Pentagon Wants Army, Marine Corps to Select Higher-Caliber Grunts

| September 22, 2018

We don’t make this stuff up,  there are people who do it for us.   From military.com

 The Close Combat Lethality Task Force is trying to identify “best-of-breed science and programs” to find young Marines and soldiers who have the right mix of physical and mental endurance to excel in close combat, according to Sgt. Maj. Jason Wilson, the senior Army enlisted representative for the task force.

WTF is a Close Combat Lethality Task Force?   Do they get a Patch, Tab, Pin or some kind of Tiera?  The thought of this CCLTF makes me tingle in naughty places.

“We want to be able to get those soldiers identified early, to find out, ‘Do you have the leadership potential to be in the infantry, do you have the mental stability to be able to be in the infantry’ and do they have the resilience and the mental capacity to be able to handle some of the things that they may see in the infantry — to be able to overcome that adversity and bounce back,” Wilson told a group of defense reporters Wednesday at the Pentagon.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis launched the task force in March to find ways of helping the services as well as Army Special Operations Command become more lethal at their craft.

“Close combat is an environment characterized by extreme violence within line of sight of the enemy, where historically the vast majority of military combat casualties occur,” Wilson said. “It is a tough job for anybody, to be able to … close with and destroy the enemy. … That is our purpose.”

There we have it, we need to fix this combat environment so it’s not so scary.  Who wants to be so up close and personal with the enemy anyway?  And, all those casualties…that is just uncalled for.

But the infantry has often been characterized as a career field that does not require high intelligence.

“We are looking to get the infantry to where it is not a place where we send soldiers that don’t have the mental capacity to do other jobs,” said Wilson, who has been an infantryman for 23 years. “I’m not saying that everybody in the infantry is bad, but we want to get away from close combat forces, you know, being a place for soldiers that don’t meet the requisite criteria to be an intel analyst.”

I have been a Platoon Sergeant in Combat Arms, you can not imagine the wasted intellectual might that hides in reserve.   I had some real Einsteins in the crowd.  I figured there were a couple of Ph.D.’s hidden in those Platoons.  When they were not licking the urinal cakes I had them practicing the manner in which they were going to charge an enemy machine gun nest.  We used to sit in the field at night, nestled in the swamp with the fog of mosquitoes swarming about and regurgitated  Nietzsche quotes.  I used to thank an imaginary God every night that those Grunts had not figured out how to lick their own balls or nothing on the Lt’s fictional training schedule who have been accomplished.  The horror, the horror…

Yep, bursting with covert Intel Analysts…that’s the plan.  Who is going to burn the shitters in this new age of intellectual giants?   Every Grunt is really just a bag of brains.  FMTT

 

 

 

Category: Big Army, Big Pentagon, Diversity, Dumbass Bullshit, Military issues

49 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Green Thumb

Someone should give SGM Wilson a drug test.

Slow Joe

He says he’s been infantry dude for 23 years, but still thinks to be infantry you have to be dumb?
Where have he been? S-3 for life?

Claw

Until just a couple of months ago, he had been the CSM of the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division.

But it looks like he took a kind of “demotion” as the most recent pictures of him have him wearing SGM stripes, not CSM stripes.

Reddevil

CSM is a position, not a rank, so E-9s only wear CSM insignia while they are in the position- same with 1SG. Otherwise you wear SGM (or MSG)

MSG Eric

It isn’t so common, but CSMs do step out of the CSM program to just be a regular SGM sometimes. Usually it is because the timing isn’t right for them to take the next higher CSM position, so it’s find a SGM position or retire.

Reddevil

It is a very pointy pyramid, and all positions are nominative. Just because you were a BN CSM does not mean you will be a BDE/RGT/Group CSM. At the GO level of command it is even more competitive because the positions are open to all career fields.

There are also nominative SGM positions at the senior staff level that usually go to CSM selectees. ACOM and COCOM 4 Star HQs have GO primary staff, and their Senior Enlisted Advisors are almost always former BDE CSMs.

