Selected emails from readers about John T. Reed’s military articles

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Copyright by John T. Reed Cemmunts from John T. Reed are in [red brackets].

Mr. Reed,

 

I am an Army Reservist.  I wrote you once before, in 2006, to thank you for the military articles at your web site.

 

Somehow, I always find myself coming back to them whenever I attend any Army school.

 

This time, it's WOBC (Warrant Officer Basic Course ), following successful completion of WOCS (Warrant Officer Candidate School ) last year.

 

I have no doubt that you get a perpetual sprinkler system of criticism -- especially from Airborne and Ranger qualified personnel -- namely for the reasons you cite: that such personnel are so utterly caught up in the mystique of their own bullshit that they cannot tolerate anyone making a common sense critique of Ranger School or the Army's absolute infatuation with Airborne training. [Reed note: Not a perpetual sprinkler but a handful of emails containing ungrammatical ranting to the extent that tough guy training and the guys who graduated from it really are tough. College football players are tough. The military’s purported tough guys are masochistic, but could not defeat a college freshman football team in any sort of non-masochistic physical competition. They may not even be able to defeat them in a masochistic competition.]

 

Here at WOBC at Ft. Jackson, a few of us have been shaking our heads at the fact that Army PT is still dictated to Airborne standard.  Ergo, if you're not a fast runner, then you're generally denigrated.  A few of us have permanent physical profiles due to leg, ankle, knee, and hip injury.  It's amazing to us still that no matter what school you attend anywhere in the Army, or at what level, those who cannot run are held in high contempt by those who can run.  Yet there is no known reason why any troop in Afghanistan or Iraq would be required to quickly run 2 miles at full speed.  Army studies have shown that "burst" sprinting would be far more beneficial -- for urban combat ops -- yet the Army insists that the three event APFT(Army Physical Fitness Test ) -- which revolves almost entirely around the 2 mile run -- is the best way to evaluate soldier fitness.  A tradition that dates back to at least WWII and seems to have its roots firmly in the soil of Airborne training.  Curahee!, and so forth. [As a football coach, I time players in the 10 and 20-yard dash. Since football plays rarely last longer than six seconds, that’s what football games are about. The military’s fire and maneuver tactis have similar durations. I am not aware of any battle where a two mile run was executed with the possible exception of the Battle of Mogadishu where the U.S. rescuers with armored vehicles incompetently left a squad of rangers behind leaving those rangers with no choice but to simply run out in the open behind their idiot armored colleagues while under fire. In that case, I think kicking the asses of the commanders who forgot a squad makes more sense than having everyone in the Army run two miles repeatedly.You will know the military is serious about physical fitness when all ranks and specialties get surprise tested at all times of the year in a realistic-to-battle conditions physical test. I recently went to a military retirement ceremony in Hawaii and spent some time at Fort Derussy. I never saw such a high percentage of overweight military active duty personnel in my life. We emphasized physical fitness far less when I was in during the late sixties and early seventies, and we were in better shape on average, mainly because we pushed ourselves away from the table sooner than today’s soldiers. “Hooah” apparently means “Supersize me!”]

 

I understand the Army's requirement for aerobic conditioning.  But as you have noted, the civilian world is already way ahead of the military in this regard.  Hell, last week one of the other Warrants and I went down to Solomon Gym for a civilian-led fit aerobics class.  In 75 minutes with step, medicine ball, and weight bar, the civilian MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation ) instructor took us through an excellent aerobic program that had us soaking our PTs (Physical Training uniform) to the point of dripping, and it never required mindless, joint and bone jarring distance runs on hard pavement -- per the Army standard of formation runs.  So why do we still do fucking formation runs?

Right.  Esprit de corps.  Oh yeah, and everyone else was forced to fucking do them so naturally WE (we meaning people who should know better) are going to force all our juniors to do them, because if the Army does anything well, it's force shit to flow eternally downhill.

[We called West Point “208 years of tradition unmarked by progress.” In the Army, it’s relatively easy to start some half-baked practice; almost impossible to stop it. No one wants to waste his precious political capital on stopping his predecessors’ stupidity.]
 

Makes me thankful I get to be a civilian most of the time.  I am proud to participate in my own tiny way in the defense of my nation, but the Army is still so chock full of idiocy, at the end of these training schools, I am forever happy to shed the uniform and have a real life.


Much obliged for your articles.  I always pass the links on to other Army and servicemembers.  In all cases, everyone loves and agrees with them.  Because they contain truth. [That’s what I’m trying to do. Glad to hear others recognize it.]

