Politics

[Red Leg]

DOD needed people. We were in the longest war in our nations history. Most people even forgot the war was going on while society got fatter and prescribed ADHD medication creating significant issues at MEPS. We did lower some standards. For everyone. Not just females. The lowering and raising of standards is an algorithm that has happened many times in our history.

I would say I was paying attention. Probably a lot more than you were. Actually if you were paying attention the scores for the males to max their APFT were significantly faster than they were prior to 2014. When I first entered the US Army I had to run an 11:54 2 mile run to max my APFT. Post 2014 the same age bracket had to run a 13:00 min 2 mile run to max. That had nothing to do with DEI or "Gays". The Army was not woke.

+1 I went on active duty in 1974 at the start of the volunteer army and served three decades. Fitness standards have fluctuated over the years - always driven by the recruiting base - never in my experience by social experiments. The 1980 PFT consisted of sit-ups, push-ups, and a two-mile run. One must be faster today by nearly a minute at all age groups than I had to be in 1980. All of which is largely irrelevant because the US Army has maintained the finest noncommissioned officer corps of any military in the world. They have a long and storied history of turning those bits of human clay into the finest soldiers serving in any army anywhere.

 

[Ridge Runner]

+1 I went on active duty in 1974 at the start of the volunteer army and served three decades. Fitness standards have fluctuated over the years - always driven by the recruiting base - never in my experience by social experiments. The 1980 PFT consisted of sit-ups, push-ups, and a two-mile run. One must be faster today by nearly a minute at all age groups than I had to be in 1980. a long and storied history of turning those bits of human clay into the finest soldiers serving in any army anywhere.

I can half ass agree with you. Just not totally agree.

I have had more good than bad experiences. It depends on the type unit and the NCOs in the unit.

These are just two of my adverse experiences.

At post command the productive soldiers were less likely to get promoted than the non productive soldiers for the good of the unit. In other words if a soldier was a fu'k up they would be promoted as fast as possible so they could be transferred out of the unit. Whereas a soldier that could meet or exceed the standards was delayed promotion for the good of command to meet military unit standards for the commands readiness and chain of command's NCO and Officer promotions.

At the aviation unit it was an option of 2 mile run or walk within 90 minutes to pass the PT test. The NCOs encouraged lower enlisted to make minimum standards to pass the PT test so as not to make the NCOs look bad on readiness.

Earned my demotion from E-5, having turned down E-6 twice, to 2nd Leuitenant (O-1E) and Branched Engineer.

Long story short I was reassigned to the worst company with the least amount of leadership and questionable NCOs. With the given the mission by the Battalion Commader to "........do whatever needs to be done.....[to ] get the Company Commander promoted." with the BC's assistance if needed and report directly to the BC.

I was in transition between commands when officer promotions were being made so I don't know if the Company Commander made Major (0-4) or was relieved of duty due to his inept ability to "jack up" the NCOs staff in the manner I did.

My second assignment again I'm (was) only an O-1E. With "a history". This new assignment was the only slot available, a desk job, Battalion Property Book Officer (PBO). [For those in the civilian corporate world a PBO is a CFO]. New mission from the Group Commander a Leuitenant Colonel (LTC)(0-5) evaluate and get this particular battalion deployable.

Had time not been of the essence I probably would have made a better first impression on the Battalion Commander LTC (O-5). The Battalion Personnel Officer a Captain (0-3) as per protocol introduced me the the Battalion Commander. Upon and after my reporting to the BnC, the Bnc asked my analysis of the unit. Upon my reply the BnC immediately excused me so he could have a private conversation with the Captain. Guess I shouldn't have been so direct in my response: " Sir! This Battalion is Non Deployable! Sir!". Later that day the after many meetings with various senior officers captains and majors. The BnC had the Supply Officer and the Personnel Officer report to him. I probably shouldn't have been so direct in stating what needed to be done. That got me another 10 minute wait outside his office door.

In the end I did accomplish the mission and the Battalion deployed 3 months later.

All of which is largely irrelevant because the US Army has maintained the finest noncommissioned officer corps of any military in the world.

Debatable, but would like to think so....with the exceptions.....BULLSHIT!!!

The whole point of my long winded thread is it's not just the NCOs it's the whole damn unit's chain of command. Those in "authority" covering for those up and down the Chain of Command.

Now that those previous "Good Ole Boys" are currently in command, senior enlisted and officers, they are now having to justify their previous ineptitude of command/leadership by adjusting, readjusting, whatever it takes, trying to play tippy toe, to further their carrers, with politicians.

This is through my personal experiences.

 

[Newboomer]

I can half ass agree with you. Just not totally agree.

