View Full Version : Rumsfeld stepping down
FOX news is reporting that Donald Rumsfeld is stepping down.
President Bush is speaking on it right now on Fox. Ex-CIA Chief Robert Gates is President Bush's pick to succeed Rumsfeld.
Darn, I was hoping he would pick John Kerry.
Darn, I was hoping he would pick John Kerry.
I don't think Kerry would accept.....he's too SMART for that. :rolleyes:
rubberneck
11-08-2006, 12:32
Is Gates really the best man for the job?
Airbornelawyer
11-08-2006, 12:44
Is Gates really the best man for the job?
No
incommin
11-08-2006, 12:49
Why NO?
Jim
The Reaper
11-08-2006, 13:12
I don't think Kerry would accept.....he's too SMART for that. :rolleyes:
With the count in the Sanate as close as it is, I don't think any of them would accept, unless they could pick a successor.
TR
rubberneck
11-08-2006, 13:25
It occurred to me earlier when his replacement was announced so quickly that Rumsfeld either resigned or was forced out before yesterdays elections. If that was the case I wonder if it would have helped some candidates that lost if it had been announced earlier. Then again it might have made things worse.
I don't like the Gates thing for a couple of reasons not the least of which is the President's tendency to pick advisors with close ties to his father. If the President was interested in a new direction than he should have picked someone with fresh ideas not another advisor from a long list of recycled Bush Sr. cronies. It might not matter now that the Dems have control of the Senate as Gates might not get past the Senate confirmation hearings.
uboat509
11-08-2006, 13:40
He is a member of the Iraq Study Group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Study_Group). That should be a good thing.
SFC W
Airbornelawyer
11-08-2006, 14:25
Mr. Gates was a professional intelligence officer and Washington insider. He has no significant background or experience in defense policy, and no background in politics or strong personal relationship with the President. Thus he has no independent base to exercise his authority over the Department. He will thus likely fall back into what he is familiar with, as a former Washington bureaucrat, a dependence on his fellow bureaucrats. In this case, those bureaucrats are the generals and admirals who walk the halls of the Pentagon and are more adept at maneuvering among appropriations committees and cocktail parties than through an enemy-held village. Like Secretary Powell was at the State Department and like John Negroponte as DNI, he will likely come to be more the bureaucracy's representative to the White House than the President's representative to the Pentagon.
Also, I have extremely negative memories of my experiences with the CIA over Afghan policy when Gates was DDCI and DCI.
Jack Moroney (RIP)
11-08-2006, 14:59
In this case, those bureaucrats are the generals and admirals who walk the halls of the Pentagon and are more adept at maneuvering among appropriations committees and cocktail parties than through an enemy-held village. .
Well actually it is not the flag officers that are the problem, although there are some who definitely fall within your general catagorization I'm sure, but the GS folks that are and have been entrenched in the system forever. I have had to infilitrate that five sided concrete sphincter on many occassions to make things happen and those that make things work are the 04s and 05s and those that create protective barricades upon which their longevity and survival depends are the GS folks. The jokes about the little old lady in tennis shoes is more factual than most know. While I have little use for some flag officers, many were good soldiers and troops in their time and have in fact negotiated the challenges and demands of complex situations and "enemy-held villages" but have become overtaken by events and expectations few of them ever envisioned and and for which some were never prepared. Being adept at maneuvering among appropriation committees has become a necessary skill in order to provide the resources required for those that today move through the villages. I do not envy them this task as I have had to stand before folks and justify dollars and fight for shares of the budget but not with bureaucrates in uniform but political appointees who found a niche at the pentagon when their hometowns had an excess of village idiots and they had to emigrate or starve. No flag officers are not the problem, it is the GS folks and politicians upon whom they depend and who establish the idiotic institutional rules of the road within which they must operate.
