This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Big Army

  • Pentagon IG blames screening process for insider attacks

    So, I guess the Pentagon is running out of excuses for green-on-blue attacks. After their latest slight-of-hand, the pamphlet that blamed the troops and their lack of cultural sensitivity for antagonizing the locals, the Pentagon’s inspector general has decided that the Army’s screening process for hiring interpreters is at fault. A Bloomberg link;

    The inspector general began an investigation after a linguist hired by Mission Essential Personnel killed two U.S. Army special forces officers and wounded an aide, all of them unarmed, in January 2010.

    […]

    The Army’s Intelligence and Security Command “did not effectively implement the security requirements” for the translator contract, creating “an increased risk that local nationals hired pose a security threat to U.S. and coalition forces,” Daniel Blair, deputy inspector general for auditing, said in the report to Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno, U.S. Central Command commander Marine Corp General James Mattis and General John Allen, commander of U.S. Afghanistan forces.

    Well, ya know, I’m wondering why there were unarmed Special Forces soldiers in Afghanistan to begin with. I’m also wondering why the IG took almost three years to come to that conclusion. I’m pretty sure that Stevie Wonder could see it from space.

  • Wanna cut Defense? Cut the SMA

    The El Paso Times has an article on the Sergeants Major Academy at Fort Bliss which reminds me of how much I dislike sergeant majors. If ever there was a waste of money, it’s that God-awful “school” for police call inspectors. I’ve seen perfectly good first sergeants (or should call them firsts sergeant?) attend and come back utter morons.

    Most of the work is classroom-based with seminars, lectures and small-group studies. Students also go on a field trip to Columbus, N.M., and study Pancho Villa’s infamous raid into the United States.

    To graduate, Malloy said, soldiers have to get at least an 80 percent in the leadership part of the course and 70 percent in the other four areas to graduate.

    “We’re recognized as the pinnacle of noncommissioned officer education throughout the world,” Malloy said. “That’s why we get a lot of international students.”

    Why would a sergeant major go on a staff ride? Did Pancho Villa leave cigarette butts on his trail? Yeah, it’s my considered opinion that sergeant major is the most useless rank and position in the Army. I know they think they’re the senior enlisted adviser to their commander, but what do they really do?

    The turd with whom I went to Desert Storm was nothing but the headquarters company E-4 Mafia’s enforcer. He’d be out of breath walking out to battalion PT and of course we’d all have to run at his pace in formation and I could crawl faster. He had his favorites and protected them from any amount of discipline and work. He busted his ass to make sure that “NCO Time” was a complete waste of training schedule. And why make the E7s and E8s at battalion headquarters do anything commensurate with their rank when you can jerk a line platoon sergeant away from his troops to do it?

    Yeah, if the Army wants to cut personnel, cut out Master Sergeant and staff Sergeant Major ranks, tell those staff pukes they have to take over a line unit and watch them beat feet towards retirement. Manpower problem solved.

  • Big Red One, Second Brigade to Africa

    the Army is sending small teams culled from 1st Infantry Division’s Second Brigade to Africa ostensibly to train troops in up to 35 nations how to fight the spread of al Qaeda on that continent, according to the Associated Press;

    The teams will be limited to training and equipping efforts, and will not be permitted to conduct military operations without specific, additional approvals from the secretary of defense.

    The sharper focus on Africa by the U.S. comes against a backdrop of widespread insurgent violence across North Africa, and as the African Union and other nations discuss military intervention in northern Mali.

    I hope that Big Army remembers how “small teams” are not very well equipped to protect themselves – you know, that 80s thing in Central America when the troops weren’t allowed to arm themselves with weapons bigger than handguns. A couple of Americans paid with their lives for that stupid shit.

    Operations in Africa tend to get sidetracked with that mission creep thing, too.

    Gen. Carter Ham, the top U.S. commander in Africa, noted that the brigade has a small drone capability that could be useful in Africa. But he also acknowledged that he would need special permission to tap it for that kind of mission.

    “If they want them for (military) operations, the brigade is our first sourcing solution because they’re prepared,” said Gen. David Rodriguez, the head of U.S. Army Forces Command. “But that has to go back to the secretary of defense to get an execute order.”

    Not a confidence builder in the wake of the Benghazi consulate thing.

  • The return of STRAC

    The Stars & Stripes warns that the services are returning to the days of spit and polish, style over substance because everyone is trying to convince us that the war on terror is over;

    Troops who have become accustomed to more relaxed standards on dress and behavior in combat zones can expect to be corrected for any breaches of the military’s many regulations designed to govern the most minute aspects of their work, appearance and personal lives, given garrison leaders’ well-known obsession with physical appearance.

    The Army, for example, is reviewing its grooming standards for troops with changes proposed for rules governing such things as facial hair, tattoos and cosmetics.

    An increased focus on discipline in garrison is not without its risks.

    Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, writing about garrison life in the Strategic Army Corps (STRAC) in the early 1960s, said the acronym became Army slang for a well-organized, well turned-out soldier, but that style ended up overrunning substance.

    “STRAC was a state of being, a sharpness, a readiness and esprit de corps … [but] as often happens in the Army, we over did it,” he said. “Being STRAC came to mean looking sharp more than being combat ready.”

    Last I checked, there’s still two more years of deployments to Afghanistan, and then there’s Africa and Arab Spring to deal with, but I guess none of that matters when everyone in the media is convinced that this has gone on too long to be newsworthy.

    As far as this talk about garrison duty, what does anyone really expect when the pogues are running the Army these days? But, my heroes were the Vietnam veterans who put up with the Volar (that’s what we called Jimmy Carter’s Volunteer Army) bullshit and focused on teaching me the lessons they learned in combat. Those of you who choose to stay through the next few years will be the heroes of the next generation’s soldiers. We need you to stay, but you can always come here to bitch about it.

