screw their subordinates and their subordinates wives because they want to.
But I think VoV hit the point here:
Bingo. Who does the Army promote to flag rank?
Officers with Hard-charging, “type A”, make-no-excuses-and-accept-no-excuses, accomplish the mission at any cost (including the health and morale of your own troops) personalities, that’s who.
And when you combine that “I’m superman” personality with the kind of god-like power that a commander in the field has (especially when he’s on the other side of the world, far away from his own superiors) it shouldn’t surprise anyone that some of them set up their own little fiefdoms where they do as they please. After all, unless they’re dumb enough to mouth off to a Rolling Stone reporter, who’s going to stop him?
In fact, given the personalities involved, it’s probably something of a credit to the integrity of the military that it doesn’t happen MORE.
Martin,
You are describing the kind of senior officer I thought would get me and my guys killed for no good reason. I was hoping with a war going on all the ME ME ME stuff would have been weeded out.
I’m guessing the officers with the best “bullet points” are the ones who push their troops harder than any other, a la Patton, and who use intimidation rather than inspiration to get their subordinates to perform.
But what Big Army doesn’t seem to have gotten is that an army full of Pattons would have been a disaster. You also had to have your Bradleys, your Ikes, and yes, even your Montgomery’s, in order to win.
“Hard Charging” generals are used to doing what they want and are used to having rules that apply to subordinates but not to them.
As I’ve said elsewhere, a senior commander in a combat zone has a level of power and lack-of-accountability that is akin to a medieval prince. His word is law and he has a whole army of sycophants (who themselves hope to be such princes) to do his bidding, with the authority of law behind it.
Not surprising that it goes to some people’s heads.
This stuff has been going on for years. when we were tied up at pier 12, Norfolk NOB, the local radio station we listened to on board announced the ship arrivals every day. I think this was to let the wives know and ask the person boffing them that hubby was on the way home.
Step one: amend UCMJ to make the penalties -much- more severe as one moves up in rank. Add -firing squad- to the list for GO/FO who cross a defined list of crash-n-burn offenses. Give them the list once, and have them sign the acknowledgement. Naturally, one officer covering the crash-n-burn misdeeds of another is itself a crash-n-burn. Resignations will be accepted until reveille the day after advisement.
It might take two or three well-publicized firing squads, but the word will go forth.
I cant imagine fixing this with -less- that that. The rot has gone -way- deep.
I agree. With greater responsibility and control comes a greater degree of liability for offenses.
It’s the same argument used for awards and medals, greater rank = greater responsibility = shinier piece of jewelry on your chest. It should also apply conversely. Greater rank = greater responsibility + major fuckup = more severe whacking of the peepee.
The Supreme Court no longer allows the death penalty for any crime…even child rape…unless that specific crime leads to someone dying.
They’ve also made death cases so complicated and easy to tangle up that, unless your GO got promoted really young, or comes of extremely hardy stock, old age will get him before the firing squad.
So I’m afraid the next generation wwill never learn the meaning of “pour encourager les autres.“
I remember when an enlisted man who caught the clap, had it reported in his medical records as “Venereal Disease”. Officers had it reported as “Communicable Disease”. My LT told me it was because an officer’s medical records were considered when he was reviewed for promotion. I asked, “So Sir. If one’s married and gets the clap for 200 P’s, shouldn’t that speak to one’s integrity and quality of whore choice…Sir?” He just said, get your shit ready for patrol. (He has just come from his last round of penicillin for a dose.)
I don’t think anything will change until the archaic privilege structure of enlisted/officers design is removed. I’m surprised it’s still a thing in western countries considering our supposed professional voluntary makeup.
Power corrupts and when you begin with the notion you’re superior it sets a precedent.
It also happens when you divide the military into separate castes. The reason senior officers get away with this crap is because they “look out for their own.”
A SSG who steals or cheats gets burned to the full extent of the UCMJ, but you can’t do that to your old buddy, Chad, who was your bunkie at West Point and who you went through OBC with.
No, a “tut, tut”, finger wag and “don’t let it happen again!” are all he gets. Or at worst a soft landing with full retirement at a lower grade, and a cushy job in the civilian sector to follow, meanwhile SSG Nobody gets busted down to E-1 and a BCD for the same crime.
As a colonel in the army, with five enlisted years and twenty-three commissioned years in service, the solution is obvious. Drop the &%#^ hammer on these clowns. Not one of them is ignorant of the standards. In war college, we had to read a story about the “Bathsheba Complex” or some such. King David sends an Israelite soldier to the front lines to die so that he can hook up with the wife, Bathsheba, who he has been watching on her rooftop. By the way, David was at home skipping out on the war, himself. The question? When, how, and why does this behavior become acceptable to senior leaders?