"Listen a little, you'll understand a whole lot more!" ;)
Well actually it is not the flag officers that are the problem, although there are some who definitely fall within your general catagorization I'm sure, but the GS folks that are and have been entrenched in the system forever. I have had to infilitrate that five sided concrete sphincter on many occassions to make things happen and those that make things work are the 04s and 05s and those that create protective barricades upon which their longevity and survival depends are the GS folks. The jokes about the little old lady in tennis shoes is more factual than most know. While I have little use for some flag officers, many were good soldiers and troops in their time and have in fact negotiated the challenges and demands of complex situations and "enemy-held villages" but have become overtaken by events and expectations few of them ever envisioned and and for which some were never prepared. Being adept at maneuvering among appropriation committees has become a necessary skill in order to provide the resources required for those that today move through the villages. I do not envy them this task as I have had to stand before folks and justify dollars and fight for shares of the budget but not with bureaucrates in uniform but political appointees who found a niche at the pentagon when their hometowns had an excess of village idiots and they had to emigrate or starve. No flag officers are not the problem, it is the GS folks and politicians upon whom they depend and who establish the idiotic institutional rules of the road within which they must operate.There is a shit pot of E-8/9s that need to be shit canned also.
Stay safe.
incommin
11-08-2006, 15:20
1. I agree with Jack Moroney's assessment.
2. When I was informed that my next assignment would be the five sided wonder palace, or a staff job in Korea, I elected to retire. I wasn't good at kissing butt or bowing and scraping before others.
Jim
Roguish Lawyer
11-08-2006, 16:06
There is a shit pot of E-8/9s that need to be shit canned also.
Stay safe.
Eloquently put, as always! :D
Eloquently put, as always! :DWe keep blaming the officers....we got some sorry ass SNCOs...
Stay safe.
Kraut783
11-08-2006, 17:40
Was Gates Air Force at one time? I remember his Intel role but wasn't sure about his military background.
* NVM- he was Air Force for two years..some type of Intel position.
Was Gates Air Force at one time? I remember his Intel role but wasn't sure about his military background.
* NVM- he was Air Force for two years..some type of Intel position.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Gates
incommin
11-08-2006, 18:22
"We keep blaming the officers....we got some sorry ass SNCOs..."
You probably do. Some do get promoted to their level of incompetency. Some just get tired. Some start thinking they have paid their dues and start coasting. However, NCO's do not dictate policy, the mission, or the way to go. Officers do! The NCO's job is to get the horse, in the best shape possible, to where the officer says it must go.
Jim
CoLawman
11-08-2006, 20:38
I understand, sort of, what has been written. My question is this; Is a Gates an improvement over Rumsfield? Further, it seems to me that Cheney and Rumsfield were TIGHT. Does this mean that Cheney, saddled with his baggage, is next to tender a resignation and send this whole administration into a wounded lame duck administration?
Can someone ask the President to reconsider his SecDef nominee? At least POTUS should have a telephone conversation with TR before he nominates someone else!
We need an Army friendly guy for SecDef for a change. Seriously, someone perusing this board knows someone in the Whitehouse. Please ask the Pres to at least hear TR's ideas or suggestions.
Peregrino
11-08-2006, 21:11
I understand, sort of, what has been written. My question is this; Is a Gates an improvement over Rumsfield? Further, it seems to me that Cheney and Rumsfield were TIGHT. Does this mean that Cheney, saddled with his baggage, is next to tender a resignation and send this whole administration into a wounded lame duck administration?
Given that the Dems are already crowing about their incipient victory in the Virginia Senate race, I don't see how anyone could characterize the administration as anything other than a "wounded lame duck". Not that the President or his party accomplished anything positive when they held the mandate. The only hope is that GW will exercise his veto responsibly. Personally, I'm not holding my breath. Peregrino
The Reaper
11-08-2006, 22:04
IMHO, the major things that the POTUS has done in the last six years was to pull us together after 9/11, cut taxes to help us pull out of an economic downturn that Slick Willie started, kick off the GWOT with a superb use of SF, appoint two conservatives to the Supreme Court, and deal with the UN in an appropriate manner.
Anyone here who wasn't proud to call him their President in the immediate aftermath of 9/11?
How about after he sent SF into Afghanistan to wipe out the favored Taliban in a very short time?
When the Iraqi PAO was saying that there were no Americans near Baghdad and tanks were rolling through the streets?
On the downside, he seems to be overly loyal to personal friends and slow to use the veto pen or axe when he needed to. The lack of a well-defined end-state for Afghanistan and Iraq, overly long tolerance of an air-power oriented micromanaging SECDEF, an attempt to appoint his attorney to the SCOTUS, a bad immigration amnesty program, and being caught napping on the Dubai ports deal were bad signs. I have frequently been disappointed by the President.
