Salon presents an article that describes the hollowed-out Army that Bush is passing on to the next President. Go read Strained by war, U.S. Army promotes unqualified soldiers.
The Army did the same thing in Vietnam. Solders entered Basic Training as Privates (E-1) and were automatically promoted to Private (E-2) upon graduation from Basic. The top 10% coming out of Basic were sent to Leadership Academy where most were promoted to PFC (E-3), and then to corporal (E-4) upon graduation. Except that the top 10% of Leadership Academy were promoted to Sergeant (E-5) upon graduation. The first time this new Sergeants were ever assigned to a company they were already wearing the three stripes of a sergeant.
At the same time they lowered the time for Second Lieutenants to be promoted to First Lieutenant from 18 months in the Army to 12 months, and shortly thereafter they lowered the time in grade as First Lieutenant to Captain from two years to one year. That means entry level Second Lieutenants were being promoted to Captain with two years total service. We called Captain's bars the second year attendance bars.
Previously promotion from entry as Second Lieutenant to Captain had taken about seven years. Since most people take at least three years in a job to become adequately proficient at it, these were people who were being thrown into combat without adequate training to keep themselves or their men alive and functioning.
Our local National Guard Artillery Battalion was reorganized as an Infantry Battalion three years ago and sent to Iraq. They became a marginal Infantry unit with no experienced Infantry leaders, while losing all the highly technical skills that had made them a very good Artillery Battalion.
This an Army that is losing effectiveness and flexibility rapidly. It's what is meant by a "hollowed out Army." The untrained and inexperienced personnel working at jobs that are over their heads are problems that are even more important than equipment shortages.
No comments:
Post a Comment