THE Fighting Illini

To spark some conversation, I’d like to turn your attentions to a study being done by the Strategic Studies Institute, which I believe I may have mentioned before.

“The Future of the U.S. Army Officer Corps” was started last year to review the shortcomings, and to suggest improvements, in the pipeline of officer recruiting, retaining, assessing, and employing. I’ve been following it on and off for a bit now. The most recent session (closing today) is on “Assessing Talent.”

Watch the videos by some BAMF Generals, active and retired. Then read the paper, and perhaps a few of the others. Here are some points I’d like to talk about that I believe is very relevant to us.

[I'd also like those interested to start your own post in response, and we can then comment on each person's article to make it easier to read.]

LTG Freakly:

General question: Does there exist a professionalism in the junior officer corps? Does introspection and aspiration exist in the ranks on a daily basis?

Talks about being honest with officers: not everyone will command a battalion, not everyone will be a colonel. But the promise of development in personal strengths and the fact that the army needs persons with those strengths, as a tool to incentivize retainment. Is this happening at the LT level?

MG Bartell:

“3 of 10 American’s between the ages 17 to 24 even qualify for military service, not to mention to be officers”

LTG(R) Christman:

He claims that the most influential person on a junior officer is his battalion commander and field grades in his battalion. The inability of the army to effectively “vet and cull” the ineffective field grades will lead/is leading to attrition of junior officers. How has your field grades influenced your career thus far, and your outlook to the future?

Report:

As shown by the dots in Figure 7 (reading right to left), accessions were relatively constant in the 1990s, but have climbed steadily since 2000. As a result, the Army has significantly more company grade officers than it has structure to employ them. This creates a lengthy queue for platoon leader positions and forces the Army to reduce the amount of time that an officer spends in key and  developmental positions. Not surprisingly, this leads to decreased satisfaction and impairs the Army’s ability to retain talent.

Have your expectations of what your duties and responsibilities would be been met? How has that affected your career outlook?

They have much less direct exposure to the military than previous generations of young people, 20 most of whom had vicarious contact with millions of World War II or Cold War-era service veterans.  In the absence of such a direct connection, they must rely on popular culture, movies, television, or the internet for information regarding Army officer service. If the Army fails to provide accurate and  easily assimilated information about officership, prospect impressions may be unduly shaped by the wealth of incomplete, dated, or skewed information available from thousands of media sources.

Is your life and job as a lieutenant what you expected it to be? How is it different?

"Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strength. When you go through hardship and decide not to surrender, that is strength."

-Arnold Schwarzenegger

This blog is now a ghost town…I think we need to try to do some heavy recruiting…

WALK NAKED IN AMERICA DAY
Don’t forget to mark your calendars.
As you may already know, it is a sin for a Muslim males to see any woman other than his wife naked and if he does, he must commit suicide.   So next Saturday at 1 PM Eastern Time, all American women are asked to walk out of their house completely naked to help weed out any neighborhood terrorists.
Circling your block for one hour is recommended for this anti-terrorist effort.

All patriotic men are to position themselves in lawn chairs in front of their houses to demonstrate their support for the women and to prove that they are not Muslim terrorist sympathizers.   Since Islam also does not approve of alcohol, a cold 6-pack at your side is further proof of your patriotism.

The American government appreciates your efforts to root out terrorists and applauds your participation in this anti-terrorist activity.

God bless    America !

P.S.. It is your patriotic duty to inform others.

"Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strength. When you go through hardship and decide not to surrender, that is strength."

-Arnold Schwarzenegger

New lieutenants have been conditioned from Day 1 on to expect to be a Platoon Leader. And why not? All of our training during ROTC and OBC (at least for us infantry folk) revolves around that rifle platoon. It’s an exciting job to be a PL, one that many officers look back on as their best time in the Army due to the high level of interaction with your troops. Leading 42 of America’s Finest into combat is the primary goal that you prepare for through 4 years of ROTC, half a year of OBC, Ranger School maybe, until you finally get to your unit.

And then you find out it’s not going to happen… yet.

Maybe they just rotated in a bunch of LTs and you have to wait a few months, maybe you get thrown into a staff section, or maybe they have a more pressing need and you just happen to be the lucky guy to show up right then.

So now what?

In my case, my first job was as a Company Intelligence Support Team (COIST) OIC. This is one of the up and coming positions in the Army; for now it is non-doctrinal and only filled during deployments. It allows for the fusion of intelligence and operations at the Company level to drive operations and fulfill priority intelligence requirements.This job has given me the opportunity to participate in mission planning at the BN/CO level, learn the assets available to support operations overseas and how to request them, yet still go out on patrol everyday and interact with the other PLs, Soldiers, and Iraqis.

In any case, in a short time I will get my shot at being a PL. I believe that while this experience wasn’t along the “ideal” track for an Infantry Officer, it gave me a much better understanding of things that I wouldn’t normally get until I went through MCCC and became a Company Commander. I think in the end it will be a positive enhancer for my career to have experienced something outside the norm.

Several links below detail what the COIST Section is, how it’s structured, and how it will help you as a PL/CO in the future. This is highly recommended reading for any company level leader.

• Infantry Magazine, March-April 2008, by Brandon Colas
• COIST Handbook (AKO access required)

Now, questions to the crowd: What kind of jobs have people had that have been considered outside the normal platoon leader track? How did you approach that? Did you just quit on the Army because the Army screwed you or did you make lemonade out of lemons and drive on? Whats your prospects for PL time? Do you believe it has negatively/positively impacted your career?

D-Rock
1LT, IN
FT Hood, TX

I am starting this post for two reasons; first to start getting the ball rolling on our collective think take of good ideas and *complaints*, and second because I have been thinking about this topic since I have moved from a platoon leader position to staff.

As a platoon leader with a company commander in a unit with a definite chain of command (i.e. Squad Leaders, PSG, PL, 1SG, Commander…etc) the general unwritten rule has been that first names were not used except between the same ranks.  I have also been led to believe that NCO’s never use each other’s first names, especially while on duty.  Even though my PSG was my right hand man, I never used his first name when addressing him.  My Commander never used first names when talking to the PL’s, mainly because it showed poor command.  However, it seems once you become an O4 or higher, using first names becomes more common, even when addressing CPT’s and LT’s.

Also, I noticed that members of Battalion and above staff sections use each other’s first name frequently across ranks or towards subordinates (NCO’s still don’t use first names).  Is there a correlation that most O3/O4′s are at staff level and get into the habit of using first names and then they carry that on to their battalion command if they get one?

I would like to see everyone’s thoughts or opinions on using first names as officers.  A couple of questions to think about:

Does using first names between a Commander and his Platoon Leaders show a lack of customs and courtesy, and does it negatively effect good order?

Should officers address each other with first names in front of NCO’s and subordinates, or does it reflect poor discipline in the Officers Corps?

Due to the nature of the close working relationship amongst staff officers in a Staff Section, does it make it ok to use first names?

I know of a few Battalion Commanders that prefer to call officers at all levels below them (sometimes above) by their first names, is this their attempt to try showing a sense of closeness/attachment at a personal level to their officers by addressing them by a name that’s not on their uniform? Are they trying to indicate that they know you by more than just a velco tag stuck to you? Does it make anyone uncomfortable? (Personally, from my experience so far, i’m still not adjusted to being referred to by my first name from a superior.)