Considering all of that, is there anyone here who would rather have had AlGore, J Freakin' Kerry, or Slick Willie himself as POTUS during this period in America's history?
We got licked in this election, plain and simple, and while the POTUS did his best in trying to help turn the tide before the election, he was radioactive and the MSM did us in. The sour reporting on Iraq and complete lack of coverage of the improving economy, good jobs, booming home values, the help that eventually flowed to Katrina victims, and the plain and simple fact that we have not been hit here by the BGs again in five years were enough to do us in.
Frankly, had I any idea what a bunch of corrupt, earmarking, big-government bastards the Republican Congress turned out to be, I would have gone Libertarian years ago. What a disappointment. Not that the Dems who are there haven't done the same things. They just refuse to resign and stay there proudly. Lets see. They have repeatedly reelected war hero posers, murderers, drunkards, drug addicts, child molesters, impeached judges, Klansmen, and thieves, and I can think of only a very few who have paid the price for it. If Gary Hart had just had the fortitude to stick it out, he would still be there today.
As sick as I am of it, it is part of America and we have a long history of surviving our own leadership.
This should give the country a good refresher in how the Dems do things. I wish that we had kept the Senate, if only to appoint a few more good judges. I also wish the VP, who is a good conservative, would resign and let someone start positioning themselves for the 2008 Presidential race.
The real question is do the Dems have a plan, other than "we aren't them" and how long will they continue blaming the Republicans for whatever else goes wrong. Will the American people buy that for two years?
And I hope the President finds his veto pen and the courage to use it on bad legislation.
Shut up, cowboy up, and help figure out how to fix this by 2008.
TR
Shut up, cowboy up, and help figure out how to fix this by 2008.
Roger that over. We have a lot of good people in harm's way depending on it.
CoLawman
11-08-2006, 22:51
The world was watching and the commentaries coming in should give the Democrats something to be proud of.
Hugo Chavez
France
Germany
Iran
Somalia
Italy
Canada
Palestinians
Hamas
Al Jazeera
Are all applauding the election results! Yep the Democrats have something to be proud of today!
"We keep blaming the officers....we got some sorry ass SNCOs..."
You probably do. Some do get promoted to their level of incompetency. Some just get tired. Some start thinking they have paid their dues and start coasting. However, NCO's do not dictate policy, the mission, or the way to go. Officers do! The NCO's job is to get the horse, in the best shape possible, to where the officer says it must go.
JimI must have missed that portion of training...
Stay safe.
rubberneck
11-09-2006, 11:10
I also wish the VP, who is a good conservative, would resign and let someone start positioning themselves for the 2008 Presidential race.
TR
Sadly that ship has sailed.
Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
Now that both chambers are in Democratic control they would never confirm a candidate that either has the chance to win in '08 or someone who has a conservative ideology.
Ideally the VP should have resigned back in August or October. It would have taken some pressure off republican candidates in blue states and allowed the party to hand pick it's next candidate for President, but as you pointed out the President is loyal to a fault. In this case he stuck with Rumsfeld and the VP way past the point when both became a liablity to the Presidency and his party. While a bunch of people who deserve to lose their seats got what was coming to them there were also some good folks who got thrown out with the bath water.
incommin
11-09-2006, 11:11
"I must have missed that portion of training..."
You missed the horse cavalry part? I did too......but I had instructors early in my career who didn't.
Jim
Problems.
If I am hearing the comments on the MSM correctly, I think they are saying that the 'toughness' on illegal immigration cost the Republicans some votes, and perhaps is a big reason why they did so badly. I think differently.
I think that one reason they did so badly is that they didn't do enough about the border, in fact I would say they effectively did nothing. I really don't like it when they pool hispanics into one group and assume that they all vote the same. I know plenty of hispanics that are plenty pissed about the lack of a border with Methico.
Solution.
Grow some balls. Some theories I've heard suggest that some reasons politicos don't want to close the border are that, illegals prop up social security system, big business somehow benefits from a subsidized labor force.
Illuminate the reasons why the puppetmasters don't want to stop illegal immigration. Use the bully pulpit of the executive branch to speak to the nation about it. Make the people aware of how their wages are diminished each time an illegal is hired. Let Americans know how Bank of America provides home loans to illegals, let them know how businesses are accepting 'Matricula' cards as valid ID in order to provide credit to these people. Make banks and lendors suffer mightily for doing business with these illegals. Jail CEO's if you have to. The tougher the republicans get with the border and illegals the more votes they will get.