One more thought, about Airborne and Ranger qual.  A term came up here at WOBC that I had never heard before.  That term was SCARE BADGE.

It was used in reference to an instructor who had an impressive collection on his breast: airborne, air assault, Combat Action Badge, etc.

I have often discussed this with many different Army personnel, both those who have these badges and those who do not, and most people seem to agree that these badges are essentially trophies, with little or no practical value.  And while it's all well and good to wear trophies on a dress uniform -- the "I Love Me" uniform [I never heard that phrase before but I think it’s true.]-- wearing them on ACUs (Army Combat Uniform, the new -- and badly designed -- digital camo uniform of the Army ) or any other dual duty-field uniform is just back-patting, or a quick way for "club" members to differentiate themselves from those not in the "club."

 Jump wings and air assault wings seem particularly specious, as many people who wear them have not fallen out of a plane or gone down a rope from a helicopter in a long, long time.  So why wear something from a school you have not attended in years, and which you'd probably have to repeat all over again if actually asked to execute the same skillset in a current combat operation? [If everyAmerican who graduated from a course that lasted 15 days or more wore a badge, we would look like a nation of Audie Murphy’s.]

Hell, many people who do wear them, don't want to!

One of the most impressive soldiers I have met in my small career in the Reserve, was a WOC (Warrant Officer Candidate ) mate and former Marine who later joined the National Guard, and who had done combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Though he'd collected his own chest of "scare badges" he declined to wear them until it became obvious that WOCS cadre would call him on it.  For him, having gone and done the acts was trophy enough.  Badges were a needless nuisance -- and this man was one of the most unassuming and humble fellows I'd ever met.  To run into him in civilian clothes on the street, you would have never guessed he'd done even half of what he'd done in two different theaters in two different branches of the Armed Forces.

I absolutely believe in recognizing significant accomplishment where it's due.  But I also think that unless a badge or a tab represents a current, specific, pertinent skill set or MOS slot, there is no point in a person having it on his or her duty-field uniform.  Save the "I Love Me" routine for dining in or some other formal event, where pomp and primping is the point of the whole affair.  Every-day work?  Your name on one breast, U.S. ARMY on the other, and a flag on your shoulder, ought to be enough. [That ought to be engraved on a monument somewhere.]

Everything else... Is just a status symbol.  Something to divide up the "club" from the "un-club."  And that's just bad military mindset in my humble opinion.  Especially in an era where MOSs and different types of troops are being called upon to work together -- sometimes very closely and for long duration -- during very difficult missions. [I think the real purpose of all the bullshit attendance and good bureacrat medals is to impress civilians who assume they must all be for bravery.]

A soldier's calibre is always reflected in the quality of the product he or she delivers, not badges and tabs.  [Put that on the same monument.] I've met too many "bare" troops who are excellent, and too many shit-fuck troops who are badged and tabbed to the nines, to believe otherwise.

One final missive, since I've been reading your site again and am reminded of the hazing issue.

The Warrant Officer Candidate School at Ft. Rucker used to be one of the most notorious hazing institutions in the post-Vietnam Army.  All of my senior Warrant Officers who went through the "old" program spoke of insane hazing events, such as the Duffle Bag Drag wherein men and women -- people who had been senior enlisted prior to being picked up for Candidate status -- were forced to crawl across a lengthy field populated with TAC (Training and Counseling) Officers, with each Candidate having their full kit on their backs, and at the feet of each TAC ordered to execute 100 push-ups.  This could take hours, and literally exhaust the Candidate in question.  Others spoke of being rousted from barracks at 3 AM to crawl across the "beach" of the sand PT area -- which was flooded nightly by the TACs in anticipation of the event -- en route to their actual physical training for the day.  All uniform items -- even socks -- had to be ironed to perfection and arranged in accordance with the infamous WOC SOP; a document that still lives, although in modified form.

My own WOC experience was not nearly as harsh as that described by seniors.  As a Reservist I was able to take advantage of the National Guard Regional Training Institute program -- RTI -- wherein Reserve and Guard performed part of their Candidate Schooling over a series of weekend drills, and finished with a two week capper event at either Ft. McClellan in Alabama, or Camp Atterbury in Indiana.  Hazing at the RTI was minimal, and there did seem to be more of a genuine focus on leadership training.  My two TAC officers for the Idaho portion of my RTI experience were especially excellent.

However, other Warrants who have recently passed through Ft. Rucker inform me that hazing has not entirely left that institution.  Though restructured to be a "passing" program instead of a weed-out program, Rucker WOCS still extracts its pound of flesh.

The key question being asked: why?