The crappy part is that if you retire from one of those jobs, you wear SGM rank, regardless of your previous CSM status.

Green Thumb

I always thought the urinal mint made a nice deodorant for when someone stole mine.

Everyone wants to be Infantry until its time to do all of the Infantry stuff.

PFM

Candidate, you scored extremely highly on the ASVAB and DLAB. We’re gonna send you to Arizona and California, put you in an MOS that promotes quickly, and give you a bonus and Top Secret clearance, to boot. OR, you can go to Benning or Bragg and spend most your time training in the field or deployed, with a slower rank progression and bonus.

Wonder which one they’ll pick?

Green Thumb

300 PT will get you were you need to go in the Infantry.

I met some morally, mentally and ethically challenged dudes that were in great shape and that 300 opened the door.

Rocks with lips, man. Rocks with lips.

Green Thumb

Opens every door except the one to the library.

My apologies.

PFM

Agreed – I was a simple Engineer, and I saw some of the sharpest individuals in my life in the Infantry. I also saw some that you gave a weapon to, pointed toward enemy and let them go until they or the enemy ran out of gas.

Green Thumb

Word.

Mike W.

LOL, “rocks with lips” was an OFFICIAL recruiting term at Brooklyn Company back in ’89 ! lol
Romeo Whiskey Lima
When we had someone on the computer taking the practice test to predict GT score we’d leave them alone to read the directions and follow them. Hit wrong button, we’d hear a beep. [pick a or b, c=beep!] It SHOULD get quiet after a few errant beeps, but if not:”Hey we got a RomeoWhiskeyLima !”

Reddevil

Contrary to popular belief, a lot of our best and brightest GO in to the combat arms.

When recruiters see a kid with high scores and no waiver requirements they try to steer them toward hard to fill MOSs- usually MI, Signal, and a few others, because they know they don’t see many applicants that qualify in a given year.

The point here is that as we push more capability, lethality, and sensors down to the squad level, you are going to need guys that can operate those systems AND win a literal knife fight. We need guys that can operate as a small team with little external support,are comfortable with ambiguous situations and missions, program ground and aerial sensors, analyze the info coming in, and still out march and outshoot any enemy and prepared to beat them to death with an entrenching tool.

The Army and Marine already have sub specialties in the infantry- mortarmen, machine gunners, assaultmen, etc. In the very near future we will have robotics operators and others.

Claw

Brain Worm for the day:

Charles Clymer undergoing EIB testing while wearing a tiara.

Green Thumb

As the MDW Commander looks on….

Green Thumb

True Blue, Baby!

Slow Joe

I doubt he can get pass land nav.
If he does, patrol lane will double no-go him.

26Limabeans

“Who is going to burn the shitters in this new age of intellectual giants?”

The smartest guys in the bunch.
Sitting around a burning barrell of shit telling jokes is better than filling sandbags.

timactual

Exactly. I didn’t mind shit burning. Nice an peaceful, not particularly difficult, and nobody bothered you. The trick is to stay upwind.

RetiredDevilDoc8404

While making sure the COC is downwind. We managed to pull that one off at Diwaniyah in 2003, and the 0311s I was supervising WERE rocks with lips, all outstanding grunts just not MIT material.

2/17 Air Cav

“It is a tough job for anybody, to be able to … close with and destroy the enemy. … That is our purpose.”

And all this time I thought that the title for that job description was Marine.

Ex-PH2

They’re going at it all wrong. The best place to recruit the fighters is in the ‘hoods. Get the gangbangers to show up. They already know about shooting guns sideways, they need money and they have that ‘shoot to kill’ mentality that everyone needs in a shoot-shoot-bang-bang environment. They already have a sort of ‘team spirit’, and they’ll take any challenge to shoot someone. They’re also used to dealing with rayssiss crapweasels and they don’t care who gets laid and who doesn’t, because they all do.

