I never committed a crime and was never charged, but an Army fraud probe will probably end my...

From the article: "In dollars and cents, the taxpayers spent $5 million training me. Then they spent close to $1 million investigating me over the few thousand dollars I legally earned through G-RAP. Does that make sense? What about the human costs?"


Sounds about Army right. Unfortunately.



My dearest Pentagon wonks,


If you want to know why you have HR problems, take a knee, drink some water and learn something, because class is in session. Though his case is emblematic, your over-arching problem does not originate from any isolated situation, including this specific Captain or the 100,000ish other soldiers you decided were "maybe" criminals for taking advantage of your concocted program.


Starting to see the problem yet? No? Keep reading.


Rather, it all stems from the kind of thinking that made it seem normal for you to treat ordinary troops this way. This type of thought process raises its ugly head often enough that nearly every service member has had to face it in one form or another, regardless of how long their military career was. This isn't some isolated case of "toxic leadership"; this is an institutional thought process that originated, and retains a cozy home, in your hallowed Washington walls.


With people finally waking up to the New Cold War, and the increasing--albeit still remote--possibility of a new hot war that could quickly scale up to WWIII proportions, perhaps you could stow your ring-knocker fueled egos, adjust your thinking patterns, and value those whom you will be relying on to get the mission accomplished, rather than treating troops as impediments to your career or as necessary, sloven criminals in your midst to be made to heel.


How many people have permanently taken off the uniform or how many careers of those still in such as Captain De Leon, stalled because of such institutional ego and poor leadership? Are you so confident in the correctness of your thinking that you cannot even see the loss to the military in terms of money expended, and experience evaporated? This is value you could have retained, but didn't, due, in no small part, to attitudes from on high.


Toxic leadership, PT testing, G-RAP, sexual harassment, etc.; perhaps instead of jumping from one media crisis du jour to the next, you could start at the top and consider how the brass's view of the world below them has factored into all these semi-self-inflicted problems.


Sincerely,

Former Sgt Dave Tracy

(Laughs in DD-214)