Crisis of Faith in Senior Leaders; How would you address it?

I guess things are different either 1) these days or 2) because of the long war, or maybe both.

I served 30 years of active duty and general officer actions had absolutely no effect on me, my work ethic, my morale, etc.

I've even served at fairly high levels, relatively "close" to GOs, and that did not change things. They were doing their job and I was doing mine.

It just never crossed my mind to have a crisis of confidence in my senior leaders.

1SG(P) (Join to see)

It should come as no surprise that the military is politicized. The military is under civilian leadership and that leadership are all politicians.

While the military claims to be apolitical, the truth of the matter is that for military leaders to become senior military leaders they have to be political and that is especially true when it comes to the general officer ranks, especially the three and four star officers. That does not mean that they cannot be effective military leaders, as well as politicians, but that take the moral courage that some simply do not display out of a desire for more rank, more power or just maintaining what they have already achieved.

I have known a great many general officers and have worked very closely with several (and lived with some in my family). Most of them desperately want to do the right thing but, more times than not, being able to do the right thing at that level requires the political clout to get it done. Contrary to what others might think, they all have bosses and they can't act unilaterally on most things and the ultimate decision-makers in the most important things that impact the most soldiers are civilian politicians.

When I was a young Lieutenant, I remember asking my dad, who was a senior Army officer, why there were so many, in my opinion, "dumb" decisions being made by our senior leadership. His answer was that the higher one gets in rank and position, the further away he gets from the troops and the realities of the impacts decisions make at the lowest levels. What seems like a good idea at the top really sucks at the ground level. He told me that, I too, would be guilty of that some day, and I probably was.

There comes a time, however, when the military leadership must stand up for what is right and put politics aside. I firmly believe that time has come in our country, but I have yet to see any real evidence of any of our senior military leaders having the moral courage to call a spade a spade and take a stand against what they know is just wrong. Those who have demonstrated an inkling to do so have been "purged" by the politicians and, even they, for the most part, have not spoken up. We need another "Revolt of the Generals" and some public "Resignation In Protest", which I personally think we will see if things continue in our country as they are.

I am certainly not calling for anything illegal or outside the Constitution of the United States. I just think it is time for our military leaders to have the moral courage to say "enough is enough" and take a public stand, fully realizing it will most likely end their careers.

I don't think leaders at the general officer and above level have any effect on Soldiers at the tactical level. I believe most of them truly care for the Soldiers under their command but, I think they are so far detached from what happens on a daily basis that it's irrelevant.

One of the best encounters I ever had with a general officer was while deployed to Baghdad in 2008-2009. Then Major General Dan Bolger who was the commander of the Multi National Division - Baghdad came to my JSS. I was a 1SG at the time and he came into our little TOC and asked me directly how things were going. My commander immediately started into the pre-planned briefing we had prepared for him, he said wait a minute Captain I want to hear from the 1SG. I told him exactly how I saw things in the AO and how the company was doing as far as operationally and how the Soldiers were doing. He asked when the next patrol was and we told him in about six hours, he said he was tired and needed a cot but wake him up so he could go on the patrol. He slept in an open bay on a cot and then went out on patrol with one of our platoons. That guy was a true Soldier.

As a leader, no matter what level, you need to take care of your little piece of pie. If you do your job by taking care of Soldiers then that reflects all the way up the chain. Soldiers will feel taken care of period.