Give them weapons, ammo belts, clothes, food, point them toward the Bad Guys, pay them for each of the severed heads they bring back from a firefight and you’re good to go.

Green Thumb

3/4 of one of my old platoon were all Hispanic dudes from So Cal and further South (two gained citizenship).

A lot of calligraphy and gang ink.

Some of the best Soldiers I ever had….

Ex-PH2

My point exactly. Thank you!

Slow Joe

Hell no.

I don’t want no thieves and criminals in my platoon.

Besides, those types know nothing about war. War is a team sport. I don’t give a flying eff about anyone’s individual combat skills, if they can’t put it to use as part of a team effort to accomplish the mission.

In my experience, dudes with criminal backgrounds are worthless in combat. They got too many bad habits, they abandon their battle buddies, they have no allegiances other than their homies, they are always bitching about shit we have no control over, and they have no moral compass in dealing with their fellow soldiers.

During the 2007 surge we got a bunch with waivers and took ua years to clean up the ranks from that filth.

Give me a good, law-abiding kid, and I’ll make a killing machine out of him.

Roger in Republic

I always thought that Infantry men were trained, not born. Under this scheme Audi Murphy would have spent the war shoveling horseshit in Louisiana. I’m sure that there are a few “Born Infantrymen” but not enough to fill a whole division. During WWII we trained whole divisions at the same time and they did just fine.

desert

PH…not only that, in between battles, they can steal the armory blind lol…Trouble is, I think those bad asses in a REAL fight would go running to mama! just my opinion!

Roh-Dog

“do you have the mental stability to be able to be in the infantry“, this is a DuffleBlog article, right?
The strength of the Infantry is composed and predicated on a group of Men, dumb and/or brave enough to run into a firefight, full of every stripe: scholars, NASCAR fans, Nickelback or Jazz listeners alike…
Knew a guy with a full ride to Georgetown, new a guy who had 4 kids with 5 different women (yup) before 18, could tie his boots…
The one commonality, the unifying force that makes Our fighting force the strongest ever fielded, we put the infant in Infantry. Fart sniffing, boob ogling, dick slapping, stupid crap that should be sequestered from anyone with a hint of morals.
Man, I f*cking heart me some Infantrydudes.

Skyjumper

Here’s an interesting read on CCLTF.

Course, if you are a grunt or ever have been one, you might want to get someone to read it & then explain it to you becuz ya know how unedumacated and thick our Grunt skulls are. (grin)

https://docs.google.com/viewer?docex=1&url=https://www.ausa.org/sites/default/files/publications/SL-18-2-Regaining-Tactical-Overmatch-The-Close-Combat-Lethality-Task-Force-0.pdf

Skyjumper

AW1Ed

Unfortunate downside of a surging economy- blame Trump.

2/17 Air Cav

Yeah, the economy do sucketh. I hate it when my wife’s 401K climbs so high and all of my relatives are working at good jobs and everyone’s paycheck has a tad more meat on it. I miss the old days. Old days? Yeah. They started in the winter of 2009 and ended just recently.

AW1Ed

Whatever changed, Cav?
*grin*

I probably should have commented in the other post about recruitment lagging. Seems the military gains when the economy is down, and can better cherry-pick inductees. The reverse is true, too. Basic supply and demand forces the Dems seem unaware of.

Dwight Schwarz

In 1967 Secretary of Defense McNamara requested that in order to increase the ranks of the military that the IQ level be lowered (according to VA also lowered physical standards) so could draft an additional 100,000 personal (reality they drafted 350,000 this way) and these people became known as McNamara’s Morons. In 2009 they found out this plan was apparently still in place but apparently nothing was done so maybe now they are possibly trying to remedy this. I found out about this from the VA when I asked how I got accepted in the military having scoliosis and cartilage removed from my knee before I joined and was told that this is probably the reason why, so therefore I am apparently one of the select people. Gee good to know who I am and how I am classified. That handy little act of 67 makes it pretty much a handy catch all for the VA for all veterans as I scored 2 95’s a 90 and an 85 on their tests and my date of enlistment was Sept 65.