Rambling thoughts.
I am a libertarian. I have been since 94... back when we were 'koooks.' Our party has done a lot of flopping around on certain issues. There are many issues that I don't agree with the party on. But I have always felt that the republicans are bought and paid for, and will always vote big business at the expense of the original intent of the framers of the constitution or our collective liberties. I think there are many disgruntled republicans that could hijack the libertarian party to reform its platform - the blue collar republicans are at odds with the blue blooded republicans. We, the libertarians could use the blue collar republicans.
What are you? Take the quiz: http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html
I would like to place a link to our party platform, if this is inappropriate, please delete it: http://www.lp.org/issues/platform_all.shtml
bost1751
11-09-2006, 11:37
I like the COWBOY UP part and understand that very well. Very good post, You covered all my thoughts and few more.
x SF med
11-09-2006, 11:55
NG_M4
I ended up solidly a Centrist. I guess it's due to the generality of the questions.
Ideally the VP should have resigned back in August or October. It would have taken some pressure off republican candidates in blue states and allowed the party to hand pick it's next candidate for President, but as you pointed out the President is loyal to a fault. In this case he stuck with Rumsfeld and the VP way past the point when both became a liablity to the Presidency and his party. While a bunch of people who deserve to lose their seats got what was coming to them there were also some good folks who got thrown out with the bath water.
I've maintained the position that if the President wanted to change things up (VP and SECDEF, or either one) for the maximum political value, some time after the 2004 election would have been it. He still had the momentum from the victory and people would have been open to change on his terms.
People are focusing on Iraq as the reason why the Republicans got tossed out of Congress, but as others have alluded to, there is much more. It is a combined effect of ethical scandals, a crony/buddy/arrogant attitude in some quarters, the war and inability of the President to do a better PR job, the record pork in the budget, etc. For conservatives, there are bright spots, however, with such control of the executive and legislative branches, better was expected. The words, "Absolute power absolutely corrupts" is applicable beyond party lines, race, gender, whatever.
Which is why our system has checks and balances. The American people voted not for liberal policies, but to show men who still (good or bad depending on your affiliation) calls the shots - The people. Smart politicians know that, but getting the Democratic party on one agenda is like herding cats. I would be impressed if they could actually pull together some strategy and tell their ultra looney left wing folks to take a seat while they pursued centrist policies.
Bush and his clique of their party have had their run. Those associated with them from a publicity standpoint will not fare well. Like them or not, for Republicans to hold office, their best bets for 2008 are McCain and Guliani. It may have been different if a VP was groomed. Holding the presidency will be far more critical. Dems having the same advantages Republicans did these years doesn't give me a warm and fuzzy.
mumbleypeg
11-09-2006, 12:20
This was posted on www.realclearpolitics.com It's originally from Washington Post. I don't know if George Will has lost his conservative credibility but I thought this was pretty good.
November 09, 2006
The Bridge Back From the Wilderness
By George Will
WASHINGTON -- At least Republicans now know where "the bridge to nowhere'' leads: to the political wilderness. But there are three reasons for conservatives to temper their despondency.
First, they were punished not for pursuing but for forgetting conservatism. Second, they admire market rationality, and the political market has worked. Third, on various important fronts, conservatism continued its advance Tuesday.
Of course the election-turning issue was not that $223 million bridge in Alaska, or even the vice of which it is emblematic -- incontinent spending by a Republican-controlled Congress trying to purchase permanent power. Crass spending (the farm and highway bills, the nearly eightfold increase in the number of earmarks since 1994) and other pandering (e.g., the Terri Schiavo intervention) have intensified as Republicans' memories of why they originally sought power have faded.
But Republicans sank beneath the weight of Iraq, the lesson of which is patent: Wars of choice should be won swiftly rather than lost protractedly. On election eve the president, perhaps thinking one should not tinker with success, promised that his secretary of defense would remain. That promise perished Wednesday as a result of Tuesday's repudiation of Republican stewardship which, although emphatic, was not inordinate, considering the offense that provoked it -- war leadership even worse than during the War of 1812.
