Posted on Aug 15, 2015
Does this article send the right message of where the Army is headed? - The Army is broken!
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Does this article send the right message of where the Army is headed? - The Army is broken!
Found this very interesting article that shows the direction of the Army as we have seen it transition throughout out a short historical period and from the perspective of a warrior - one of our own. Thought I would share it with the RP Community. Its nothing new, and we have been talking about this in other discussions, but I still found it very interesting and very true! Just for your read!
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/aug/15/the-army-is-broken/
By Robert H. Scales, a retired Army major general, is a former commandant of the U.S. Army War College. He originally wrote this for The Washington Post.
--
Last month, Gen. Raymond Odierno, outgoing Army chief of staff, and Gen. Mark Milley, his successor, testified to the difficulties faced by the Army. I’d like to make the same points by telling a story.
When I was a boy, tonsillitis was a dangerous illness. In 1952, it kept me in Tokyo General Hospital for weeks. I shared a cramped ward with dozens of soldiers horribly maimed in Korea. The hospital had only one movie theater. I remember watching a Western sandwiched between bandage- and plaster-wrapped bodies. I remember the antiseptic smells, the cloud of cigarette smoke and the whispers of young men still traumatized by the horrors of the war they had just left.
My dad came from Korea to visit me, and I recall our conversations vividly. At the time he was operations officer for the 2nd Engineer Battalion. He told me how poorly his men were prepared for war. Many had been killed or captured by the North Koreans. During the retreat from the Yalu River, some of his soldiers were in such bad physical shape that they dropped exhausted along the road to wait to be taken captive.
“We have no sergeants, son,” he told me, shaking his head, “and without them we are no longer an Army.”
In the early ‘70s, I was the same age as my Korean-era dad. I had just left Vietnam only to face another broken Army. My barracks were at war. I carried a pistol to protect myself from my own soldiers. Many of the soldiers were on hard drugs. The barracks were racial battlegrounds pitting black against white. Again, the Army had broken because the sergeants were gone. By 1971, most were either dead, wounded or had voted with their feet to get away from such a devastated institution.
I visited Baghdad in 2007 as a guest of Gen. David Petraeus. Before the trip I had written a column forecasting another broken Army, but it was clear from what Petraeus showed me that the Army was holding on and fighting well in the dangerous streets of Baghdad. Such a small and overcommitted force should have broken after so many serial deployments to that hateful place. But Petraeus said that his Army was different. It held together because junior leaders were still dedicated to the fight. To this day, I don’t know how they did it.
Sadly, the Army that stayed cohesive in Iraq and Afghanistan even after losing 5,000 dead is now being broken again by an ungrateful, ahistorical and strategically tone-deaf leadership in Washington.
The Obama administration just announced a 40,000 reduction in the Army’s ranks. But the numbers don’t begin to tell the tale. Soldiers stay in the Army because they love to go into the field and train; Defense Secretary Ashton Carter recently said that the Army will not have enough money for most soldiers to train above the squad level this year. Soldiers need to fight with new weapons; in the past four years, the Army has canceled 20 major programs, postponed 125 and restructured 124. The Army will not replace its Reagan-era tanks, infantry carriers, artillery and aircraft for at least a generation. Soldiers stay in the ranks because they serve in a unit ready for combat; fewer than a third of the Army’s combat brigades are combat ready. And this initial 40,000 soldier reduction is just a start. Most estimates from Congress anticipate that without lifting the budget sequestration that is driving this across-the-board decline, another 40,000 troops will be gone in about two years.
But it’s soldiers who tell the story. After 13 years of war, young leaders are voting with their feet again. As sergeants and young officers depart, the institution is breaking for a third time in my lifetime. The personal tragedies that attended the collapse of a soldier’s spirit in past wars are with us again. Suicide, family abuse, alcohol and drug abuse are becoming increasingly more common.
To be sure, the nation always reduces its military as wars wind down. Other services suffer reductions and shortages. But only the Army breaks. Someone please tell those of us who served why the service that does virtually all the dying and killing in war is the one least rewarded.
My grandson is a great kid. He’s about the same age I was when I was recovering at Tokyo General. Both of his parents served as Army officers, so it’s no wonder that in school he draws pictures of tanks and planes while his second-grade classmates draw pictures of flowers and animals. The other day he drew a tank just for me and labeled it proudly: “Abrams Tank!”
Well, sadly, if he follows in our footsteps, one day he may be fighting in an Abrams tank. His tank will be 60 years old by then.
At the moment I’d rather he go to law school.
Found this very interesting article that shows the direction of the Army as we have seen it transition throughout out a short historical period and from the perspective of a warrior - one of our own. Thought I would share it with the RP Community. Its nothing new, and we have been talking about this in other discussions, but I still found it very interesting and very true! Just for your read!
