This Mattis-directed task force wants to overhaul the infantry. Here’s how it might do that.

Montgomery the truth is, if we as leaders are doing our job, especially in these dangerous times our knuckle dragging barbarians should not have time for silliness. I understand extra duty, somebodies got to do it. Hell it might fall on whomever, but if it is between picking up litter and conducting training that will keep you and your unit alive, no not this time. I say find the son of bitch that did it and make him police the entire post.

Handing out towels, and raking sand, really that is absolutely a waste of government money. Somebody needs to get smacked in the jaw for that. We dont have time or money for that kind of nonsense.

Montgomery I remember during one of my trips to the 'stans I saw these young troops riding around in golf carts all over KAF in PT uniform. I would scream, I had tons of real war things I needed and some jackass who was never going to leave KAF spent his/her entire tour on KAF riding in a damn golf cart what in the hell? I remember walking out of the latrine one morning and the was an M16 leaning against the front of the latrine. I stood and waited and waited, finally someone walked by and I ask hime if it was his, he said nope. I found the owner but the issue is people have time to hang out in the burger whopper ride around in their golf cart but in a war zone cant keep up with their damn weapon. Holy Jesus, this gets me spun up.

On the lighter side of the news I had some computer issues I had to get fixed with the Allies secret line when I ask ask and ask nothing done. I went to the shop and told the OIC a LT if he did not get if completed no later than I was going to shoot him in the thigh. He chuckled when i said that and waited for me to smile and I responded with I am not going to kill you just shoot you in the thigh, its perfectly legal. Make sure its done. It was done. It kind became folklorish hahaha I was kind of serious, would I have shot him? Hell, he got it fixed so it was a non issue whew hahaha it had been a while since I shot an LT in the leg hahahahah I kill me

I see a lot of resistance to this. I spent a lot of time doing post cleanup in Ft. Stewart, pulling weeds in the motor pool, painting, cleaning Battalion, etc., not because I was bad, but because I was the fool who always stuck his hand up when 1sg or CSM asked for volunteers. It got to the point where they wouldn't let me volunteer. Once I became a leader, I did my best to minimize this bovine scatology, because it burned me up that those who didn't make the mess had to clean it up (smoke pits being the worst offender). Many of these time wasting details are there simply because young soldiers have a propensity to get in trouble when left alone, and doing the same drills over and over leads to proficiency first, but then complacency. When funds are limited because DOD would rather spend the budget on multi-billion dollar planes rather than range time for Joe, faking it gets old fast.

Best training I ever received in the army reserves was was a "spend ex" where the NCOIC combined "ready-ups" with magazine changes on a ten meter range, using 3 round magazines from the zero range. Yes, it took an hour to expend the ammo rather than 15 minutes, but by the time we were done, every person on that line was capable of moving and communicating, changing magazines, and engaging targets. We could have benefited from that training on Active Duty. Yes, we were tired, yes, we wanted to just go home, but by the end of burning off the excess ammo, thirty of us were far more proficient with our primary weapon. It's going to take a change in attitude to make this happen, but if it would, we would be a better, more effective fighting force.

I invite this greatly! But in addition to saving BS details for the POGs, I would love to see all the online training go away. This would open up lots of time for valuable training on actual MOS tasks.