USMC Steve

He also was the author of Project 100,000, where 100,000 people with room temp IQ’s were drafted. None of them ended up in nuclear MOS’s either. Almost none of them were at all successful and a whole bunch got shot up. Seemed to accumulate in Vietnam for some reason.

Sparks

Someone is looking through the wrong end of the binoculars.

5th/77thFA

Didn’t really want to get up close and personal with the enemy. One reason I volunteered for the Artillery. Plus igt was a family tradition. Didn’t really think out that whole counter battery fire thingy either, but it all worked out for me. I’m here, with all my parts still attached. Hearing is a little funky but hell, I’m old. Another big war break out, it’s back to the draft or a quick surrender on some body’s part. We could kill a billion Chinamen and they would still out number the entire population. Some you current or recently serving troops may can answer me this. Are our “Leaders” still planning to fight the next war using the “lessons” and “tactics” that they used in the last war? Asking for a friend.

MustangCryppie

“Yep, bursting with covert Intel Analyst…”

Like Bradley Manning!. Yeah! That’s the ticket!

timactual

“…close with and destroy the enemy. … That is our purpose.”

Yes it is, and has been for quite some time now. There is even a large organization that has existed for quite some time to enable the Army to better accomplish that mission; TRADOC.

United States Army Training and Doctrine Command.

” It is charged with overseeing training of Army forces and the development of operational doctrine. TRADOC operates 37 schools and centers at 27 different locations. TRADOC schools conduct 1,304 courses and 108 language courses. The 1,304 courses include 516,000 seats (resident, on-site and distributed learning) for 443,231 soldiers; 36,145 other-service personnel; 8,314 international soldiers; and 28,310 civilians. ” (Wikipedia)

Evidently that is not enough. More staff positions are needed.

And at the next Congressional hearing we will hear more about drastic cuts made by sequestration sequestration and the critical damage shortage of funding is doing to readiness, etc.

NEC338x

“Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.” – Oscar Wilde

11B-Mailclerk

Steve Rogers unavailable for comment.

OldManchu

“Follow Me!”

MSG Eric

Well, perhaps it didn’t help that for a couple of years prior to this the military was treated like shit, personnel benefits were cut, service members in the 14-16 year range were booted so they wouldn’t get into the Sanctuary window and get an active retirement?

You know, those same personnel who went back to the civilian world and started telling civilians how badly they got royally fucked by bureaucrats and politicians? The same types of bureaucrats and politicians in and out of uniform that had job security because they were part of the reducing force kicking people out?

There were even news reports about veterans saying flat out, “don’t join the military, you can do better on the civilian side.” Pretty sad when you have better job security in a civilian job than in the military.

Reddevil

The Task Force is a team of advisors with experienced infantrymen from both the Army and Marine Corps. Their purpose is to help find the weapons, and equipment, and sensors that will give US infantrymen a clear tactical advantage- we want overmatch.

We pour billions into improving our fleet of 4th and 5th generation fighters in our three air forces, and the US Navy is absolutely without peer on the planet. Yet, our infantrymen go into combat carrying a rifle first fielded in 1964 riding in vehicles fielded in the ’80s.

We need more lethal weapons, better protection, and state of the art sensors for our infantry, and integrating all of that and synchronizing it to maximum effect will take a different kind of Soldier/Marine and NCO/officer than it did before.

IDC SARC

I dunno about IQ….a history of juvenile delinquency has IME been the best predictor for USMC success. 🙂

Semper Fi

jeffro

Smart strong little clever f$ckers with a misplaced sense of immortality mixed with an evil sense of humor seem to work well.

USMC STEVE

Let’s see, they just started forcing the infantry to accept women in their ranks, and they want a superior breed of grunt? Appears to me they are sending a me a mixed message there.