Tuesday's House result -- the end of 12 years of Republican control -- was normal; the reason for it was unprecedented. The Democrats' 40 years of control of the House before 1994 was aberrant: In the 140 years since 1866, the first post-Civil War election, party control of the House has now changed 15 times -- an average of once every 9.3 years. But never before has a midterm election so severely repudiated a president for a single policy.
The Iraq War, like the Alaska bridge, pungently proclaims how Republicans earned their rebuke. They are guilty of apostasy from conservative principles at home (frugality, limited government) and embrace of anti-conservative principles abroad (nation-building grandiosity pursued incompetently).
About $2.6 billion was spent on the 468 House and Senate races. Scandalized? Don't be. Americans spend that much on chocolate every two months. But although Republicans had more money, its effectiveness was blunted because Democrats at last practiced what they incessantly preach to others -- diversity. Diversity of thought, no less: Some of their winners even respect the Second Amendment.
Free markets, including political markets, equilibrate, producing supplies to meet demands. The Democratic Party, a slow learner but educable, has dropped the subject of gun control and welcomed candidates opposed to parts or even all of the abortion rights agenda. This vindicates the candidate recruitment by Rep. Rahm Emanuel and Sen. Chuck Schumer, chairmen of the Democratic House and Senate campaign committees, respectively. Karl Rove fancies himself a second iteration of Mark Hanna, architect of the Republican ascendancy secured by William McKinley's 1896 election. In Emanuel, Democrats may have found another Jim Farley, the political mechanic who kept FDR's potentially discordant coalition running smoothly through the 1930s.
Making the Democratic House majority run smoothly will require delicacy. The six elections beginning with 1994 produced Republican majorities averaging just 10 seats. The six elections prior to 1994 produced Democratic majorities averaging 44. Nancy Pelosi's majority will be less than half that. The most left-wing speaker in U.S. history will return to being minority leader in 2009 unless she eschews an agenda that cannot be enacted without requiring the many Democrats elected from Republican-leaning districts to jeopardize their seats.
This year Democrats tacitly accepted much of the country's rightward movement over the last quarter-century. They did not call for restoring the 70 percent marginal tax rates that Reagan repealed. And although Pelosi and 15 of the 21 likely chairmen of committees in the coming Congress voted against the 1996 Welfare Reform that has helped reduced welfare rolls by roughly 60 percent, Democrats this year did not talk about repealing it.
The property rights movement gained ground Tuesday as voters in nine states passed measures to restrict governments from exercising eminent domain in order to enlarge their tax revenues. In Michigan, opponents of racial preferences in public hiring, education and contracting easily passed their referendum, 58-42, in spite of being outspent more than three to one. In Minnesota -- the only state Democrats have carried in each of the last eight presidential elections, but one that is becoming a swing state -- Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty was re-elected. And come January, the number of Republicans in the House (at least 200) will still be larger than the largest number during the Reagan years (192 in 1981-83).
The country remains receptive to conservatism. That doctrine -- were it to become constraining on, rather than merely avowed by, congressional Republicans -- can be their bridge back from the wilderness.
georgewill@washpost.com
(c) 2006, Washington Post Writers Group
"I must have missed that portion of training..."
You missed the horse cavalry part? I did too......but I had instructors early in my career who didn't.
Jim
Tell me one incident... where there was an officer, who did not have an SNCO as an advisor?:munchin
Stay safe.
Jack Moroney (RIP)
11-09-2006, 14:36
Tell me one incident... where there was an officer, who did not have an SNCO as an advisor?:munchin
Stay safe.
That's an excellent point. I cannot remember when I was ever allowed to roam without having a SNCO holding the hand receipt on my 4th POC. Now that is not to say that I followed all their guidance, but I sure weighed it all.
incommin
11-09-2006, 15:24
Giving advise is one thing.....having it followed is another. But lets not start a war between officers and NCO's. There are poor, good, and great ones in both the E's and the O's.
Jim
The Reaper
11-09-2006, 15:24
I don't think that the radical Dems who are taking charge will willingly share power with the conservative Dems recently elected. They are going to expect party loyalty, and punish those who do not give it, fully and unreservedly.
I hope that Will still feels the same way about the newfound Centrist mentality of the Dems by the next election.
I predict that the curtain will fall on that well before 2009. Perhaps as soon as the end of January 2007.
And look for the AWB to return in a new, more restrictive manner.