For those who had been senior enlisted especially, what was the point in subjecting them to another break-down chickenshit run, as they had already experienced in Basic Combat Training and, in some cases, at other schools, such as Ranger School?

As you note on your web pages, the only possible explanation is that there are still some people who see value in being able to say they "went through" a thing, or in the case of some TAC and cadre, being able to sadistically enjoy doling out some of the punishment that was doled out to them in their day, like a frat house initiation.

Frankly, I find such tales depressing, because in an era when PROFESSIONALISM is the huge watch-word of the Army, frat boy antics are unbecoming.  Especially in a program purpose-designed to turn out technical leadership.

The Warrant Officer is called a Warrant Officer for a reason, and if I had my way, I'd absolutely abolish Candidate School and re-institute the direct appointment for all Candidates who are Staff Sergeant or higher.  Everything they could possibly need to know about squad and platoon leadership has already been taught in the lower schools -- Primary Leadership Development Course, now called Warrior Leader Course, Basic Non-Commissioned Officer Course, Advanced Non-Commissioned Officer Course -- and it's insulting to think that men and women with a great deal of experience and enlisted leadership skill need to be "hazed" as an aperture to their expanded role in the Warrant Officer corps.  That's just fucking stupid, and pointless, and there is no call for it.

But then, as you have noted, most Army schools seem to be predicated on the notion that it's not a "real' school unless it's dominated by cadre who get to insult, fuck with, and otherwise denigrate the students in their charge.  Because nothing teaches a human being better than being humiliated, deprived of sleep or food, and being forced to engage in mindless and often pointless activity, such as ironing a pair of socks in the middle of the night so that a Candidate doesn't get dinged for having a non-standard locker drawer display.  Wow, talk about leadership training!  Not.

It's my hope that my generation and those generations that follow, will take a lesson from the rapid evolution of today's military operations, and put the focus on mission specifics, and cut down on the frat house bullshit.  Maybe during the peace-time Cold War years from 1975 up to and through 1991, there wasn't much else in the Army that allowed someone to "prove" themselves in a meaningful way, other than to go through a stupid hazing school.  But in today's military, the next deployment is always around the corner, and even the Reserve and National Guard are being sent to the fight in numbers unheard of since probably World War II.  So it's not like people don't have tons of opportunity to prove themselves in places where it actually matters.

Schools?  Schools should be for learning skills that will actually assist with mission accomplishment in-theater.

Alas, too often, schools are abused as an excuse for hazing.  It's pointless, and it ought to be stopped.
--Brad

Good day,  sir,

My name is Dave Starr.  I've visited your web site often in the  past, originally to peruse your real estate guru rating information.  As  a retired military contemporary (I was an AF enlisted maintenance guy during  the same years you went through west Point and Vietnam, I find there are a lot  more items of interest as well.  Unlike you I endured (succumbed to  inertia) for 10 years active and 28 more years in USAF Civil (swivel?)  Service.  I don't spend my life regretting ... there were good times and  good things that I was part of during those years ... but too soon old and too  late smart ... I probably would have chosen a different career path if given  the opportunity again.

Without just  sounding like a lower-grade chronic bitcher I have to say I find some of your  comments on the officer corps, especially the winnowing process that  eventually provides us with our general officers extremely on point and sadly true to life.  Of all the GO's and senior O-6's I served under and worked  with in nearly 40 years the ones who "had a clue" or actually served the  country before themselves could be counted on one hand.  That sounds  pretty sour and I don't mean it to ... many of these men (and a few women) are  actually very good and well educated people but they have to make their  talents and efforts "fit" into the mold to such a degree that their better  qualities eventually wither and die on the vine.

Be  Well
Dave
www.retiredpay.com <http://www.retiredpay.com>  

The following email was signed when I received it, however I have removed the name of the sender because he did not respond to my request for permission to quote him. My responses to what he says are in [red brackets].

Mr. Reed:
 
Sir:
 
I appreciate your writings on West Point and the Army.  My background - serving Army officer [as soon as I see that the writer is currently on active duty, I expect him to be inhibited in what he says—I would be curious as to whether recent escapees from the military officers corps corroborate what he say about how the military has changed.], USMA graduate.  A few of my own:
 
