Not to long ago I read a meme that said, "The only difference between a private and a 2nd lieutenant is a bachelors degree."
I grew up in the military. My father was career enlisted. From the time I was born until I graduated high school, I lived on or near the bases. I saw first hand the effects a good officer and NCO could have. I also saw the damage poor ones quickly cause.
For some reason, society has accepted that, with few exceptions, officers must come from the educated class. Yet the best officers I saw, the ones the guys I spent time with respected, were the mustangs. Not just because they were prior enlised, but because they knew exactly what effect their decisions would have on the men. Sometimes the mission means everyone just has to suck it up, but the rest of the time, keeping the chickenshit to a minimum was not only appreciated, but more importantly, noticed.
The damage liberalism has caused has been going on for decades. It is institutional now. The woke nonsense just put the destruction into overdrive. Fags, trannies, racists, general incompetence of every order - all promoted into positions of command and influence. Once imbedded, it's almost impossible to get rid of them. They're dug in like an Alabama tic, watching out for, and promoting, similiarly mentally ill individuals, thus perpetuating the problem.
Firing all of them isn't an option. But changing the acceptance is. After Trump is sworn in, I believe there's going to be mass resignations and firings across all areas of gov't, including the military. This is an opportunity though. Stop accepting the corrupted, indoctrinated college class directly into the officer corps, and mandate promotion from the ranks. 4-6 years as an enlisted soldier/sailor/airman is more than enough time to earn a bachelors degree through the various training and education options currently available to those serving. And for specialty or advanced degrees, like doctors or PhD's, after their enlistment is up the GI bill will help pay for it before they come back and commission.
Will this solve all the problems with the officer corps? No. But it will seriously blunt the damage currently being done, and over the next generation, help clean up the mess.
I don't think enough enlisted want to become officers.
I don't see the problem as being one that ROTC is turning out officers. I think the issue is top down. When coming up through the officer ranks, one keeps an eye on what senior leadership wants/expects and adjusts his attitude accordingly. Everything is about getting the next promotion.
God needs to become a part of the military again. Religion used to be important to warriors. And the military used to be warriors instead of the current social experiment.
And that is the crux of the problem: the military is no longer our country's warriors.
Stop the focus on pronouns and feelings.
Return the focus to the tools and training needed to fight, fight, fight!
My dad was Army enlisted...I was not in the service...my eldest son attended college and earned his undergrad degree in the early 2010s BUT decided to enlist in Army and instead go the OCS route.
He's now achieved captain...but sadly, he's getting out of the Army early next year after only being in for about 7-8 years, PRECISELY because of what you mention about senior Army officers. He literally cannot square what HE wants to teach, and how he wants to lead, his soldiers, with what the corrupt senior leaders in Army are pushing down from the top (no doubt, those who were ushered in by Black Jesus during his reign).
It makes me sad. Because I KNOW my son is a good and just and moral leader. I know that, because his mother and I RAISED him that way. But he's had it...he's done beating his head against a brick wall with current Army leadership. It's definitely their loss.
I know what you mean.., graduated with bachelor's, enlisted because Obama was cutting the officer core, got to E6 in 8 and left in 19. All the homosexuals (E-7 - E-9) in leadership came running to me when they found out I wasn't reenlisting so I could make them look good and lose years off my life for their stupid asinine mistakes. I was Air Force and took the lives of the pilot's seriously with zero degrees of freedom for error. They however, were busy running some sort of faggot-focused homosexual summer camp for queers. I KNOW they will suffer without someone like him. My good airmen emailed me telling me what it was like after my shield dropped and they didn't have anyone fighting for them. All I could do was tell them to hang in there and get out ASAP because these communists would rather kill you than lose one dime out of their pockets. God bless you and your son patriot.
I'm sorry to hear of your experience, friend...you and so many others have pure hearts for leadership and love our country to the death, and yet, you are not allowed to express that while IN UNIFORM.
GOD bless you as well, ALL those here who served and are serving...and THANK YOU so much for your willingness to do so to protect our country and her Constitution!
My brother went through special forces selection and made it to the teams. He eventually left the teams and just got out of the army with his contract ends because he hated the toxic environment.
I have a buddy who was swicc and he also hated it, and he also hated what the boats did to his body.
I have another buddy that's combat control from the Air Force. He seems to love it.
So maybe it's just a branch thing?
There IS a lot of that, too. Put simply, the Air Force generally knows how to treat their people. Army and Marine Corps will use you up and throw you away when you’re broken.
There’s a reason the Air Force has a higher percentage of retirees than any other branch.
Most enlisted would take the turn into an officer if the option was given. It’s just a better life. Less running you into the ground and SIGNIFICANTLY better pay. A brand new just commissioned 2nd Lieutenant makes as much as an E-6 with several years in.
Lower enlisted qualify for food stamps up until E-5. I did 16 years in. I can tell you that officers are on a whole different plane of existence in comparison.
All they have to do is make the pay grade the same at the top levels of both, and make it much harder for enlisted to get to the top levels, so you know they are good by merit
Depends on the job and the branch. Army will promote PT studs that don’t know shit about their jobs, and the way to promotion, a lot of times has more to do with looking good in front of a board, saying the right thing, and having the proper race, gender, or sexual preference/identity than any idea of leadership in your given field.