TR
That's an excellent point. I cannot remember when I was ever allowed to roam without having a SNCO holding the hand receipt on my 4th POC. Now that is not to say that I followed all their guidance, but I sure weighed it all.NEVER have I worn a gun that was not "locked & loaded" during the GW1, OIF, and Katrina...
I've "NEVER" seen a good officer w/o an SNCO behind him.:lifter
If an "O" can take the fall...WTF can a SNCO not shoulder some of the blame?:confused:
Stay safe.
incommin
11-09-2006, 19:05
"I've "NEVER" seen a good officer w/o an SNCO behind him."
I bet you haven't served with Mac's one hundred thousand or 90 day officers and NCO's. I did. I saw officers and NCO's that couldn't pour piss from a boot with the directions printed on the bottom. I have seen frustrated officers who had to work with incompetent NCO's and excellent NCO trying to train officers who had no aptitude for leadership let alone military service.
As a senior NCO I worked with field grade officers that did not trust NCO's because of the Vietnam build up and what they had experienced. SF did not experience the problems of the rest of the regular Army because of the quality of personnel.
Today's Army is not the Army of the 60's and 70's. Today's Army is better... better training, better standards, and programs that help get rid of the poor performers.
Jim
Roguish Lawyer
11-09-2006, 19:22
Today's Army is not the Army of the 60's and 70's. Today's Army is better... better training, better standards, and programs that help get rid of the poor performers.
:munchin
Jack Moroney (RIP)
11-09-2006, 20:23
If an "O" can take the fall...WTF can a SNCO not shoulder some of the blame?:confused:
Stay safe.
Because a commander is responsible for everything his unit does or fails to do. Because a good officer will not let the buck pass him. Because an officer who stands above another officer who "falls" will make sure that before any "blame" is shared by others along with the officer will seek the answer to three questions: Were the instructions clear, did the unit/individual have the ability to execute the task(s), were there any unusual variables that precluded the successful execution of the task.
Jack Moroney (RIP)
11-10-2006, 06:16
"I bet you haven't served with Mac's one hundred thousand or 90 day officers and NCO's.
Today's Army is not the Army of the 60's and 70's. Today's Army is better... better training, better standards, and programs that help get rid of the poor performers.
Jim
Well I think it depends on where each of us served during this time.
While I will agree there were many problems, a lot were institutional and not because of the caliber or potential of the folks in uniform. I do not have the time this morning to share my observations, but I will later if you are interested in my limited and personal opinions.
incommin
11-10-2006, 06:24
Always interested in another view. All of us speak from what we have seen on our view from the mountain! I know the perspective is different from where others have stood.
Jim
Jack Moroney (RIP)
11-10-2006, 15:55
Always interested in another view. All of us speak from what we have seen on our view from the mountain! I know the perspective is different from where others have stood.
Jim
Let me start in the 60s.
As a young lieutenant in the 60s as a Mech Inf Platoon leader and then as a Mech Company Commander (there were no CPTs below Bn at this time because VN was cranking up) I had no problems with the troops. We had a unique mix of soldiers-the last of the WWII guys, some Korean guys and a couple of VN vets that had started to filter in during late 65.
I can remember one soldier, PVT Chilcutt, who I think was the impetus for the invention of velcro. He had been up and down the ranks so many times that his sleeves looked like they had been attacked by woodpeckers. Good guy, but at 18 yrs of service he was still aspiring to be a PFC, the proudest day of his life was when I finally promoted him to SP4-which he lost the next day.
I can remember pappy Weir-SGT who had fought along with my first shirt, 1SG Meeks, over the same ground we now trained on in Germany. Then we had a whole bunch of draftees who were just doing their time, but doing it well.
We had only one real problem child whose main goal in life was to show officers in particular that he made his own rules and that was that. However, I gave him a chance to prove that one day in the hand to hand pit and I broke him from sucking eggs. He turned out okay after that. So my Mech Company could do its job and do it well which we demonstrated time after time over the central plains of Germany during various troop tests.
The problem that I saw back then was the officer corps. The officer corps was a screwy bunch of old WWII folks at the top who were old army, hat and glove socials for wives, tradition bound loyalists who followed old school rules about rank and priviledge often to the detriment of the units for which they were responsible. They thought because they were officers they could do no wrong but the troops could easily sort out the old style do what I say not what I do guys from the dirt eating, no neck, sweat with the troop officers who, for the most part were the new breed of young guys.
