THE Fighting Illini

First off, big ups to my main man Starbuck for his shout-out today. Sir, I’ve been following your blog for awhile, and it’s pretty cool to get that kind of exposure since we can’t rely on print media ::cough:: Spartz! ::cough::

Starbuck’s post on The Lessons of a New Generation [of Army leadership] is worth taking a look at, as it certainly related to a conversation I had with my commander not too long ago. What will happen next in our Army? Granted, every year we lose ironman leaders who probably sympathize with something I recently heard in the Troop:

“We’re war babies…they won’t let us stay. This garrison sh**, we’re just not built for it.”

So where does the current generation of LTs fit into all of this? We enlisted or began our officer education during a time of war. We were told every year by our seasoned, combat-vet cadre, “It’s not a matter of if you go, but when you go.” And now, here we are. Some of us aren’t slated to deploy. Some are in Afghanistan already, some in Iraq. If we stay in, it will be up to our generation to reset the Army after at least a decade of persistent conflict.

Gentlemen, what say you? What are our priorities?

My priorities:

• Refine the way we develop and retain officers.
• Identify talented individuals and develop them into strategic thinkers.

Here is an interesting article for all from Tom Rick’s blog, The Best Defense:

By Maj. Fernando Lujan, U.S. Army
Best Defense guest columnist

I graduated from West Point in 1998, served several combat tours, then received a master’s degree from the Harvard Kennedy School so that I could instruct the cadets in politics, policy, and strategy. I have worked on the West Point faculty for two years, and this summer I’ll return to the operational Army in Afghanistan. From my own limited perspective, I can say that the Academy is falling heartbreakingly short of its potential to prepare young officers.

While West Point has recently made an effort to change with the times by adding a handful of elective courses in counterinsurgency, expanding its foreign immersion programs, and hosting several high level conferences on key Army issues, the founding principle of the cadet system remains the same:  We lecture the cadets on professionalism but we practice bureaucracy.   To summarize the difference, professional cultures debate, discuss, and continually innovate to stay effective in the changing world.  Bureaucracies churn out ever-restrictive rules and seek to capture every eventuality in codified routines.

Consider this:  From day one at the academy every possible situation that a cadet could conceivably encounter is accounted for by strict regulations. Not sure how many inches should be between your coat hangers, whether you can hold your girlfriend’s hand on campus, or how your socks should be marked? Consult the regulations. Moreover, all activity is subjected to the cadet performance system, which essentially assigns a grade to every measurable event in a cadet’s life (think shoe shines, pushups and pop quizzes) then ruthlessly ranks the entire class from first to last. Cadets at the top of the list get the jobs and postings they want after graduation. Those near the bottom end up driving trucks at Fort Polk, Louisiana….

I think more and more people are starting to confront the realities and downfalls of our academy brothers. We heard over and over how ROTC cadets can stand toe-to-toe with USMA, and many times outperform and outlast them in the “real Army.”

I know at least every other new USMA lieutenant I meet is already “done” with the Army, only looking forward to the end of their contract…in five years. I think the restricted education and liberal freedom at the academy is truley burning them out before they even start.

Any other anecdotes?

"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

I would like to start out by saying I believe in the officer corps. I still believe in the Army. We (the Army and officers) get a lot of bad press both from the outside and ourselves. We like to point out what’s wrong with the system, but not many are willing to stick around to fix things. And I think that is, in actuality, the biggest problem right now.

I’m an optimist and an altruist. I know I personally got into this job because of the hooah-hooah jump out of helicopters stuff, and because of the prestigious legacy of the services. Even in the modern era of persistent conflict, eight years into two wars, the general public still looks at military officers as the country’s most honorable and professional individuals. Sure, on paper we may not represent the true creme de la creme. But there is something to be said about some brains, a little brawn, and a healthy dose of enough patriotism to throw in your lot and do your part, to call us some of the best individuals America has to count on. Numbers alone tell more lies than truths.

But unfortunately, like any job, one must start at the bottom and work his way up.

