What's the most important thing the military should do while going through this downsizing period?

I think that one of the most important things that we can do is the screening, and removal of "toxic leaders". If this were achieved, many of the young, bright forward thinking NCO's I know, that want to leave now, would reconsider.

 Also, they should outsource contracts less to some of these civilian companies, there are many soldiers that are trained to do a job, and are drawing a paycheck, that do nothing related to the Military Occupational Specialty that the government spent thousands of dollars training them to do. Since it seems like most of the big budget cuts are coming from the defense sector, this would seem like a win win for the DoD.

While some gainsayers might
consign GEN Odierno's recent statement to the House Armed Services Committee as
alarmist, the Chief of Staff's discussion was quite balanced.



While I'm cautious not to draw an absolute parallel with the hollowness that

wracked our Army following Vietnam, the similarities are in fact quite

palpable, particularly in terms of the potential readiness and modernization

shortfalls resulting from the full actualization of sequestration and its

attendant discretionary cap reductions. The differences, of course, are

just as acute. For me, the most striking differences deal with personnel management and

the depth and breadth of the military's commitment abroad what with

America's managerial and "special" responsibilities relative to other
states

given the country's comparative advantage in talent, materiel, and

logistical expertise. Therefore, while the lesson of Vietnam must inform

any discussion of the Army's actions amid sequestration, we cannot become so

mired by the analogy that we lose sight of a significant set of dissimilar

conditions that contextualize our current predicament.



Chief among these conditions, and notwithstanding the importance of other

training, equipment sustainment and modernization, and installation

maintenance issues, is personnel management and the "contract" the
Army -

the Nation, really - has made with its Soldiers. Most worrisome for me is

the appreciably rising cost of so-called compensation (ergo, incentives

given the All-Volunteer paradigm). According to Odierno, "[m]ilitary

manpower costs remain at historic highs and consume 46% of the Army
budget."

Moreover, "[i]f we do not slow the rate of growth, Soldier compensation
will

double to approximately 80% of the budget by 2023." That-is-astronomical.



While we don't serve for money, we should all realistically expect some

compensation (whether a pension, enduring health care, and so forth) for the

continual physical and meta-physical sacrifices we make relative to 99.9% of

the American public. How we reconcile these countervailing trends,

incentivizing and caring for Soldiers on the one hand, and reducing the

obviously unsustainable nature of such compensation, may figure to be the

most challenging issue of our careers. What's more, it is precisely our

success or failure that will determine the caliber of Soldiers attracted to

serve in the future. The one variable, it seems, is leadership. For me,

inspirational leadership carries the potential to transcend all discussions

of debt ceilings, profligate spending, and the like to result in retention

of Soldiers capable and willing to serve.



V/R,



Paul

The most important thing the military should do while downsizing is to ensure the mission is accomplished and our troops are taken care of. Those are the most important responsibilities. We need to make sure that we have enough assets to continue on and excel as the greatest fighting force the world has ever laid eyes on, and ensure that our men and women in uniform accomplishing the mission are taken care of.

Although difficult, our nation has never backed down from a challenge and will continue on making the most of available resources. American service members can make do with little to nothing and have the skills, knowledge, and will to accomplish any task at hand, no matter how difficult it may be.

The military should continue focusing on the mission and understand that our continued success lays in the hands of our highly trained forces. The military is one big family and we need to look after one another and help eachother out. Do not jeoparadize the quality of life for people in uniform, even after they conclude their service to the country. Use every and all resource to take care of them. Afterall, they are using every and all resource provided to them to take care of the country.

Many people seem to be responding from a standpoint in their own military branch. The question is: "What's the most important THING." There are many important things that should be happening during the downsizing period, and its too much to explain in entirety. One thing that every organization has is standard. It starts at the recruiting level. Recruiters should be given strict rules about the quality of troops joining without any regard to standard. That is why troops are not professional, making uniforms look bad, they can't keep up on fitness, they don't improve their education, and they cause trouble throughout the ranks (DUIs, rape, AWOL, etc). We are supposed to be elite in comparison with the U.S. population of civilians. We've lost that. ONE of the most important things to do is STOP BYPASSING THE STANDARDS so the caliber of our troops remain valuable.