West Point: I attended USMA because I did not believe that civilian college would challenge me.  [Try Cal Tech for a greater academic challenge or the LSU football team for a greater physical one] In retrospect, I am very glad that I went to USMA, because, frankly, I needed to get toughened up. [Once again, I would recommend any college football team over USMA for toughening] I thought the education at USMA was not broadly related to developing a coherent world view - much of how, little of why.  I majored in history, but, in actuality spent the last two years reading whatever I thought interesting, and performing the least work possible elsewhere (engineering).  I was basically "waiting" for my commission.  I would have much rather been sent to the Army as an apprentice officer for two years.  I also thought that the USMA leadership training was, as you might put it, process oriented, rather than people oriented.  [I said process rather than results, not people oriented.] West Point is losing its focus [winning our wars] by attempting to be a "super-star" Army Ivy-league equivalent undergraduate school.  The quality of undergraduate education is not, historically, an important factor in a successful officer corps.  This does not imply that such a corps is not intelligent - but that its focus is on war waging.  The Wehrmacht did not require a degree for its officers, but its officers were very well schooled in how to fight and win wars.  Their performance in the years 1866 to 1945 attests to such a focus.  Likewise, the British Army did not have many university graduates among its ranks - it did however produce native experts, linguists, explorers, and spies.  West Point should be a one year military school, like Sandhurst, which focuses on preparing officers to be military leaders.  [Arguably correct—and the students there should be older. The nurture-based theory that if you get cadets young enough you can mold them has been disproven by 205 years of West Point. Instead, they need to become nature-based and focus their efforts on mature people who have decided based on experience to make careers of the military rather than 17-year olds like me who had no business being in the Army.] The distinction between USMA and non-USMA is not important in the Army anymore.  In any case, only a 1/3 of graduates elect to remain on active duty. [So much for molding teenagers into career military people.] However, all of this actually speaks to the widespread credentialing and professionalization of society.  Police officers require college degrees. School teachers require Masters.  Doctor so and so is the school principal.  Wall street requires MBAs.  Whether credentials actually improve performance.....do you think you would have been less successful had you not attended Harvard? [Yes, I would have been less successful, but the education upon which my success is based was about 90% self-education by reading books, taking seminars, and work experience tailored to my specific goals, not the sorts of general information taught at West Point or Harvard. For example, I have never once in my life used the subject we studied the most at West Point: calculus. I feel we studied that and many other subjects just to live up to some West-Pointers-are-engineers stereotype.]
 
Army: I really enjoy the Army.  [You need to get out more. You have spent your entire adult life in the military since high school. You cannot meaningfully compare a military career to the alternatives from that experience base. It is very unlikely that you or any other person would find a better match between your strengths and weaknesses and likes and dislikes in the one-size-fits-all military than in the infinitely more varied international civilian world.] The fellow soldiers and officers I have served with have been decent, hard working people.  My company grade experiences were, largely, positive.  I was given freedom to plan and conduct imaginative training, to hold my subordinates accountable, and to make a difference, however small, in the Army.  [Must be nice. I had zero of that.] I have served 1 Iraq tour, and I will soon deploy for another year as an Army Foreign Area Officer.
 
The Army's largest problem is their own definition of success.  Rank = success.  Thus, gaining rank is more success.  [Well put] This attitude drives conformity and bureaucracy throughout the organization, as other measures of success do not count for much.  The up or out system, the mandated intervals of promotion, the required "ticket punches" all reduce innovation and risk-taking.  Additionally, the culturally ingrained love of technology (we are Americans after all) inhibits focusing on long-range human solutions to problems.  Being wedded to technology, unfortunately, drives the military-industrial complex, swallowing vast amounts of dollars. [Amen]
 
Specific criticisms of some of your postings -
 
1. Examples of blind stupidity, rank arrogance, and leader incompetence from your Vietnam experience.  I have encountered a few such problems, but nothing like a leader who makes his subordinates wait on him to begin eating.  Never.  The power of OVUM and leader's wives, and the fake social atmosphere of the Army is gone.  The crackdown on alcohol abuse in the 1980s and 1990's destroyed the "social" army aspect. [I have gotten the impression from afar that DUI had reduced the military’s affection for “work hard play hard,” i.e., we’re entitled to get drunk and cheat on our wives—glad to hear it has changed for the better.]  Most officers today consider their social lives as private lives. [My position when I was in the late 60s and early 70s was that my private life was my own. My superiors were mad at me for a number of things, but the main one was my refusal to attend so-called “command performance” parties which were approximately a monthly occurrence. They responded by hitting me with every punishment other than court martialing me—and they repeatedly tried to do that but were talked out of it by JAG officers who told me about it.]
 
2.  The much bemoaned lack of quality soldiers today - the quality of the NCO's and soldiers today remains excellent. [Not according to the media reports. Since they are statistical rather than anecdotal, they arguably carry more weight than one junior officer’s experience.] I read about the recruiting abuses, the lowering of training standards, the lowering of recruiting scores; BUT, I do not see it. [I saw it when I was in the Army 35 years ago. That’s a long time, but human nature and the military are not known for change.] Soldiers who go AWOL or test positive for drugs are punished and removed from the Army.  [Glad to hear it, but it begs the question of why the Army is giving increasing numbers of “moral waivers” many. if not most of which are for criminal drug offenses before enlistment. See my article on the need for a military draft.] This happens rarely, but leaders are trying to achieve a perfect solution in a society where 10-15 percent use drugs "recreationally."  We will never get to where we want to be in terms of soldier standards.We all want soldiers that are high school varsity athletes, self-disciplined, focused, and an IQ of 110 and above.  Well, good luck. [The vast majority of private businesses are far closer to where they want to be regarding the quality of their work force. Accepting an unacceptable situation with such “c’est la guerre” shoulder shrugging is a typical occupational hazard of being in the military for all of your adult life.]  Units that can conduct extreme self-selection (Special Forces, Ranger Regiment) often can achieve that. [I would say they have more motivated personnel than other military units but more does not necessarily mean adequate. As I said in my articles on elite rangers and airborne units, the word “elite” is extremely relative and not very meaningful when used by the military. College football teams are an example of truly elite units. The typical so-called elite military unit would get its butt kicked big time in any fair competition—including military operations after necessary basic training—against a college football team.]
 
3. You actually said that Army officers do not need to learn a language other than Arabic.  Learning languages is vital because....we have not fought an English speaking enemy since 1865.  Learning languages exposes you to other people...creating empathy, understanding, and an ability to appreciate your friends and enemies. [I was one of the top language students I was ever around. In high school, I was the only kid in the history of my school who was allowed to take two languages simultaneously—Spanish and German. I got all A+ in each. At West Point, I was section marcher of first section Russian about half the time. (highest ranked cadet by grades in the highest ranked classroom of the subject) Once, the other section marcher commented that if he got even a single question wrong on a Russian test, it lowered his grade. I thought about that and said, “Me, too.” The max grade there was 3.0. Missing one question got you a 2.9. So we both had GPAs in Russian of 2.95 or higher. In Vietnam, I was one of only two soldiers on our large base who acquired a working knowledge of Vietnamese. I once learned a little Japanese and when I said “What is your name?” in Japanese once, a Japanese citizen turned around and expressed astonishment at my perfect accent. She thought a native was speaking. A German native once asked me how long I lived in Germany after hearing me speak German. (Would you believe five days?) In other words, I know foreign languages better than the vast majority of native-born Americans and West Point cadets. Yet when I tried to speak the languages I studied to natives throughout my life. They always switched to English which they could speak far better than I could speak their native language. A twelve-year old German boy absolutely refused to speak German with me insisting on English instead. He wasn’t going to waste his time. His parents spoke German to me to avoid hurting my feelings. In Germany once, I entered a restaurant once and said, “Speisekarte, bitte” (German for “Menu, please”) to the head waiter. He brought me an English-language menu. The email writer’s points are nothing but conventional-wisdom, psychobabble with no hard-evidence basis. In 2007, the non-Americans you need to speak with almost all speak English far better than almost all native-born Americans can speak any foreign language. Americans have an inferiority complex about this. Get over it. English is the Microsoft Word of languages. It may not be the best, but it won the competition. For a native-born American to learn a foreign language is an intellectual affectation and a waste of time and money.]
 
A Giant Agreement -
 
1. I may be the only active-duty modern officer who supports a draft, largely for the reasons you stated.  Bluntly put, I think that men who hire other men to defend them are essentially, contracting out their own freedom.  I also believe that draftee soldiers, as you and COL Hackworth note, will throw the BS flag on BS aspects of the Army.  

[Conspicuous by its absence in this email is any mention of my article “Is military integrity an contradiction in terms?” When you consider that USMA grads universally say that the cadet honor code was the most important aspect of a USMA education, that absence is more striking.]
 
Recommended readings:
 
The Transformation of War by Martin Van Creveld
 
Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram
 
Recommended Web Sites
 
D-N-I.net
 
[Name withheld because he did not respond to my request for permission to quote him. I have always found it disquieting that the career military people in charge of protecting our freedoms of speech and press have zero interest in exercising those same freedoms. During the cold war, I also found it disquieting that the career military people in charge of protecting us from the socialist countries themselves lived socialist lives (cradle-to-grave free government housing and medical care, government bosses). They still do.]
 

I appreciate informed, well-thought-out constructive criticism and suggestions.

John T. Reed