Like me writing this at 0253 HRS while on a tiring staff duty shift. No one joins the Army to pull staff duty. No one joins the Army to write counselings, work on chapter packets even on your block leave, or to be separated from your friends and family for months at a time. At some point we all recognized we had something more to give than ourselves, and inspired by the war stories of our predecessors we raised our hands for whatever the task.

If you wanted to branch infantry and the Army Gods decided you were going to be field artillery, what do you do? Quit? Did you join the Army with any preconditions? I try to tell myself I didn’t. It doesn’t always work. If you raised your hand to volunteer and the Army decided it needed you most in the supply room, take it with a grain of salt. Only a small fraction can jump out of helicopters and kick down doors. But no one can jump out of helicopters before that LZ is prepped, and that chalk is loaded with beans and bullets.

Usually when I talk to lieutenants choosing to leave the Army before making captain, or as a junior captain, it definitely is because of many of the issues mentioned in the Strategic Studies paper (job satisfaction, not meeting job expectations or opportunities, etc). But I just can’t help but think at some point near the field grade things really start paying off. I can’t help thinking that the only ones willing to find that out are some of those less desirable candidates who can’t separate from the military because they lack the motivation to leave or the skills to leave an institutionalized career.

The Army is trying to entice us with “just stick it out!” and we promise things will get better. It truly is a hard sell.

We are all blanketed in the glory of the Washingtons, Shermans, Pattons and Moores. But this glory does extend to our era in the Powells, McChrystals, Patreas’s and…Stenzels. I believe junior officers feel too detatched from these echelons, so it’s hard to think that what we do now could one day lead to command at that level or careers of that significance. Most of the stars we look up to either never saw “combat” until they commanded a corps, or still haven’t seen “combat.” In todays’ Army we consider anyone with a fuzzy right sleeve not worth the nylon his name tape is printed with. No one really writes books about how amazing their lieutenant years were if they’ve made it past captain. And lately the draw from the civilian sector, these loosening standards for admission into the officer corps, and the less kinetic battlefields discourage retention in a generation that needs quick satisfaction.

Most of the lieutenants I talk to who plan on staying in for at least the foreseeable future don’t have much introspection or high ambition. The talk is mostly of punching in the hours, minimizing the impact of the next deployment, and securing school dates to relax from OP Tempo. I haven’t decided if this is good or not, or whether it even means anything. But I would at least think that some of the great field grades and generals in the past tried to plan for the future, even as lieutenants. I don’t believe that officers accidentally end up with PhD’s and Pentagon jobs. That takes more than punching the clock.

For me the draw to see what’s on the other side of the lieutenant hill is just too great. I can see myself trying to do different jobs in intel or civil affairs, or even artillery (fires, as we like to call it these days). I think we always hear about the jobs we’d like to do, but many of us never meet the people who either have done it or can tell us how to get into it. This is probably another problem with the system, that of the branch managers as the gate keepers. Perhaps there needs to be a more fluid communication system between real, working field grades and junior officers. Like a facebook or LinkedIn where random communication and job recommendations is encouraged. Ha!

I know my experiences thus far have not been what I expected. We are trained in ROTC to have a platoon of cadet-competent “Soldiers” who think like us, do PT for fun and we WILL take the hill! Our pre-job training is focused on Soldiering ourselves up and learning tactics. Our on-the-job experiences teach us logistics and how to apply the grease that gets the Army machine to the fight foremost, then we’ll worry about making the PowerPoint for the OPORD to cordon the village.

I know there are also legitimate circumstances that make some of us want, or need, to leave the military when our time is up. I also strongly believe that anyone who has done their time has already done more than they were asked. There is a reason LTC’s will regularly thank soldiers and junior officers for their service.

I personally refuse to let this discourage my outlook. Perhaps something better in the future will present itself. I still don’t plan on making this a 20-year career. But I can see myself putting in a few more than my three-year contract if not only to see what else the Army can do for me, but what I can do for the Army.

"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

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