What they should do is to make the extention on your obligation 6 years after acceptance to the adv. crs. They should also make the attendance at the adv crs within a month of giving up your first plattoon instead of sending you up to Squadron to be the asst. S-4 for the next 18 months. The guy is a senior Lt and will come back a junior Cpt., then he serves his staff time and then gets a 24 month command, then more staff time. By the time this is over he is in 10 years and up for O-5 and knows if he is in line to make it and stay for 20 or punch out at 11 years and hit the civilian world.
As it is now, they can take the adv crs and get out anyway after a one year obligation. Then they join the guard because the slots for the adv crs out of the guard units are rare and tend to go to the most senior member of the staff not the most qualified. You don't go to the guard with the adv crs already under your belt it could be years before you get a slot from you guard unit. This puts off your chance for company command and puts you years behind your peer group.
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Back in 1975 at CGSC, the big wig army leadership came in and told us it was going to be a new army, an army of truth, not lies. The problem was we had all worked for them in Vietnam and we knew what we told them in our reports and we knew what they were telling the JCS and it wasn't the same info we were giving them. Needless to say it was a dark moment when the invited guest speakers that the schoolhouse had set up were so poorly recieved. These folks were the gladhanders, the cocktail party goers, the folks who moved in the right circles back at the PENTAGON where no self-repecting combat arms officer ever wants to spend 10 minutes of his carreer.
We made our own decision to stop that trend with our group. Now, that group is gone, there are no more warriors with the knowledge and leadership under fire left to put in the little glass box with the small hammer hanging next to it. You know, the break glass in case of ememergency box on the wall!
The first task that we have had to carry out, in any war we have fought, is to find and get rid of these people, who are innumerable.
It was true in 1861, it was true in 1917, it was true in 1941, and it's true today.
The "skills" that lead to the star world in peacetime are of negative value in war. In previous examples cited, a bloodbath was required to start moving the warriors into high command responsibility, hopefully we have learned from the past.
My own view of this war is that, if it is to be prosecuted to victory, that it will be quite challenging, and that we could be defeated without the right leadership.
I remember hearing about that from some guys who were there. A few months ago I finally threw out (because it was so detriorated) my poster done by a Sill advanced course guy in the late '70s for a 'movie' called The Modern Battlefield brought to you by the same folks who brought you The GOER, The Gamma Goat and TACFIRE, starring The Modern Soldier (Johnny Tentpeg), the Modern Wife (Mary d' Tentpeg), the Modern Threat (Ivan Togohome) and the Modern Captain (whose name escapes me at the moment).
I also remember friends being crucified on OERs for refusing to lie on readiness reports and the toadying that went on, the middle grade officers who clung to their commissions as they only way to avoid going out and becoming a K-mart manager. There were great guys, too, but too many of the bad buys were staying in in those days. I remember sitting at the Sill OOM with my boss, his boss, the FA school commander and the post commander, all of whom had served in the Brown Shoe Army and having them tell me that this wasn't the army they signed up for, that they were all glad to be close to retiring and that if they were young officers today (late '70s) (they were supposed to be talking me into taking a regular commission and staying in) they wouldn't stay. This from guys who wrote me reports saying things like "if I were in a combat situation, I would fight to have this officer on my team".