Hoya Saxa!

Georgetown Army ROTC ranked top in the nation

ONCE AN EAGLE rated number one by Army junior officers

What do Army junior officers actually recommend reading?  Their own top 10

Meathead generals

This is a spectacular article and I couldn't agree with it more. These are the reasons the Army lost an entire generation of Officers in Year Groups 2002 through 2006:

C'mon man! Meathead generals and some other things that are driving me crazy about life in this man's post-9/11 Army

Cool on Honor: Sadism, Cruelty, and Character Development at West Point

I'm so lucky to have been brought up in Georgetown Army ROTC. This certainly didn't happen there and, in my opinion, our program molded some of the best officers of my generation. This article deals with how "cadetland" actually works in some places. Even coming from my ROTC program, I was shocked that "cadetland" was really a fantasy land different from the real Army... I could only imagine how West Pointers feel when they graduate. Don't get me wrong, for the most part USMA produces great officers, but the type of behavior described in this paper is unacceptable.

Commissioning programs need to harness the idealism of the cadets that, in part, made them sign a blank check endorsed with their life to the military and this country. I know I became frustrated with the bureaucracy of the Army and left because I felt I could do more for my country in other areas of life than staying in for 30 years with the faint hope that I never slipped up, didn't piss anyone off to make general officer, and then try and make the changes to improve the organization from within.

Army chief of staff visits Soldiers in Iraq

"We're promoting 95 to 98 percent of captains to major, 93 or 95 percent of majors to lieutenant colonel," said Martin. "We're not really separating out the true high performers that we should aspire to have. We shouldn't be satisfied that 98 percent of captains are being promoted to major, because 98 percent of captains don't deserve to be promoted to major. Statistically, that's an infeasible percentage. And we've got to do the same thing on the noncommissioned officer side."

Best and Brightest

One would think that the Army should do everything in its power to keep the best and brightest in its Officer Corps, but apparently we can settle for the "less-than best and brightest," to use GEN Kroesen's words, and do an ok job. I'm sure that is exactly what the FORTUNE 100 companies and top law firms think of losing hot-shot associates, right? No. We need to view losing such talent as a win for the "enemy" not think like GEN Kroesen and say to ourselves, "Oh, ho hum, the Army keeps rolling along."

The Case for Outcome-Based Training and Education

Great article suggesting one way to make the Army's future generation of leaders more adaptable. Hopefully, MAJ Foster's ideas are heard. Unfortunately, with new technology letting a top-down Soviet-style decision making process from the TOC more entrenched, it is unlikely.The Case for Outcome-Based Training and Education

Why We Should Get Rid of West Point

Tom Ricks makes an interesting argument in this piece, however, there are a few points I would like to make. The idea that ROTC produces officers less cynical of the military is unsubstantiated. What does he have to back this statement up? A few personal accounts? Both produce officers; the Army creates cynical officers. The Army creates cynical officers when it doesn't promote based on merit and performance, rather on time-in-grade. The Army creates cynical officers when generals who royally mess up in combat are subsequently promoted to the highest levels of command (e.g. Casey, Odierno, Chiarelli). The Army creates cynical officers when University of Phoenix Online educated officers are put in charge of young quasi-Ivy League educated officers. I could go on and on.

Ricks makes a good point when he says:

Although West Point's history and social science departments provided much intellectual firepower in rethinking the U.S. approach to Iraq, most of West Point's faculty lacks doctorates. Why not send young people to more rigorous institutions on full scholarships, and then, upon graduation, give them a military education at a short-term military school?

I agree that there should be more Ph.D. level professors at the academies, but operational tempo prevents this. Unless the officer corps is expanded to allow for officers to get a Ph.D. after company command and not just a master's degree, it will not happen. Also, given the brain drain on the officer corps, how many officers would even get into Ph.D. programs? Also, imagine if the Army let hundreds of the junior officers who left to go to graduate school back in and paid for their Ph.D.s? Then you would truly have a thinking man's officer corps (early bad combat experiences combined with an education; they would ensure nothing like the Iraq debacle occurred again).

