Category: Big Army

The Washington Times tells the story of SGT Reynaldo Trevino who enlisted after high school because of the events of 9-11-01. If you read the article (and disregard the usual misuse of military terms by journalists) you’ll read about a stellar career of a young sergeant who did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and as a result, suffered from anxiety leading to sleep problems, so he went to a doctor and was prescribed some sleep aids.

Then Trevino decided that he wanted to go to ROTC on the “Green to Gold” program and become a JAG officer. He received accolades from his chain of command and was virtually assured of an appointment to the prestigious program. Until some anonymous officer, somewhere along the way, wrote that his application was denied;

The reason stated for denial is: “I have determined the SGT Trevino is medically disqualified for participation in the US Army Reserve Officers Training Corps Program” and “Due to the nature of his medical condition (psychiatric) it would not be in the best interest of the Army to allow him in this program.”

What Trevino requested was a waiver for the anxiety he felt from his deployment to combat zones but clearly, his anxiety was/is mild with no signs of any stress disorder.

Anyone who experiences combat, particularly in Afghanistan where conditions are of subsistence, will experience some anxiety.

Trevino’s psychiatrist, commanding officers and anyone else who is aware of his exemplary record profess anger, disappointment and frustration as does Trevino; in spades.

Now, see, here’s my problem with this story; Everyone at Big Army has told their commands that they don’t need to worry about seeking treatment for their states of mind when they return from the war, they get angry when someone self-medicates or commits suicide without seeing a professional about their problems, yet they allow shit like this to happen.

If Big Army was serious at all about eliminating the stigma of seeking psychiatric help, they should have corrected this immediately, before any of us hear about it. this goes along with the “The Army doesn’t Love Me Back” post I wrote the other day. It’s one of those things that Army doesn’t do well – be honest. They’ll let a jihadist stay in uniform until he kills 14 or 15 people. They’ll let a gay soldier be a drama queen until he steals a boatload of classified information while acting out. But then they’ll turn around a screw a combat-experienced soldier out of his dreams.

I’m not a betting man, but in this instance, I’d bet the officer who wrote that statement denying Trevino’s application has been flying a desk for the last twelve years and never heard a shot fired in anger.

The Army Times reports that a recent survey says that a little less than half of soldiers says the Army isn’t as committed to them as they are to the Army.

This is a 6 percent increase — among troops in both components — since 2010, according to the report.

Lt. Gen. David Perkins, commanding general of the Combined Arms Center, which includes the Center for Army Leadership, said it’s important for senior leaders to understand how soldiers are feeling.

He cited captains as an example.

“They came into an Army that was expanding, the budget for the Army was going up, they were deploying, they were engaged in their craft,” Perkins said. “But what has happened in this last year? The Army is downsizing to 490,000, brigades are going away, they see we’re conducting [selective early retirement boards] for colonels, they see the resourcing of the Army is going down. So the future of the Army, in their mind, is very different from when they signed up. They’re no longer in a growth industry, quite honestly.”

Yeah,I’m going to call Bullshit on that, general. if you look at what has been happening among the force over the last three years or so, you’d have noticed that the Sergeant Major of the Army went to Afghanistan and lectured soldiers on their cultural sensitivity as the reason they were being killed by their “allies”. But the real reason, it turns out is that the troops in the war zone weren’t allowed to carry weapons.

Then the troops watch the Defense Department kick a few hundred thousand veterans off of Tricare Prime while raising their healthcare costs and raiding the $770 million Tricare surplus.

They sit through endless hours of sexual harassment training because some generals misbehaved with subordinates.

Then they see the military punishing minor offenses, like urinating on corpses, with courts martial. While they’re taking the brunt of cost cutting in the Defense Department right now, the so-called leadership is taking their cuts in four years. And they have to be told by the IG that they have 511 unused cars in their fleet that they don’t need. Their leaders are telling them that cutting costs is going to be painful – to everyone except those with stars in their rank.