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2015/aug/15/the-army-is-broken/
By Robert H. Scales, a retired Army major general, is a former commandant of the U.S. Army War College. He originally wrote this for The Washington Post.
--
Last month, Gen. Raymond Odierno, outgoing Army chief of staff, and Gen. Mark Milley, his successor, testified to the difficulties faced by the Army. I’d like to make the same points by telling a story.
When I was a boy, tonsillitis was a dangerous illness. In 1952, it kept me in Tokyo General Hospital for weeks. I shared a cramped ward with dozens of soldiers horribly maimed in Korea. The hospital had only one movie theater. I remember watching a Western sandwiched between bandage- and plaster-wrapped bodies. I remember the antiseptic smells, the cloud of cigarette smoke and the whispers of young men still traumatized by the horrors of the war they had just left.
My dad came from Korea to visit me, and I recall our conversations vividly. At the time he was operations officer for the 2nd Engineer Battalion. He told me how poorly his men were prepared for war. Many had been killed or captured by the North Koreans. During the retreat from the Yalu River, some of his soldiers were in such bad physical shape that they dropped exhausted along the road to wait to be taken captive.
“We have no sergeants, son,” he told me, shaking his head, “and without them we are no longer an Army.”
In the early ‘70s, I was the same age as my Korean-era dad. I had just left Vietnam only to face another broken Army. My barracks were at war. I carried a pistol to protect myself from my own soldiers. Many of the soldiers were on hard drugs. The barracks were racial battlegrounds pitting black against white. Again, the Army had broken because the sergeants were gone. By 1971, most were either dead, wounded or had voted with their feet to get away from such a devastated institution.
I visited Baghdad in 2007 as a guest of Gen. David Petraeus. Before the trip I had written a column forecasting another broken Army, but it was clear from what Petraeus showed me that the Army was holding on and fighting well in the dangerous streets of Baghdad. Such a small and overcommitted force should have broken after so many serial deployments to that hateful place. But Petraeus said that his Army was different. It held together because junior leaders were still dedicated to the fight. To this day, I don’t know how they did it.
Sadly, the Army that stayed cohesive in Iraq and Afghanistan even after losing 5,000 dead is now being broken again by an ungrateful, ahistorical and strategically tone-deaf leadership in Washington.
The Obama administration just announced a 40,000 reduction in the Army’s ranks. But the numbers don’t begin to tell the tale. Soldiers stay in the Army because they love to go into the field and train; Defense Secretary Ashton Carter recently said that the Army will not have enough money for most soldiers to train above the squad level this year. Soldiers need to fight with new weapons; in the past four years, the Army has canceled 20 major programs, postponed 125 and restructured 124. The Army will not replace its Reagan-era tanks, infantry carriers, artillery and aircraft for at least a generation. Soldiers stay in the ranks because they serve in a unit ready for combat; fewer than a third of the Army’s combat brigades are combat ready. And this initial 40,000 soldier reduction is just a start. Most estimates from Congress anticipate that without lifting the budget sequestration that is driving this across-the-board decline, another 40,000 troops will be gone in about two years.
But it’s soldiers who tell the story. After 13 years of war, young leaders are voting with their feet again. As sergeants and young officers depart, the institution is breaking for a third time in my lifetime. The personal tragedies that attended the collapse of a soldier’s spirit in past wars are with us again. Suicide, family abuse, alcohol and drug abuse are becoming increasingly more common.
To be sure, the nation always reduces its military as wars wind down. Other services suffer reductions and shortages. But only the Army breaks. Someone please tell those of us who served why the service that does virtually all the dying and killing in war is the one least rewarded.
My grandson is a great kid. He’s about the same age I was when I was recovering at Tokyo General. Both of his parents served as Army officers, so it’s no wonder that in school he draws pictures of tanks and planes while his second-grade classmates draw pictures of flowers and animals. The other day he drew a tank just for me and labeled it proudly: “Abrams Tank!”
Well, sadly, if he follows in our footsteps, one day he may be fighting in an Abrams tank. His tank will be 60 years old by then.
At the moment I’d rather he go to law school.
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Edited >1 y ago
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Responses: 43
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The Army isnt broken, we need to refocus on conventional warfare and do a better job taking care of our Soldiers.
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SPC (Join to see)
Our preparedness for a conventional war is absolutely inadequate because in training scenarios where the threat is a tank regiment in a historically Christian region with a highly secular governent, the commander's question is "where will the IEDs be" and the staff want cultural analysis of local mosques.
Our preparedness for a conventional war is inadequate because instead of developing more and better anti-vehicle systems, we're designing a tank upgrade based around urban combat (not bad in and of itself) and fielding lightly-armed, extremely overweight vehicles designed to absorb mine blasts, while our fleet of light troop carriers is falling apart.
