The title kind of says it all. From the Army Times:
Army pulls list of names for CSM, SGM key billets
The article says that the list was pulled “apparently because some of the selectees did not meet eligibility criteria needed for assignment to the top enlisted positions in one- and two-star general officer commands.”
Oops.
I don’t think I’d like to be Commander, USA Human Resources Command, right now.
Yep: yet another new uniform.
You can take a look at the new stuff here. According to the article, it will cost a touch less than the existing PT gear – maybe as much as a whopping $3 less for the set.
To cut costs, there’s no reflective lettering on this new uniform. But as the linked article reminds us all: “When needed, soldiers can wear reflective belts.” (sheesh)
There will also be a “mix-n-match” optional version of the new PT gear. This optional version will be made of different, “higher performance fabric”. This optional version will be will not be issued to all; soldiers desiring these items will need to purchase them out of pocket. These items will also be substantially more costly than the issue version.
Yeah, I said “mix-n-match” above. The concept is to allow optional and issue items to be mixed if the soldier desires to do so.
That’s gonna look just freaking great as stuff is laundered a few times and and fades. I’ve yet to see two different fabrics that fade the same when repeatedly laundered.
The new PT gear is the result of soldier feedback from at least two surveys. For the first, 76,000+ soldiers responded; for the second, 170,000. At 10 min per survey, that’s, only . . . oh, 19.65 standard staff-years just to respond to the surveys.
And that doesn’t include the time to record and analyze the data, develop the surveys, design and test the uniforms, or put out a contract for their manufacture. Or to buy and issue the new uniforms.
Hey, I wasn’t a big fan of the grey post-2000 Army PT uniform. But it worked well enough. Who cares if Joe and Jane Tentpeg didn’t like the way it looked? It’s not a damned fashion statement, folks – it’s freaking PT gear. You wear it while you get smelly, sweaty, and nasty while working out hard.
So, somebody tell me: why in the hell did we spend the $$$ to develop something new to replace something that worked well enough – yet again?
Must be because the Army has plenty of money. Yeah, that’s it. Gotta be.
Chief Tango sends us a link to the Army Times where they warn that “SMA Chandler is ‘watching you.’“. The Sergeant Major of the Army says that posting your opinion on the internet is fine, and that he gets a kick out of some the websites, but, then there are others;
“Some soldiers are completely out of control in what they post,” Chandler said. “And whether it is directed at the commander-in-chief, the president, or if it is posted against any leader in the Army, that is like you are saying it to my face. And there is a consequence to that.”
Chandler said he reads the comments on his Facebook page, Army Times’ page and “U.S. Army W.T.F. Moments,” a humorous and sometimes-irreverent page dedicated to soldier culture.
Senior Army leaders are asked to monitor their personal and unit Facebook pages as well, Chandler said.
“I will look at mine every single day, believe it or not,” Chandler said. “And there are people we delete and ban, there are people that we talk to the chain of command up about, and then there are others that do exactly what they are supposed to do.”
Wonder what they’re saying in Montana about Senator Walsh and his “unintentional mistake” of copying virtually verbatim around 25% of his War College final paper – including his conclusions – from other sources? As well as citing, but then lifting nearly word-for-word without indicating a direct quote, other sections? Well, let’s look:
And even though it’s from Joliet, Illinois (Times Weekly) vice Montana, this editorial “gets it”:
. . .
So: was cribbing that material instead of writing the paper yourself really worth it, Senator? “Oh, what a tangled web . . . . “
So the Army pointy-headed folks at R&D have decided on which pattern they prefer for maximum Cool uniform designs and…surprise…it’s a slight variation of the Multicam pattern that they call Scorpion, again for maximum Cool Points;
From Stars & Stripes;
The new pattern is said to be very similar to the MultiCam pattern, which became the standard for troops deployed to Iraq in 2010. MultiCam is privately owned by Crye Precision, the company that developed the original Scorpion pattern for the Army more than a decade ago. The Operational Camouflage Pattern, a modified version of the Scorpion pattern, belongs to the U.S. government and requires no fees to use.
If ever there existed evidence that the Army needs adult supervision, this is it. They’re like fricken 13 year-old girls with a credit card at the mall. The thing that they don’t seem to realize is that no matter which camouflage pattern that they waste money on, every soldier’s uniform matches his environment within a few hours of rolling around in it. But, then, the people who are wasting money on all of this research and development don’t have much experience in rolling around in the environment – they only care about how cool they look at the PX snackbar and the payday loan office.
Many people have been talking about the alleged plagiarism of Senator John Walsh of Montanta. Walsh originally spoke out on the matter – first downplaying the issue, then blaming it on PTS.
So what’s he saying about the matter these days? Watch for yourself:
Kinda looks like he’s avoiding answering the young man’s questions to me. But what do I know?
Chief Tango sends us a link to the Associated Press which reports that the investigation into Montana Senator John Walsh’s plagiarism of his thesis at the Army College has been taken over by the Department of Defense instead of the War College’s staff, that we’re told is where responsibility for the investigation would normally reside;
The department will decide whether any discipline is warranted based on the recommendations of the school’s academic review board, Provost Lance Betros said.
Normally, that decision is reserved for the school’s deputy commandant. It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for the Defense Department to intervene in a student misconduct case, he said.
“Because this is a member of Congress who is a military veteran, we have been given instructions from DOD that they have jurisdiction in this case,” Betros said.
I’m making two guesses here; 1) the investigation will be complete a week after the elections 2) the Department of Defense will tell us that the stolen text/intellectual property was incidental and didn’t really matter. The thing is, the Senator admitted that he did it, so I don’t what they need an investigation for, if it’s not to cover the whole thing up.
He wasn’t a member of Congress when he committed the crime, he was just another O-6 like the scads of others who have been fired over the last few years. That whole generation of officers, it seems, have moral issues. There, my investigation is complete.
OK, everyone who reads TAH and is surprised by that headline, go back to grade school and work on your reading comprehension. From Army.mil;
All the time, people tell Lt. Gen. Jeffery W. Talley how the recent drop in force structure end strengths must mean that recruiting and retention must no longer be a problem, he said.
But that just isn’t the case, said Talley, who is chief of the Army Reserve and commander of the U.S. Army Reserve Command. He was speaking at the 2014 USARC Commanders Conference in Alexandria, Virginia, July 21.
“We have a crisis in manning the Reserve. It’s a lot harder to recruit and retain than it used to be,” Talley said, acknowledging the irony of the situation.
About three out of four men and women ages 17 to 28 are not even eligible to be recruited, he said, particularly since requirements have been tightened. Some of those requirements have to do with education and criminal records and others have to do with weight and fitness standards and even certain visible tattoos.
Besides private-sector businesses and industry, “all of the services and components are competing for these talented young men and women,” he said.
Many Soldiers are also leaving the Reserve.
When was it a few months ago when we all read that the operational tempo for the reserves was going to increase while the active force sheds experienced warriors, so, who the hell wants to be a part time soldier and working almost full time? Who wants to burden their lives with petty BS like tattoo-bans for a part time job? The plan was flawed from the first word that came out of some flag officer’s mouth.
They thought recruiting would remain a constant no matter what they did to the troops, and the troops are marching off with a duffel bag over their shoulders. They’re looking at personnel cuts, like pay cuts and a COLA that doesn’t keep pace with inflation (the White House and Congress are looking at a 1% COLA raise this year, but inflation has been over 1.8%), closing Commissaries, ending Tricare Prime, ending selective reenlistment bonuses.