The troops were the ones who pulled their weight and paid the price in the war. They even returned to the war with their artificial limbs, making sacrifices that no leader should expect them to make. And the perfumed princes in the puzzle palace hand them even more shit sandwiches when they return, while the princes eat at catered banquet tables.

And then, this general, Perkins, tells them they became spoiled from years of overspending, and they have to get used to doing more with less. F*** you, General Perkins, just F*** you.

Bobo sends us a link to a Washington Post article about the Pentagon IG which has found some new waste, fraud and abuse in which the Pentagon is involved – buying cars they don’t need;

The IG found “511 excess nontactical vehicles, including 89 vehicles driven less than 1,000 miles,” meaning many of the cars and trucks owned by the Navy, the Defense Logistics Agency, the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, and Washington Headquarters Services are just sitting in their parking spots.

Eliminating these unneeded vehicles would save about $7.2 million over the next 6 years, the report estimates.

But, yeah, let’s raise retirees healthcare costs and raid their Tricare surplus to buy some more new toys we don’t need. Like I’ve always said, there’s plenty waste in the Department of Defense that they could cut before they come after veterans’ wallets, but then they wouldn’t have a parking lot full of shiny cars they don’t need.

Stars & Stripes reports that the Defense Department says it’s serious about cutting the number of flag officers in their ranks.

The Navy announced late Tuesday that Navy Secretary Ray Mabus had approved a plan to “reduce, eliminate or consolidate a net of 35 Navy flag officer positions” at the one-, two- and three-star ranks. The Navy said it also plans to eliminate 6 more top officer positions in the 2015 budget.

And last week, a memo from Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno and Army Secretary John McHugh declared that a plan to cut Army headquarters at the two-star level and above by 25 percent was priority No. 1 for headquarters staff.

The announcements follow an order from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel last month to reduce spending on military headquarters by 20 percent over five years, with corresponding staff cuts.

Yeah, well, it’s a good start, but they can do better. I’ll bet they could save even more money by reducing enlisted ranks by every sergeant major and master sergeant who has never served in a leadership slot and doesn’t have a rotation to combat in the last twelve years.

In fact, they can start offering command slots to those people and start booting them when they turn the slots down. If the military is all about leadership like they tell us incessantly, why would they want to retain enlisted people who don’t want to lead?

Yeah, I know, I go off on a rant about this every time this subject comes up.

Chief Tango sends us a link to Stars & Stripes which reports that Marty Dempsey is doing his damnedest to make sure that military service costs service members more than it’s worth;

He called the current retirement system unsustainable.

“Manpower costs are becoming overwhelming,” he said. “They will overwhelm modernization and training if we are not careful.”

The general said he doesn’t want to be known for “taking a machete” to servicemembers’ paychecks, but, “I don’t want you being the most well-compensated military on the planet that doesn’t train,” referring to other possible cost saving measures.

If you are a pilot, you join the Air Force to fly, he said. “And if I got to park that [plane] … how long are you going to hang around?”

Well, if there’s no one around to park that plane, how is that going make us ready, Marty?

So, Marty’s solution is to make retirement at 30 years with mandatory sign off at 40 years. And he wants to make the Thrift Savings Plan the retirement vehicle. Currently, the services don’t match TSP contributions, so basically troops will be funding their own retirements. And, thinking about the debate to privatize Social Security, which is essentially what Marty wants by forcing the troops to invest their retirement money in markets (which I don’t think is a bad idea, but hold on…), why are the same people who complained about Bush’s plan so willing to foist essentially the same thing on members of the military?

“Military compensation is the primary tool by which we induce people to serve in an all-volunteer force,” he said. “So any changes should be made based on the best available evidence of how it will affect the force.”

Yeah, right, like all of the other crap they’ve been forcing down the throats of the troops in the past few years. The only thing that matters to this crowd is how it will affect their next OER and how pleased their political masters will be when they turn the military into a useless tool which charges into the slaughter for them.

All of the training funds in the world won’t help a hollow force. And we’ve already seen that training, along with personnel costs were the first cuts before they even mentioned cutting the flag officer billets and cutting their staffs. So don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining, Marty.