Our preparedness for conventional war is inadequate because we no longer update our FMs on conventional threat doctrine (IE FM 100-2-1) hasn't been updated since 1984, while the threat has evolved significantly - and remains much more dangerous than any terrorist threat could be (unless it possessed advanced CBRN capabilities).
Our preparedness for a conventional war is inadequate because instead of developing more and better anti-vehicle systems, we're designing a tank upgrade based around urban combat (not bad in and of itself) and fielding lightly-armed, extremely overweight vehicles designed to absorb mine blasts, while our fleet of light troop carriers is falling apart.
Our preparedness for conventional war is inadequate because we no longer update our FMs on conventional threat doctrine (IE FM 100-2-1) hasn't been updated since 1984, while the threat has evolved significantly - and remains much more dangerous than any terrorist threat could be (unless it possessed advanced CBRN capabilities).
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SGT Michael Thorin
Sir, I agree and disagree with you.
The Army is not now, and was never "broken." The Army in and of itself is still great. People, however, we are broken and flawed. From the tip top: a government that sends our troops to battle and does not let them fight, to that platoon sergeant that is disgruntled and has forgotten to act like an NCO, the Army will triumph, if the politicians will let the Army run the Army.
The Army is not now, and was never "broken." The Army in and of itself is still great. People, however, we are broken and flawed. From the tip top: a government that sends our troops to battle and does not let them fight, to that platoon sergeant that is disgruntled and has forgotten to act like an NCO, the Army will triumph, if the politicians will let the Army run the Army.
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SGT Michael Thorin
CPT (Join to see) - I'm glad to see I'm not the only person seeing this developing with Russia and China.
All of these Russian bombers routinely encroaching into our airspace over Alaska seems to be nuisances, but may also be operations to test our response capabilities.
These Nations know we have problems in our leadership and our citizens are at odds with the military, the police, and even each other.
We have an election year which can be summed up by the title of a reality TV show and could very well be called , "Election 2016: The Great Coin Toss."
Less than 10 years after an attack on our country caused us to shut down our Nation, people are now tired of too much security, so we are now barely more secure than we were before 9-11.
The public would rather sacrifice our National Security because they do not want the inconvenience and are too scared to offend anyone.
I think that our Nation Is actually a very soft target for any country with a competitive military. Realistically, the United States military is ranked number 1 globally, with Russia and China at 2 and 3.
Imagine if Russia and China decided to team up. How prepared are we as a Nation to protect ourselves from that?
It's chess my friends, pure and simple. You always need to think 3 moves ahead of your opponents moves.
Infortunately, and I say this with as much respect as I can muster, it seems that our Nations leaders are still stuck at the checkers table while our enemies are poising to take a king.
Checkers and chess my fellow warriors, checkers and chess, and if you want to play checkers you never set at a table with more than just red and black chips.
All of these Russian bombers routinely encroaching into our airspace over Alaska seems to be nuisances, but may also be operations to test our response capabilities.
These Nations know we have problems in our leadership and our citizens are at odds with the military, the police, and even each other.
We have an election year which can be summed up by the title of a reality TV show and could very well be called , "Election 2016: The Great Coin Toss."
Less than 10 years after an attack on our country caused us to shut down our Nation, people are now tired of too much security, so we are now barely more secure than we were before 9-11.
The public would rather sacrifice our National Security because they do not want the inconvenience and are too scared to offend anyone.
I think that our Nation Is actually a very soft target for any country with a competitive military. Realistically, the United States military is ranked number 1 globally, with Russia and China at 2 and 3.
Imagine if Russia and China decided to team up. How prepared are we as a Nation to protect ourselves from that?
It's chess my friends, pure and simple. You always need to think 3 moves ahead of your opponents moves.
Infortunately, and I say this with as much respect as I can muster, it seems that our Nations leaders are still stuck at the checkers table while our enemies are poising to take a king.
Checkers and chess my fellow warriors, checkers and chess, and if you want to play checkers you never set at a table with more than just red and black chips.
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SGT Michael Thorin
SPC (Join to see) - Well said soldier. We stopped studying Soviet battle doctrine years ago.
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The fact that politicians are supporting a reduction in troops, less funding which affects training and equipment doesn't mean the Army is broken. This is a reflection of politics and affects the military's readiness ability, it is not a reflection of the spirit of the Army, the quality of our members, or our fitness.
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COL Mikel J. Burroughs
CPT (Join to see) I agree and please don't think I posted the discussion thinking that it is completely broke. I posted it to drum up conversatin and that it did, but also wanted to show the trend throughout history on the ups and downs of the Army. The Army is the greatest and it will prevail. Let's just get the right leadership at the helm again and we will bounce back stronger and better.
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