Category: Big Army

From the Washington Post comes the story of Lieutenant Colonel Joseph “Jay” Morse, formerly the Army’s sex-crime prosecutor, who was charged with inappropriately kissing and groping another Army officer while they were at a sexual-assault prevention conference;

The Army had not disclosed the outcome of the investigation until Thursday, when it confirmed the result in response to queries from The Washington Post. Lt. Col. Alayne P. Conway, an Army spokeswoman at the Pentagon, said in a statement that Morse was subjected to “appropriate disciplinary action” but did not provide details.

The female captain filed a complaint against Morse in February, nearly three years after she alleged that he groped and kissed her in a hotel room in Alexandria, Va., where both officers were attending a legal conference on sex crimes.

The Army conducted an investigation, but officials in charge of the case concluded that they lacked evidence to file criminal charges.

Now, they didn’t have evidence, but they reprimanded him any way. That makes perfect sense to me. But women in uniform will be safe now – LTC Morse is retiring.

Army officials said Morse has served notice that he plans to retire. Until then, he has been temporarily assigned to duty at the Pentagon, where he serves in the office of the Army’s judge advocate general. Morse did not respond to e-mails or a request for comment placed through the Army’s public affairs office.

So, all is well, again.

The LA Times writes about a Pentagon-funded program to build a “neuroprosthetics” device that they hope will improve memory functions in folks who have suffered traumatic brain injuries;

Its first beneficiaries may be wounded warriors. But if the effort succeeds, healthy people too may one day clamor for implantable brain gear that can turbocharge human cognition.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced this week that it has contracted with the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Pennsylvania to lead a four-year effort to develop such a device. Teams of scientists from the two institutions will be aided by neural technology experts at California’s Lawrence Livermore National Lab, and by a pair of giants in the design and manufacture of brain-stimulating devices, Medtronic Inc. and Neuropace Inc.

I think that if they do perfect it, they should test it on flag officers that can’t remember the significance of the terms “Bull Run”, “Task Force Smith” or “Kasserine Pass”, or try and make them remember the Carter years, or even just as far back as the year 2000.

Retired Lieutenant General David W. Barno, writes in Washington Post about the challenges facing the force in the coming years that lack the intensity and demands of combat. I never thought that I’d agree with a fellow of the Center for a New American Security, but here I am. General Barno writes from the experience of being an infantry company commander in the late 70s. At about the same time I was a young infantry squad leader.

I’ll be the first to admit that I was probably the worst private in the Army to ever wear the rank, but I was the product of one of the brightest things the Army ever did. The Ranger Battalions were initially formed, not as an elite fighting force that they became, but rather a continuing education project from initial entry training. We had specially-selected officers and NCOs. Nearly every NCO above the rank of Buck Sergeant were Vietnam veterans, some company commanders and most of the staff had survived the war, too. The plan was for that cadre to pass on the lessons that they learned and pass it on to young privates who would rotate out of the unit after 18 months. I learned more about how to train soldiers in those 18 months than I did the rest of the time I spent in the Army – from the heroes of the last conflict.

I was insulated from the rest of the Army during that time while the rest of the Army was wrestling with the social changes and garrison regulations after Vietnam. It made me a little arrogant when I left the 1/75th and went to an airborne company in Panama, but it was because I was better trained than many of the NCOs in my new unit. Not to disparage them, but just stating a fact. I guess that arrogance made me a terrible private.

What I learned in the Ranger Battalion experiment stayed with me and made me a better NCO when I finally made that rank. But General Barno says pretty much the same thing in his Washington Post piece;

The Army’s senior leaders of the 1970s had endured the trials of Vietnam as mid-grade combat commanders, and they understood that the traits required for battlefield success — bold decision-making and individual leadership — would be quickly stamped out in a peacetime, rule-focused force. So they took action.

In 1979, the Army chief of staff, Gen. Edward “Shy” Meyer, advanced the controversial idea of “selective disobedience” as a way to empower junior leaders in the face of stultifying Army bureaucracy. His comments sparked a furious debate in the force, but as a young infantry company commander at the time, I knew exactly what he meant. He did not mean that we should ignore laws or violate ethical standards. But in a peacetime Army, the demands of burgeoning policies, regulations and requirements vastly exceeded the time available to comply, so leaders were empowered to set priorities and make choices. We could say no — we were even expected to say no. As I recall Gen. Robert Shoemaker telling us in a 1980 speech to leaders of the Army’s 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii: You will impress me, he said, if I come to your training site and you tell me what parts of my guidance you have chosen not to follow. You will really impress me if you have already told my staff and explained why.

It’s doubtful that any Army Chief of Staff in the next few years will have a policy like General Myers (who, by the way, is universally hated by many airborne troops, tankers and Cav guys for taking away their distinctive head gear when he took over the ACoS job). As they advanced through the field grade ranks, those Vietnam-era officers understood the value of a force that was essentially run by squad leaders who weren’t afraid of making training decisions and taking responsibility for the readiness of their small units.

Most of the NCOs from my age group flourished under the loosened restrictions, while others fell by the wayside. Units that didn’t give NCOs authority and responsibility to lead their units paid for it eventually. The unit that I went to Desert Storm with fired no fewer than seven Sergeants First Class before the opening shot was fired because they couldn’t adjust to the stress of being in charge without an officer looking over their shoulders.

This Army, that we have today, seems to be hell-bent on driving out the experienced veterans. For example, the new tattoo policy that came out of no where. And now, the Sergeant Major of the Army released guidance on what boots the Army will allow, and I’ll be damned if I can tell what the hell Smadge is talking about.

The same shit happened after Desert Storm, too, believe it or not. My battalion sergeant major would co-opt our weekly “Sergeants’ Time” for sales pitches from USAA and the NCOA. Nothing gets a force ready for combat like a car insurance sales pitch. The lessons from Desert Storm should be that training wins wars – the war with Iraq was only 100 hours long because we’d been training for that war every day for more than ten years. Well, that and the fact that the politicians didn’t have gumption to follow through on our gains.

But, I don’t see this crowd running the Army today to have the courage to let their junior leaders make decisions on how to train and prepare their small units even though it makes sense as budgets and resources shrink in this administration’s rush to balance the budget on the back of readiness for the next conflict.

Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.

Ya know what bothers me? Its not the fact that this administration is cutting pay raises among the troops and raising the cost of medical care when they retire. It’s not that good combat experienced soldiers are being considered for elimination from the service – and that they’re not likely to get the medical treatment they earned when they do get tossed. It doesn’t bother me that our military is getting slashed to the bone while the world is becoming more dangerous every minute. Nope, what bothers me is the fact that the troops can’t roll up their sleeves when it’s hot.

Long-sleeves are not only hotter, but also dirtier, said Pfc. Ian Strutt-Kist, a 19-year-old who works at the Tustin, California, Army Reserve. It was a problem in California’s 80- and 90-degree summers, but also when he was digging foxholes in Basic Combat Training.

“When working with dirt, if dirt gets on your forearms under your jacket and you’re sweaty, it basically becomes mud up your sleeve and it is very uncomfortable,” Strutt-Kist said.

Most soldiers told Army Times the heat was the primary reason they want the OK to roll sleeves, adopting the “suns out, guns out” mentality of their Marine brethren.

Other soldiers chimed in to say rolled sleeves could actually improve a soldier’s appearance.

I’m guessing that now that the Army Times has properly focused us on this issue, soon Big Army will hear our pleas and correct this problem like the Marines did recently to prove how much leadership listens to the rank and file to mollify your concerns.