I have had more good than bad experiences. It depends on the type unit and the NCOs in the unit.

These are just two of my adverse experiences.

At post command the productive soldiers were less likely to get promoted than the non productive soldiers for the good of the unit. In other words if a soldier was a fu'k up they would be promoted as fast as possible so they could be transferred out of the unit. Whereas a soldier that could meet or exceed the standards was delayed promotion for the good of command to meet military unit standards for the commands readiness and chain of command's NCO and Officer promotions.

At the aviation unit it was an option of 2 mile run or walk within 90 minutes to pass the PT test. The NCOs encouraged lower enlisted to make minimum standards to pass the PT test so as not to make the NCOs look bad on readiness.

Earned my demotion from E-5, having turned down E-6 twice, to 2nd Leuitenant (O-1E) and Branched Engineer.

Long story short I was reassigned to the worst company with the least amount of leadership and questionable NCOs. With the given the mission by the Battalion Commader to "........do whatever needs to be done.....[to ] get the Company Commander promoted." with the BC's assistance if needed and report directly to the BC.

I was in transition between commands when officer promotions were being made so I don't know if the Company Commander made Major (0-4) or was relieved of duty due to his inept ability to "jack up" the NCOs staff in the manner I did.

My second assignment again I'm (was) only an O-1E. With "a history". This new assignment was the only slot available, a desk job, Battalion Property Book Officer (PBO). [For those in the civilian corporate world a PBO is a CFO]. New mission from the Group Commander a Leuitenant Colonel (LTC)(0-5) evaluate and get this particular battalion deployable.

Had time not been of the essence I probably would have made a better first impression on the Battalion Commander LTC (O-5). The Battalion Personnel Officer a Captain (0-3) as per protocol introduced me the the Battalion Commander. Upon and after my reporting to the BnC, the Bnc asked my analysis of the unit. Upon my reply the BnC immediately excused me so he could have a private conversation with the Captain. Guess I shouldn't have been so direct in my response: " Sir! This Battalion is Non Deployable! Sir!". Later that day the after many meetings with various senior officers captains and majors. The BnC had the Supply Officer and the Personnel Officer report to him. I probably shouldn't have been so direct in stating what needed to be done. That got me another 10 minute wait outside his office door.

In the end I did accomplish the mission and the Battalion deployed 3 months later.



Debatable, but would like to think so....with the exceptions.....BULLSHIT!!!

The whole point of my long winded thread is it's not just the NCOs it's the whole damn unit's chain of command. Those in "authority" covering for those up and down the Chain of Command.

Now that those previous "Good Ole Boys" are currently in command, senior enlisted and officers, they are now having to justify their previous ineptitude of command/leadership by adjusting, readjusting, whatever it takes, trying to play tippy toe, to further their carrers, with politicians.

This is through my personal experiences.

I saw some of "The Peter Principle" during my military career. "Promote the f****ps out of the unit. They make us look bad." As a senior NCO E-8 and master trainer a lot of it fell on me to train up as many as possible. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. Not a fun part of the job.

 

[Doug Hamilton]

Keep defending your tyrants.
Here’s another example for y’all to try to defend.

So, what exactly is your point? Police officers are human beings, therefore some will be inept. Some will be stressed out before they have an interaction with a civilian. Some will make a mistake in the dark of night. Yeah?

What you fail to understand, and I think it is a willful sweet are of the clear facts, is that there are hundreds of thousands of officers making millions of contacts every month and very few incidents go as far South as you would have everyone believe. If it was common, there would be a lot more evidence of it. Everyone has a cell and videos are everywhere. It is sad when anyone is killed due to a bad incident, but that does not mean all police officers are "tyrants" by any stretch of your twisted imagination.

 

[Corey0372]

DOD needed people. We were in the longest war in our nations history. Most people even forgot the war was going on while society got fatter and prescribed ADHD medication creating significant issues at MEPS. We did lower some standards. For everyone. Not just females. The lowering and raising of standards is an algorithm that has happened many times in our history.

I think mental illness is probably one of the biggest issues in the US military. Not depression or PTSD related stuff, just straight up weird behavioral issues. At a place I was employed at a little over a year ago I was a supervisor and had under me a younger guy, about 23 years old, who had recently left the Army. He was a tanker, had an honorable discharge, was a sharp and fit dude, no issues at the place we worked at. If I had to guess I'd say he was probably a fine soldier. He got out as a Corporal. He told me he didn't actually want to leave the Army, he wanted to be a soldier his whole life, his Dad was a soldier, grandpa was too. He explained to me his reasoning for leaving the Army and mostly what it boiled down to was he was just tired of being around what I can only describe as general degenerate behavior and just overall odd personalities. Essentially, he decided that potentially being involved in a serious war with the people he served alongside gave him little to no confidence.