I remember vividly the Bn XO, whom we called super wiene-not because of any physical endowments but because he was a complete screw up, coming out to show up the troops on the KD range. In those days you remember we had troops in the pits pulling targets with a number 10 can lid they placed over where the round hit. I called down to the troop handling the XOs target and told him that every time he graded the target he was to fly maggies drawers indicating a no hit. He never fully understood what was wrong and told me that my weapons must not be zeroed. :rolleyes:
Now this new breed had no grey area-they were either squared away or should have been put away before commissioning. That was the problem with the institutions that brought them into the service. Brand new officers knew more about basic soldier tasks and NCO jobs than they did about being officers and leadership. Back then leadership was measured by "leadership traits", ability to do PT, and the depth of shine on a pair of boots, but not by leadership performance or potential to succeed at the next level. An officer's growth depended more on the units to which he was assigned and what he was assigned to do with mentoring and training by the officers in his unit than by any grand plan of professional growth. So what the next unit got depended on where this officer was assigned and who "brought him along". That means what you got also came with the baggage he inherited from where he "learned" his trade. Those that were social outcasts by the old school charmers who lived for happy hour, officers calls, and the like understood, and were in fact, soldiers. Those that tried to hang on to the old traditions where rank was a measure of status and not a function of responsibility and challenge were the jerks with whom we all had to suffer.
So, I guess what I am trying to say is that I never really experienced the troop problems of the 60s that I heard about. I did have my occassional shit bird, like the troop that demonstrated his knife fighting ability acquired in my hand to hand programs by killilng the most favorite taxi cab driver in Frankfurt, Germany. That was fun because I received a personal phone call from Lymon Lemonister who was El Supremo in Germany at the time. As I recall his final words were that while he admired my turning mech soldiers into warriors that unless I wanted to remain a lieutenant longer then he did I would instill a little more discipline in the more wild ones. Lemonister, by the way, spent 16 years as a lieutenant.:D I entered SF in 67, so the remainder of my time in the 60s were all SF oriented and not applicable because this was a different world and the one in which I belonged. I'll hit the 70s later if you want, right now I am being heralded for chow.
[Broken into paragraphs by RL for the benefit of readers. :)]
incommin
11-10-2006, 18:56
I can't speak for others but I would like to hear more; from you and others.
Jim
Jack Moroney (RIP)
11-10-2006, 20:51
Okay, now let me talk to the 70s. I was on orders to Thailand in 1970 when the Army decided that I needed to be jerked off orders to the 46th Company and sent to graduate school in one of two disciplines: Political Science or Business Administration. Now to me at the time that was the dumbest thing I ever heard. What did an Infantry officer need a masters degree for, especially in either of those two disciplines. I mean calling a politician a scientist is akin to calling Wesley Clark a great leader. And business administration, damn give me a break the whole move during this decade to bring the military in line with business practices set the whole army back by centuries. Okay, so what to do? I asked the officer who was telling me that I was not going to go anywhere in my career without a masters what was more important the discipline or the piece of paper. He said the paper so I told him that I would resign my RA, go back to school for a masters in Wildlife Managment and then come back in two years. He said that was fine as long as I took a commission in the USAR they would be willing to have me back when I graduated. So that is what I did and that is what happened. So you can see the mindset of DA at the time, civilian education and advanced degrees in disciplines that really had little to do with fighting wars sort of hobbled the officer corps and said to my contemporaries that go to school and come back in and apply civilian applications to military pursuits. That should explain some of your frustrations. Now when I came back in, I was sent to the 101st in the summer of 72. I walked into a hornets nest. The AG, a LTC DeBeridino, was taking flack from the post/division commander( with whom I had a serious run in at Fort Devens when I was in the 10th 69-70) because his Personnel Service Company was a bunch of long haired, hippy, failures and he was directed to get it straight. The AG made a deal with me. If I would square away his company, get it to pass the IG that was coming up in January 73, he would guarantee me a company command in the only Airborne Brigade left in the 101st. So I took it. Now keep in mind this is the time when VOLAR came into being and the most important thing that most commanders, 1SGs and SGMs had to worry about is making sure that every troop had his VOLAR furniture and rug for his barracks room. Nothing else seemed to matter. Anyway, the AG's and the CG's assessment of the