  • Reimer and Chiarelli on the troops’ guns and suicide

    For some reason, retired generals Dennis J. Reimer and Peter W. Chiarelli thought they had something important to say today in the Washington Post. They decided that we wanted to hear from them on the subject of the troops’ guns and disguised it as concern about the suicide rate;

    One of the most effective measures of suicide prevention is to ask those perceived to be under duress: “Do you have a gun in your home?” If the answer is yes, we might then suggest that the individual put locks on the weapon or store it in a safe place during periods of high stress — things that any responsible gun owner should do.

    Unfortunately, that potentially lifesaving action is no longer available to the military. A little-noticed provision in the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has had the unintended consequence of tying the hands of commanders and noncommissioned officers by preventing them from being able to talk to service members about their private weapons, even in cases where a leader believes that a service member may be suicidal.

    Why would a commander need to know if a soldier had a gun in their home unless it was that commander’s intention to relieve that soldier of his weapon? Because, instead of asking a soldier if he owns a gun, a commander would simply need to tell that soldier that “if” he owned a gun, perhaps he should lock it up away safely. Asking me if I own a gun would only force me to lie.

    How many hypothetical circumstances do commanders present to their units in weekly safety briefings? Why not just tell the entire unit to lock their guns away safely – if safety briefings work, like commanders seem to think they do, that should be sufficient.

    As we’ve discovered here, less than half of suicides committed with a gun are committed with a personal weapon. So it seems that commanders would do well to keep soldiers at risk away from their service weapons. In fact, if the statistics are to be believed, they could cut suicides in half by doing that. So why aren’t these two generals advocating for that action rather than pursuing privately owned weapons – if all that needs to be done to prevent suicides is to take weapons from the troops.

    Will commanders also be asking the troops if they have a length of rope or razor blades at home? If the soldiers reply in the affirmative, will they be advised to lock their ropes and razor blades somewhere safe?

    I guess it’s just easier to blame the troops’ guns than it is to just get them the treatment they deserve.

  • New Army handbook; stop making the “insiders” kill you

    Mr Wolf sends us a link to the Wall Street Journal which points it’s finger at the troops for causing those scores of “Green-on-Blue” attacks which have been so prevalent this year and have resulted in more than 10 percent of the battle deaths in Afghanistan.

    American soldiers should brace for a “social-cultural shock” when meeting Afghan soldiers and avoid potentially fatal confrontations by steering clear of subjects including women’s rights, religion and Taliban misdeeds, according to a controversial draft of a military handbook being prepared for troops heading to the region.

    The proposed Army handbook suggests that Western ignorance of Afghan culture, not Taliban infiltration, has helped drive the recent spike in deadly attacks by Afghan soldiers against the coalition forces.

    Many of the confrontations occur because of [coalition] ignorance of, or lack of empathy for, Muslim and/or Afghan cultural norms, resulting in a violent reaction from the [Afghan security force] member,” according to the draft handbook prepared by Army researchers.

    Yeah, I’m pretty sure that you folks over there have nothing else to do but discuss women’s rights with our supposed allies. Apparently, not everyone in the command structure agrees with the 75-page scolding;

    [The Field manual] has drawn criticism from U.S. Marine Gen. John Allen, the top military commander in Afghanistan, who aides said hasn’t—and wouldn’t—endorse the manual as written. Gen. Allen also rejected a proposed foreword that Army officials drafted in his name.

    “Gen. Allen did not author, nor does he intend to provide, a foreword,” said Col. Tom Collins, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan. “He does not approve of its contents.”

    Gen. Allen hadn’t seen the proposed foreword until a portion of the handbook was called to his attention by the Journal, Col. Collins said. Military officials wouldn’t spell out his precise objections.

    Big Army as the State Department. It seems to me that they’d take the advice of the commander on the ground instead of peddling the current line from the civilians. We’ve already had the Sergeant Major of the Army, Ray Chandler and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs scolding gatherings of the troops for being culturally insensitive, so this FM is giving them cover for their irrational blather.

    Even the Afghan government concedes that most of the attacks were committed by Taliban infiltrators, but Big Army, those folks who fly into Afghanistan for a day and then fly out, would rather blame the troops.

  • Today’s mission: Beat Navy

    The Army Chief of Staff on today’s singular mission:

  • Generals need ethics training?

    The Washington Times reports that Big Army has decided that the problem with generals is that they need more training on how they should be ethical;

    The Pentagon on Friday released the preliminary findings by Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the Joint Chiefs chairman. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta ordered the review of ethics training for generals after several senior officers were investigated this year for ethical misconduct, and he discussed the findings with President Obama during a regularly scheduled meeting earlier this week.

    Yeah, that’s just horseshit. Generals know that they shouldn’t be boinking their biographers (Petraeus), spending tax payer dollars on their personal transportation (Ward), raping subordinates (Sinclair), bullying their staff (O’Reilly), and flirting with socialites while they’re supposed to be fighting a war against terror (Allen). If they don’t know better, they have no business being generals and no amount of training will get that devil out of them.

    The problem is that they’re selecting the wrong people to be generals. And they’re covering up for each other when they’re being bad. Again, no amount of slideshow presentations will cure that.

    Of course, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey arriving at that half-assed conclusion doesn’t surprise me. He knows as much about leadership as I know about commodities brokering. “More training” is his answer to everything. Remember, his solution to the green-on-blue attacks was cultural sensitivity training – his solution was not allowing the troops to arm themselves in combat. Dempsey is just covering up for generals.

    Dempsey can start cleaning up this mess by resigning and just go away to wherever career pogues go when they’ve outlived their usefulness. if Dempsey ever did anything useful.