‘Make our Army better’: How TRADOC’s outgoing senior NCO helped change enlisted soldiers' careers...

Make our Army better... there are a lot of things that could be done better and the number one thing I would suggest, look to our Allies. Few would argue the British Army is more professional than ours. Their two phased system is almost 6 months long before a troop goes off to their regiment. Their Phase 1 is longer than most soldiers Basic and AIT, that is where the first level of problems begin, if we train soldiers to a certain level in a given field for 4-8 weeks and expect them to become better when they "get to home station," we have in truth created a ticking time bomb of failure. Next suggestion, do away with automatic promotions, they are a joke at best, the saying the "the cream rises to the top," doesn't apply in the US Army. Not with Officers and Enlisted soldiers all getting a one degree or another degree of automatic promotions. Retire the concept of up or out, allow officers to choose if they want to stay at company level or not. Many prefer it, but are forced to compete for a shrinking pool of positions as they move up.

Schools, tie those schools where possible to civilian certifications, this gives a soldier a civilian certification for them when they get out, and lets them know they are meeting a given standard.

Training & Safety. Nothing has ever dismayed me more than having these two words in the same sentence of anything to do with the Army. If we applied all the fracking PC rules, safety czars applications, filled out a damn Risk Assessment before every engagement. Washington would of never crossed the Delaware, Eisenhower would still be England waiting for the perfect condition. Accept the fact people do fracking incredibly stupid things and no amount of risk assessment is going stop Snuffy from picking up some unexploded ordnance, drive the truck into a ditch, or go off and drink beer and fornicate with the local Mayor's daughter or son.

You want a safe Army? Then train people at the entrance doorway. No soldier in any field should ever leave AIT not knowing how to or being licensed for the standard equipment in their career field. Dumping drivers training on units is dangerous, unproductive, and ultimately cost lives. Why do I say that? How many NG and USAR units have 40 hours to teach someone how to drive a HUMVEE? Or worse a larger truck? Why do we let units have the authority to license people who prior to coming to their unit never drove anything? Incredulous that we still do this, why, because big Army is cheap, and dare I say lazy. The mentality that it has worked for years gets soldiers killed.

Split the Army Safety Center in half, keep the aviation side at Rucker and move the Ground portion to the base primarily deals with ground transportation to a base like Fort Lee or to the Army's CDL program at Fort Knox.

Those are a few of my suggestions that I think would improve the Army.

CSM William DeWolf The Army as a whole needs to change the way we do business. I think having commands like TRADOC, INSCOM, FORSCOM, FUTURES Command, etc (all of which have four-star general commands) is a good and bad thing. The issue I have is that none of them seem to talk and none of them get along. I will use a simple thing like rolling sleeves. Why is it that the top officer in the Army makes the decision to roll sleeves and then when it gets down to the lowest levels, it's oh we don't do that here. It drives me crazy that these organizations write their own rules and can tell the Army Chief of Staff nope, we're not doing this. You want to look at an organization that has it's crap together - look at how Marines do business. Emulate that model because it works!

One other thing that needs to change is how leadership schools are ran. I went through ALC in 2014 and I was begging for leadership training but there was none. I asked the Commandant why they don't have leadership instruction and he flat out told me that PRT and D&C was leadership. There was no mentorship, guidance, or any discussions on how to effectively run a section in terms of counselings, coaching, etc. Again, look to the Marines and how they conduct their leadership development schools. As a prior service Marine, I went through Cpl's and Sgt's courses and learned more about how to conduct myself as a leader than any of the many leadership courses I've taken in the Army combined.

Interesting idea. I honestly have my doubts as to its effectiveness, but it is also not often that the Army gets things right the first time. That being said, this also comes from the Army Times, which is WELL KNOWN for falsifying, making up, or simply being very far behind on information. So... I guess we'll see.