The soldier whom David sent back to the lines with sealed orders he had not seen, to put him in the front of combat was named Uriah. One of the 37 “Mighty Men” who were friends with and had fought beside David in earlier bad times. Uriah was called home after David had already gotten his wife pregnant. To ease gossip, David wanted him to sleep with Bathsheba but he refused to leave his post, adhering to a common code of honor among his men in battle. He stayed at his post or slept outside instead of with his wife. David then returned him to battle with sealed orders in hand that would cause his death. Uriah was a man and soldier of honor with respect and concern for his fellow soldiers. David, not so much. So to be able to marry Bathsheba, he had Uriah killed in combat.
Sunday School pays off I guess.
Yes; and Uriah was a Hittite.
It is that simple. However, the entire culture seems to be set to prevent accountability for shitty ethics.
How do we fix it? I suspect we would have to -shoot- a significant number of offenders for the lessons to stick.
I remember my CO lecturing us enlisted folks with such basics as “Liars are fucking cowards”. He walked the walk too, God bless him. It was nice knowing that such folks existed.
But unless folks like -that- are given wide leeway to purge (evil chuckle) the knuckleheads and shitbags, how do we trim the rot?
A few retired generals live in my neighborhood. Great neighbors, but I keep an eye on them just the same.
Well, you can either put saltpeter in the mashed potatoes and separate the troops from each other, or you try to understand human nature a whole lot better, as in egos, personality types (A,B,C, etc.) and make the rules more sensible.
There was this truly cute PHC I worked for for a few months in the color lab at NPC…. nope, I did not jump the fence.
Can you put something in the water or mash potatoes at the Pentagon that causes them to make common sense decisions and be rational?
Videos of them doing stupid things with threats to post them on the internet if they don’t stop might do it.
But chemistry for common sense and rationality? It seems to go out the window or into the trashcan when they get above a certain level these days.
I remember from the Army Forums a bunch of years ago some 2-star was asking a legitimate question of troops, basically, “How do we combat the sexual assault issue we currently have at lower ranks?”
While being very respectful (because it was official forums) he was told hundreds of times, “Well Sir, how about you hold senior ranking personnel to the same standard. If they sexually assault or harass someone, they should be in leavenworth or reprimanded, just like an E-5 would be.”
He didn’t get it because he kept saying the same thing, “I understand your point of view, but I’m asking about your ideas for what we can do at Lower ranks to resolve the issue?” And they kept telling him, “Punish senior leaders who do it FFS!”
If they told flag officers that if they got caught doing something, they’d lose all pay and benefits, no retirement, etc., maybe they’d keep it in their pants (or keep their legs crossed) and stop doing those kinds of things? “Hey guess what, your family will suffer too! Your kids won’t be able to use your GI Bill. Your future ex-wife won’t be living in a fancy house living up retirement because you took payoffs to approve this contract for 5 grand. Good going! I hope that 5 grand lasts the next 20 years of your life!”
The problem is, they’ll keep doing it because even if they lose 1 star, whoppidty doo! If they are force retired, whoppidty doo! They still get that 6 figure pension check and a cushy job at some contractor business they helped out while they were still on active duty.
Then take the damn pension away from them, and see if that fixes things.
Generals & admirals only go to prison, and lose their retirement benefits in the movies.
Need more of what happened to former BG Roger Duff…reduced to major, and kicked out of the army – no retirement benefits (in exchange for no jail time – unfortunately).
Marty Dempsey, and the legions of active & retired flag officers don’t want their misbehaving buddies treated to harshly – the general admiral protection society is still strong.
Easy fix:
Conviction of the Punitive articles causes the convicted to lose any security clearance, the access to US government arms and ammunition and bars them from any position that requires handling cash or government funds.
Conviction of sexual assault under article 128, rape under 120, Stalking under article 120a and/or any of the following articles: 81,82, 127, 131, 112 ,112a, 133 and 134. Such offense BARS the convicted from all military posts, PX/BX, schools and any non-medical military property for life (or until the conviction is overturned). They may access any VA hospital pending the characterization of their discharge unless the crime involves a child under the age of 18.
Any servicemember convicted of bribery forfeits any security clearance and is barred from federal employment for at least 5 years. If the company is a foreign entity, 10 years.
Problem Solved.
One minor quibble: the “bribery” items should be for -life-.