I also think that there should be more civilian professors at the academies. This would help bridge the divide between the civilian population and the military. This would bring the Cal-Berkeley hippie political science professor to West Point thereby encouraging debate. Young cadets would have to deal with conflicting viewpoints, not that all are of a conservative bent, and harsh questioning the way they will as lieutenants when dealing with the media.

Ricks did not mention is that West Point was founded as an engineering school. Cadets are still required to take advanced calculus and engineering classes - something many college students do not do. The academies need to modernize in that respect - Army Officers in general do not need advanced calculus and engineering in their day-to-day jobs. In another related issue, the Ivies also need to let ROTC back on campus.

Finally, enough with Petraeus' doctorate. Got it. Duly noted. What about the quality of the rest of the officer corps? As long as mustang officers keep being commissioned with crappy degrees, I would take a West Point grad over an officer educated online any day of the week.

America's Best Leaders

Sadly, too many of these leaders have left the service... Perhaps if the nation went back to using the National Guard and Reserves the way in which they were intended to be used, for natural disasters, state of emergencies, and declared/war of national survival war, we would at least have a quality, battle-tested reserve officer corps.

Armor Officer Promotion Rate from MAJ to LTC: 100%

You will need AKO access to use the link above. It leads to the October 2008 Armor Branch Brief done by Human Resources Command. I scanned in a copy of Slide 17; I wrote the only statement I could think of to describe the insanity of promoting 100 percent of the "eligible" Majors in the Armor Branch to Lieutenant Colonel and 94 percent of the Captains to Major - Hooah! Also of particular interest is the disgusting 69 percent promotion rate from Lieutenant Colonel to Colonel.

This briefing just shows that if you stick around long enough in the Army, you will get promoted. This is one reason why quality company grade officers leave the Army; how many of Year Groups 2001, 2002, and 2003, are still in? Not many. In the Army, it doesn't matter how good you are, you just get promoted based on time-in-grade and blind loyalty to the chain of command and their chosen profession. Oh yeah, and that shitbird company commander/field grade S-3 making you execute their flawed plans that get your Joes killed? Yeah, he's going to be a battalion commander, maybe even a brigade commander. Hopefully after 69 percent of them make Colonel, they will find some heavy duty Lava Soap to wash the blood off of their hands. Hooah!

Below is a picture of Bo, the Obama's new puppy, who is about as qualified as some of the newly minted Lieutenant Colonels and Colonels are for their troop leadership positions: Share

Foreign Language Crisis

The United States, despite all of its great strengths, has a broken education system that does not encourage foreign language and cultural training from a young age. Most American students take a foreign language in middle school - after the age when it is easiest for a human to learn a new language - and never gain proficiency. Compare that to many of the other First World countries and it is despicable.

Given this situation, it is no surprise that the U.S. military and intelligence agencies are lacking in linguists and officers with language ability. In this article, it states that, "Figures from the department indicate that only 1.2 percent of the military receives a bonus paid to those who can speak languages judged to be of critical importance for the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as other areas of strategic concern." Despite the increase in Foreign Area Officer billets, which require cultural and language training - given to officers in their late-20s and 30s when it is extremely hard to learn a language - the military is still in crisis. It doesn't even seem that the military is stressing the importance of language training to its future officers: "The Army reports that only 106 of its 24,000 R.O.T.C. cadets are majoring in a strategic language." Cultural and language training is something that should not just be addressed by the military. It should be addressed in the American primary school system now for the future and in the R.O.T.C. and military academies now. America is a diverse country that claims to appreciate and accept different cultures, but we are lacking in true appreciation and understanding of other cultures because of our language skill Achilles heel. Truly knowing a culture means knowing its language... one more reason why a counterinsurgency is so hard for America to fight.

Learning a language at a young age is key. Although the Army gives free access to Rosetta Stone software to its soldiers, perhaps another heavy hitter, Muzzy, should be brought into the mix. Of course, Muzzy himself would need to learn Farsi, Chinese, Arabic, Pashtun, and Swedish - that's right, I don't trust the Swedes - but it can be done. Here is a commercial for Muzzy I remember from my childhood: