This article was found on Real Clear Defense. It is from The Atlantic which is a little left of center, but I thought it was interesting and thought provoking.
Left Behind: Two Decades of War Have Eroded the Morale of America’s Troops
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/05/left-behind/556844/
I’m sorry, that article (I made it about half way through before I had to exit) doesn’t begin to touch what the real problems are, nor does it touch why they exist.
Deferring to racism and racism exists in every aspect of our society, is a cop out. It’s not the real problem. the real problems are much deeper than that, they involve many more aspects of training and unit discipline and they run deep.
The worst thing that ever happened, in my opinion was the importance of the individual over the teams and that goes from Squad/Crew all the way up to Battalions and Squadrons.
Bluntly pointing out failures and fixing them, is the only way to prevent further failure. The system now seems to be adverse to any action that might result in someones individual feelings being hurt.
You have to train hard, you have to remain thick skinned and you have to build teams that want to be successful. Having said that, people who wont get on board with that need to leave.
Inspections aren’t to standard, things aren’t checked and rechecked and sometimes Junior leadership at the E-4 and E-5 level don’t know “Right” because they haven’t seen it. After all, failing an inspection could hurt someones feelings, which would lead to a “Sensing Session” which would lead to the person upholding the standard being identified as toxic.
Instead it is a “Go along to Get along system.”
Until someone at the top decides training has to be hard, military members have to be harder and that all this “My Feelings” stuff has to be removed from a failing system they are doomed.
Anyone who doesn’t embrace winning and training hard and upholding the highest standards needs to be removed and removed immediately.
Yah I couldn’t get through that article. Anything that blames racism for societal problems is just furthering the leftist permanent victim hood agenda.
There is a blueprint out there of how these issues were fixed post Viet Nam.
Probably a dozen or more books, hundreds of articles and although then racism was claimed to be a major issue, we fixed it in the military as best we could and moved forward with the mission being first.
The problem is we’ve changed as a society, we’re not raising young men to be warriors. Everyone wants to be an outstanding individual, that’s an admirable goal, but it takes someone who works well as part of a team first.
The author was a Public Affairs Officer.
Yeah I value his views about as much as those of a creepy child molester battalion chaplain.
LOL! Tell us how you really feel. Spoken like a real man from Custer.
Morale sucks because of toxic leadership, getting treated like children, spending more time on online training than anything useful and forcing out tons of good people over trivial BS.
Hey, your the one that joined the Army. I got out of the Marines and entered the Army Reserves as an E-5. Night and day. My first freaking drill with the unit, I noticed a trash can overflowing and told a nearby SP4 ‘hey, Specialist, give me a hand taking this to the dumpster.’ ‘You’re not in my chain of command.’ ‘Take me to your NCO’ Turns out that in lego land what I did was detracting from the mission. I went to my PSG and told him “I’m done, I’m on a ‘Try-One’ and I’ve tried.” The PSG, who was a former Marine, calmed me down and I spent the next tne years ignoring the rest of the Army Reserves as my platoon marched to the 11BY drummer.
I might have been a bit harsh but seriously, the dude wrote press releases for a few years. He knows jack and shit about an actual grunt unit.
He went through TBS, good for him. He then spent his career with his mouth affixed to some colonel’s ass typing up pretty sounding bits for local newspapers and the Marine Corps Times.
Forgive me if I’m not impressed with his viewpoint.
If this were authored by some dude who is now an infantry Lt. Col after who knows how many deployments, I’d lend it a lot more credence.
As in Custer Hill, Fort Riley, Home of the Big Red 1, or Custer, as in George Armstrong Custer, the dude who didn’t listen to others and got his command wiped out? Because one’s better than the other.
Seriously, did you read the article? Have you not been listening to the news about A/C and ships crashing? The .mil is getting wore down, and for what? Because they want to be thanked for their service? Sure guys will continue to fight and die for one another, but it would be nice if something was accomplished along the way.
Yup, this exactly. I haven’t actually seen the last one, but I know it exists.
I’m not suggesting that .mil isn’t getting worn down.
The resons are those you already mentioned.
I’ve never been in the .mil and will be more than happy to keep my civilian ass in my lane but I wonder…
If the morale issue has more to do with bullshit being forced down our fighting forces throats like the embracing of the LGBT agenda and other “social justice” tripe?
“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink.
― George Orwell
Keeping the bread and circus plan going…It seems to have nothing to do with right/wrong/win/solve.
To be fair, you can’t compare getting out of active duty USMC with Reserve-component Army. Apples to oranges. I was active duty Army in an Airborne Infantry unit and if an NCO asked for help with the trash (or told you to do it your damn self) you did it, period. Suggesting he wasn’t in your chain of command would have been a good way to get your ass reamed when you did get to your chain of command!
Did any of you happen to see a Foxnews headline a week or so ago where the retired MSGT was suing the Air Force for getting assaulted and thrown out of a retirement ceremony? The crime? The guy retiring requested this other retiree who was a member of the honor guard for years, performed a flag folding speech he had done at retirements for years, for many including full birds and stars. Why? Because that speech mentioned God, more than once, and by God that commander could have none of of that and ordered a Chief, 1st Sergeant and a Senior to throw his ass out.
Things like that plus the SJW crap, endless online training for sex harassment, lack of discipline with newer generation… it goes on. It’s not just one thing. It’s complicated, but toxic on the whole.
We’re running out of qualified volunteers.
If the physical, legal and educational requirements cannot be met and then there is the ASVAB, the tendancy of late has become to lower standards or offer waivers.
So if you are one of the 20% who would qualify to the unwaivered, originally intended higher standard,
Who will you work with?
Who will be your small unit Leadership?
What will, as you’re more fully capable than your peers, be your work load?
As odd as it may sound, the only way to fix it is to demand higher standards overall.
Otherwise your pushing away the better applicants in favour of the lesser candidate.
Yup. The online “training” and constant classes on how to be nice is a huge impediment to the training that will prepare us for war. But the brass calls this crap “readiness”. My blood pressure goes up 10 points everytime I hear some CSM or General explain how its so important that we get %100 of Soldiers certified in composite risk management (again) because we have to maintain “readiness”. And I have to cancel real training for this crap. Last year, I had to pull my entire company out of the EST 2000 (electronic shooting trainer) for three hours so they could attend some sort of being nice to trannies class that “just came up”, and had to be done immediately. I was livid.
The military works for the guys making money off of them at this point. Its…frustrating.
All this said, the GWOT has also taken a big toll on morale, in my opinion.
I know, I was kind of fake newsing it. It was a shock, though. I did a lot more babysitting of young troops on JAATT missions and 4-day fly-away drills than I ever did on active duty.
I loved the little fockers, but most of our non-NCO’s were high school kids who had gone to basic the summer they turned 17, then jump school the next summer, then a year or so in the unit before the Pathfinder course. Some never really figured out they hadn’t been on active duty, and weren’t quite as bad ass as the active component guys. It got embarassing at times.