troops in that company were correct, but they responded to some positive guidance and someone that gave a damn about what they did and how they did it. Of course I will admit I cheated. Because I was tapped into the AG I got me the best damn 1SG I could find, Machine Gun Bryant from the 173rd, and he and I, along with a bunch of misfits I pulled out of the Personnel Correction Facility, (which I also sort of had a little sway over) not only passed the damn IG but set a new record on post for the best scores. No gigs in the motor pool, the messhall won the best mess hall in the Army, and everyone of my little clerks and misfits passed all their tests and evaluations with flying colors. Now I am not saying that there were no challenges, but again it was not the troops that were lacking but the officer corps. This was the time that computers came into being in the machine branch of every personnel service company and generals started to manage. Troops become numbers, equipment became print outs, names became punch cards, and statistical analysis ruled the day. Because generals became number crunchers their subordinate commanders ruled by numbers and statistics. Automation took leadership out of the equation and brought in management. The troops in the 101 were good troops and the officers were pretty sound, however we were into affirmative action big time. You know that airborne company I was promised. Well I wasn't black enough at the time and the rule was that there needed to be a black commander in every battalion. The kid that took command of what was to be my company was a nice guy, but he was also a statistic, not ready, and was riffed. So again, we were back to statistics and poltical correctness even then. Then came the attempt by the CG to boost the moral of his two leg brigades by doing what I guess we can now call the Shinseki model. He wanted everyone to look alike, didn't care too much about how they performed or what they did so he passed an edict and created the stupid Air Assault School, created a badge and decreed that all those that could pass the school could wear bloused boots in class A's, the ...t cap, and wear a back ground for their regiment on their baseball caps with their little air assault badge. The only problem was he needed the airborne folks to run the program and for the first few months only the airborne troops could pass the school. So the school changed, focus was changed, standards lowered. Again not the troops, but the officers. I went on to the advanced course from there, then taught ROTC in Vermont and swore that my cadets would be able officers upon commissioning. Korea came next. Now Korea was a little different, I found the troops to be great but I saw a swing in the command climates that bothered me. I was the S3 for 1-23rd Inf which was a leg battalion. The problem here was because it was overseas and kids were away from home for the first time a lot of them were "falling in love" every minute they could. There were some problems with breaking them loose from the indig and some of the junior officers were not better. The OPTEMPO at the time was that everything that was done once a year in the states was done twice a year in Korea. There were two ARTEPs, two IGs, two EIB phases, etc. While it was a good training environment it really burned out the troops because if you weren't executing them you were supporting them. But I saw a definite improvement in officers during this time phase as most of the old guard had retired and officers in Korea, at least at this time, learned and led and learned and trained. Again there are some colorful tales that show some problems here, but they were, in my case, caused by a Bn Cdr that was a drunk and thought intimidation was a valuable leadership trait. I went back to the 10th in 79 and stayed in SF for the rest of my career. So in summary, while I know that they were out there somewhere, I had no problems with soldiers and those problems that were out there were directly caused by the senior leadership. Unfortunately, senior leaders come from junior leaders who where not hammered along the line into shape or shifted off to some civilian pursuit. Again, I fault the institution as much as I do the individual but I also find that the reason why many of these officers survived who should have otherwise perished was because of the very efforts of those soldiers they were incapable or unwilling to lead. Soldiers, in every unit I have ever been associated with, will always rise to the occassion for their buddy, their squad, their platoon. It is the teamwork inspite of the leadership failings that carry the day. And, of course, nothing is truer in SF where officers, regardless of the fact that SF is now a branch are still guests for much of their career unless they are soldiers first and officers second.
Buffalobob
11-13-2006, 19:04
Well Jack M, that was very good.
I had forgotten about "leadership traits".
CPTAUSRET
11-18-2006, 11:53
I recall receiving an asschewing in the field from my Brigade Commander (Armor Brigade) with my Bn Co, also standing at attention; it seems I had exercised some initiative and utilized some outside the box thinking...Won the field problem when I shouldn't have!
During the rant I was told that I still had an NCO attitude, both CSM's were in attendance by the way.
I said "That would be a Senior NCO, attitude SIR!" I got a smile from both E-9's.