Everyone who served can attest that there were usually a couple oddballs in any unit, we're humans, and a lot of times it's not really a big deal. But when he described to me how his Platoon Sergeant was basically an open "Furry", I almost didn't believe him. He had no reason to lie though, and I'd worked with him long enough to know he was an honest guy. It was hard for him (or anyone) to take this guy seriously, let alone look to him for mentorship. He told me of having a female crew member who couldn't lift tank rounds, or really do anything in the tank. I could go on but you get the idea.

While I think there's almost certainly a lot of "back in my day" stuff going on, things like gender integrated basic training don't seem to make much sense to even younger guys like myself. These things may seem subtle, but I believe being in an open squadbay with your entire platoon for the duration of basic training forces a sense of cohesion and conformity that lends itself to an increase in lethality. Leaders emerge more naturally, people are forced to break their own bad habits because they're on display in front of everyone else. You form a bond that I just don't see happening when you aren't living alongside every member, so it's impossible to replicate with males and females in the same basic training platoon because they aren't going to be bunking together. The Marine Corps was the last service to integrate genders at basic training and I think it's a mistake to do so.

I left active duty in 2017, and being in a SOF unit you get sort of isolated from a lot of what goes on in the rest of the military. After leaving I did some contract work overseas, working alongside various units in different capacities. I believe that in our general forces there are serious issues with things like porn addiction, weird obsessions with things like anime and video games, and I'm not a Doctor but I'd be interested to see how many service members are suffering from manic depression (again, not combat related) or something similar. I think this kind of stuff has the potential to affect the lethality and capability of a unit far more than lowering the standard on a 3 mile run time by a couple minutes. It's harder to address though.

I'm with you though, I think a lot of this says more about our culture as a nation, and less about the military itself. However, I think the military could do a better job in some ways of being that arbiter of the standard that we all want it to be. I think it's going to take some unorthodox approaches as well as admitting some truths that would perhaps make people a little uncomfortable. I also think that where we can enforce a standard, we should, and when people who are supposed to be holding a standard give warning that a standard is not being upheld they should be given a fair shake. I wasn't there and I don't know anyone involved, so I don't know the whole story, but some guys over at SFQC penned such a letter back in 2017 https://sofrep.com/news/careerism-c...warfare-center-end-special-forces-capability/
I would imagine similar letters of concern have ended up with people such as Pete Hegseth and others in his circle.

Perhaps we're at a point in time where we take a look at how the military itself is structured, maybe something like the opposite of the McNamara's 100,000, where instead of low-IQ troops supplemented with tech, we use high IQ troops supplemented with Tech. Maybe we look at increasing the standards across the board (to include MEPS), but also increasing the pay. Maybe we change how the rank structure works. The Marine Corps has implemented something called the Talent Acquisition program where you can skip a bunch of rank upon entry in certain MOS fields, does a guy with advanced degrees and certifications in tech really need to be a PFC? Or can we just pin E6 on him and send him to a SIGINT position where him and 4 guys are going to sit in a room and code all day? Maybe we look at letting troops waive promotion in rank and have to take on more responsibility that maybe they aren't ready for, but still allow them to get a small pay raise. Is there a guy out there who is a shit hot mortar section leader who just wants to do that for 20 years? Probably so, why not let him do it? I'm sure plenty of Infantry Platoon and Company Commanders would love to stay at that level, just like I'm pretty sure there's plenty of E-5s out there who would love the opportunity to become that platoon commander, and realistically are fit for the job, but don't have a degree. Why can't that guy go through a board, and then to the Infantry Officer Course and pin on Lt?

I don't think our military has gone "woke", but I'm also not going to pretend like it's all perfect and beyond reproach. I think in some ways standards have dropped in some areas, and been raised in others. It's not as bad as people think in some areas, but there's a likelihood it's worse than people think in some areas as well.

 

[Ridge Runner]

I saw some of "The Peter Principle" during my military career. "Promote the f****ps out of the unit. They make us look bad." As a senior NCO E-8 and master trainer a lot of it fell on me to train up as many as possible. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. Not a fun part of the job.

One of the good - bad experiences I had was being involuntarily volunteered to train replacements; pre Basic Training. Another long story short. Had 2 soldiers not been in the same platoon, and all 5 of them being in the same basic training company. It would have been better for them. As it turned out they all graduated with honors; 4 with all top honors only the 1 of the 2 in the same platoon could only receive a co- runner-up outstanding soldier award. Not sure how the rest of those I trained graduated as I had been reassigned prior to their graduation. However I did get word my previous unit received some sort of command honor(s).