Obama DID purge the Officer Corps!! Why do you think the military is like it is??
If he purged it, why wouldn’t we be able to?
Well the good ones he purged are gone . . .
We still know who they are. Could they not be reinstated?
I don’t know precisely how military officer promotion works.
The ones let go for bogus political interference should come forward to the Trump campaign and ask for their records to be cleared.
There were a lot of flag-grade officers released (generals and admirals). They would mostly be beyond retirement age. Maybe they could replace all the O and Biden DoD civilian appointees?
When an officer’s life depends on his enlisted there is rarely a problem. When that is not the case and the officer is just using the enlisted to make rank, you have problems. The other bad group is the suck ups. Unfortunately they get promoted at a much higher rate than they should based on merit. And they bring down morale.
The problem now is woke colleges and naval academies. It is going to take decades to unlearn this brainwashing.
The problem is the 16 years of Obama, Bush and “Rhe Biden” had purged the officer corps of good officers. They have also infiltrated West Point and other military schools. They have been very very busy destroying all that is good in the world.
We need an officer corps that needs to be combat first focused and embraces a warrior ethos.
Get rid of the 'good idea fairy' thought process.
When it comes to taxpayer funding allocation, allow for departments to keep leftover funds to rollover the next fiscal year.
Currently working in US fed.gov, their is massive rush to waste in end of fiscal year spending due to a, 'don't use it, you lose it.'
Yes! Even the support units need to have the warrior's ethos!!
As Chief used to say "During times of war, we are all infantry!"
(This was during Desert Shield/Desert Storm and we were in G-1 and had a weenie soldier who cried about possibly being deployed)
Updoot for, "dug in like an Alabama tic." Love it.
Graduates in the service academies generally get an Engineering Degree, which is about problem solving. An enlisted soldiers job is to act; an officers job is to direct the action, and at progressively higher levels, solve problems. It's the ROTC people who go in with wanky degrees. They should do their time and go Reserved and let the NCOs with potential take their place, because they have experience within the system.
Good officers, no matter how they get their commissions, will defer to the Warrant Officers and the Senior NCOs until they get the lay of the land. They will also practice "management by walking around" to learn what their unit actually does. That's called leadership. Unfortunately, concern for pronouns and "you go girl!" seems to have replaced true leadership.
Here is something to think about. There is the problem of differentiating between leaders and followers. As a matter of natural distribution, leaders are about 5% of a general population. (Empirical experiment: In the Korean War, North Korea segregated its prisoner population into those likely to lead and those likely to follow. They put the "leaders" under heavy guard. The "followers" did not need such heavy guard. The proportion was 1 in 20.)
Now, you consider the idea of "span of control." How many people can a leader lead without fumbling or missing something. In large corporate environments it is something close to 10, after which you need subordinate management. You can then construct a pyramid of a large organization as successive tiers of managers until you reach the top...and then add up what you have. I did this once for the Boeing company where I was working, and arrived at a fraction of the workforce in management that was much higher than 5%. I think it was about 15%. 2 out of 3 managers were in place not because they were good at leading, but because they were a penny in the fusebox. Just there to complete the chain of command.
I drew some conclusions from this. Management is not always going to entail leadership (which is why most managers are poor leaders). There aren't enough leaders at large. Why do people become managers? Not because they can lead---but because they are willing to put up with the bullshit. What is the largest organization we have? The Army and Navy, where "leaders" who are only managers spell death for those they lead.
I'm sure that any military or ex-military anons can pick up the thread of this thought.
Really good topic for discussion.
The US military has been THE groundbreaker for advancement based on merit--racially, especially.
Yet the blind spot (I hadn't ever thought of it either) is definitely their BIAS against leadership for the less-formally-educated...regardless of their performance and merit.
A worthy agenda item for the next Trump Administration.
In theory it makes sense that the "educated" would become officers although in function I don't know how much decisionmaking most officers actually do in the modern war world.
The presumption was that education wouldn't be bastardized like it is today too.
I think vetting is an issue (or maybe too much vetting is the issue from a certain point of view) and you shouldn't get less of a shot or no shot at all if you prove yourself in other ways.
I do believe that there is too much corruption in their ranks, but I won't advocate for throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
We have had restrictions made too lax everywhere else, after all.
That made sense back in WWI and prior days. Now, to progress in your career as a noncommissioned officer, you need professional development which usually involves at least 1 college degree.
The officer corps really is about woke indoctrination now more than being the smartest bunch to lead service members.
Once the cabal is destroyed there will be no point in having a massive military or any at all.
The officer Corps was always from the perceived to be elite classes. Anti Fraternization rules etcetera, special eating places and quarters etc. Worked with both mustangs and ring knockers in the navy. The mustangs were definitely better leaders and got waaay more out of their men than the direct commissions. Worked for an4 star named Wald; airforce mustangs while invasion at the European HQ in stuttgart he. Dude knew how to lead and staffed under swartzkoff during first gulf war.
Agree. Good, thoughtful post. Thanks.
The best people in the military are Master Sergeants and Sergeant Majors lifers enlisted men, but after seeing that creep Tim Walz I have to take that back.
He was in the Guard which can be hit or miss with the quality of soldier you get because a lot of times it’s a good ole boy network more than anything.
He was in artillery. If he doesn’t have poor hearing, that says a lot about his career.