Have we lost sight of the basics?

SSG James Seets — Sun, 23 Feb 2014 11:28:36 -0500

Todays Military is hands down a "smarter" military, but I raise the question; have we lost sight of the basic skills that it takes to be a letheal fighting force at the basic level? Have we created a "weaker" fighting force?

Response by CPL Robert Baker made Feb 23 at 2014 2:02 PM

CPL Robert Baker — Sun, 23 Feb 2014 14:02:48 -0500

Personally I have seen the military seemingly growing weaker for quite sometime on many different levels. More and more you are seeing new rules and SOP passed down from the upper echelon that are supposedly going to help create a stronger military. Now most of these new SOP are created by commissioned officers that have never dealt with Joe on a basic level and by NCO's who have not had to live in the "suck" for quite sometime. The decisions that I have seen made are in large part also due to the military caving into societies coddling attitude of how soldiers/sailors/airmen/marines should not be treated inappropriately. While I do agree that some of the hazing that has taken place through the years needed to be dealt with, as well that there should be enforced rules structuring how far you can go when disciplining a soldier it has become to strict. We need to remember that our military, while they are very young for the most part when they enlist, are supposed to be the toughest MFers they can be. If we allow society to control how we discipline our SM's then we are going to wind up looking at a new generation of kids that cannot handle combat. Just take a look around the mall's or civilian work places these days, everywhere you look you will find boy's instead of men. They have never understood what it truly means to work an honest day, especially cannot handle it when someone tells them brutally honestly that they are lacking a specific skill set and need to "fix yourself". We need to smoke joe until they cry, we need to instill fear in them, fear leads to structure, structure leads to discipline, discipline leads to a well trained fighting power.

Response by 1LT Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 24 at 2014 10:58 PM

1LT Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 22:58:58 -0500

SGT Seets,

To be short, yes. What we have today is a is budget-sapped, contractor dependent, SHARP/EO paranoid, over-manned and under-trained force that executes COIN and full spectrum stability ops in a contingency environment with expertise, but may struggle in a conventional shooting war.

Such is the result of 13 years of combat in this environment. We will trim the fat, return to the basics, learn how to breach and clear a mined-wire obstacle, enter and clear a trench and establish a support by fire. We'll do annual CTC rotations and shoot until our fingers bleed. We'll get skinny again and kick Soldiers out who abuse the system as some sort of welfare and life support.

And this will the job of the NCO corps and the Junior officers who won't have a patch on their right sleeve. We'll get it done, though. Always do. RLTW.

Response by SGM Matthew Quick made Feb 24 at 2014 11:07 PM

SGM Matthew Quick — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 23:07:03 -0500

Instead of raising these types of vague questions, we should be offering solutions to posed questions.

SGT Seets...what's your solution?

Response by SFC Michael Hasbun made Feb 25 at 2014 8:11 AM

SFC Michael Hasbun — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 08:11:19 -0500

I keep hearing that todays Soldiers are supposed to be smarter, but I'm just not seeing it. Maybe more technologically aware, but certainly not smarter. I work on Fort Lee around AIT kids, and they leave a lot to be desired. While they may be great at working their Iphones, they seem to have no grasp on finances, history, the sciences, math and critical thinking. They tend toward poor reading ability, display very little common sense and generally display an atrocious self obsessed attitude.

More technologically aware? Sure, I'll give you that. But smarter? Not by a mile. You can't realistically make that point when our education system is doing so poorly compared to the rest of the civilized world.

Response by 1SG Michael Blount made Feb 25 at 2014 8:43 AM

1SG Michael Blount — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 08:43:50 -0500

SGT -

I feel like I've been trying to talk over a hurricane on this same subject. In many respects, I think we need to trash many of our politcally-correct, SHARP-paranoid, metrics-obsessed, mamby-pamby field manuals, rip a few pages from the USMC playbook and execute. All my four deployments were with USMC and I have a good idea as to how they do business. No nonsense, if your feelings get hurt - tough and too bad. They do everything with nothing forever. We need to get that same way - quickly. What's frustrating is senior leaders pay lip service to this issue but little else. We gotta fix that.

Response by SPC James Bailey made Feb 26 at 2014 12:43 AM

SPC James Bailey — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 00:43:10 -0500

I would believe so

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 26 at 2014 4:09 PM

SGT Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 16:09:50 -0500

The root cause of this entire problem falls directly on who?...... THE SGT! We are the these soldiers first line. We are who they should be looking to for guidance and mentorship. Last I checked, a soldier is a direct reflection of his/her leadership. So if you have a jacked up soldier..... FIX THEM! If you cant fix them, paperwork them out of my Army. NCO's ENFORCE the standard, not complain when a soldier isnt meeting it. The maximum range of an excuse is ZERO. Let's not forget our Creed.... All soldiers are entitiled to OUTSTANDING leadership, I will provide that leadership. Its not Tradoc's fault, its not the soldiers fault...... IT IS OURS, thier leaders.

Response by SFC Stephen Hester made May 1 at 2014 12:41 PM

SFC Stephen Hester — Thu, 01 May 2014 12:41:00 -0400

12 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq have proven beyond a doubt that we are a lethal fighting force. I think the question here is "Are there factors at work that will diminish our effectiveness in future conflicts?" and I think the answer to that is "Yes". Political correctness, vague standards, too many standards, lack of enforcement of standards, kinder/gentler BCT, budget cuts, ineffective training, ineffective training management...Yes, all these things conspire to weaken the Army from the inside.

Response by SGT James Elphick made May 2 at 2014 6:37 PM

SGT James Elphick — Fri, 02 May 2014 18:37:46 -0400

I have to agree. I picked up my old 7-8 the other day and realized just how much of it soldiers don't use and, even worse, don't know. Those are the basic skills for being an infantryman and in my time most of them were never taught. We did Battle Drill 1A, usually not even to standard, and that was it. As an Airborne Infantryman we sort of practiced airfield seizure but none of the other missions the Airborne conducts when behind enemy lines. To me those were the basic skills necessary for my job and I was rarely, if ever, trained on them. It may sound counter-intuitive when conducting COIN but you have to know the basics before you get to the advanced stuff.