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Posted on 09/07/2001 8:49:49 AM PDT by CENTVRIO EQVITVM

10. Fear of failure consistently overrides the desire for success. If you drag your feet and express reservations until forced to act you aren't a coward, or indecisive, just exercising caution. It also helps you snivel your way out of responsibility when you f**k up. Always complain that your units manning and resources are insufficient.

9. Quantity over quality saps the drive from soldiers and the readiness from units but gets you promoted. As a 1st Sergeant once said "It's all about the report card." Commanders who drive their men to accomplish more than their assigned missions get promoted even though they accomplish nothing to standard and destroy the morale and fighting capabilities of their troops. Commanders who accomplish every assigned mission to or above standard and successfully build combat ready teams are passed over. Their "report cards" have fewer entries and are therefore judged as sub standard.

8. We have undermined discipline by emasculating our NCO Corps, culling our junior officers and placing the lowest levels of decision making too high up the food chain. A decade ago, soldiers routinely moved to the wall and assumed the position of parade rest when a corporal passed by. Today, soldiers duck into buildings to avoid saluting the colors and turn aside to avoid saluting officers. Placing a soldier at the position of parade rest when speaking with a NCO is considered by many to be an act of degradation. Since a poor decision by a subordinate may reflect poorly on the commander, commanders at all levels arrogate more and more decisions to themselves until there are virtually none left for their subordinates to make. Since making a decision can be risky, commanders then wait until the last possible moment, and beyond, to exercise their authority.

7. There is more talk than ever about caring for soldiers and less acting on it. Even while we are endlessly driven to focus on "force protection - quality of life - personnel tempo - and families” our leaders refer to their own men as "bodies", casually trade their time amongst themselves and attempt to curry favor with soldiers instead of earning their respect. Fatigue details, and time off, do not train men for combat.

6. The universal beret. I pray that using the European union crest (+ one star) for the common flash amounts only to mere coincidence.

5. An Army of one. There is now officially not just an “I” in “TEAM”, “TEAM” is spelled “I”.

4. The great lessons of operational deployments are: constant repetition creates expertise; empowered junior leaders who are routinely assigned missions, resourced and then left alone routinely accomplish missions and believe in themselves; sustained performance requires staffs and leaders to work in short shifts, execute incomplete plans and produce clear, brief, simple orders. Units immediately abandon all these lessons upon return to the show over go form over substance environment of garrison training and the prized CTC rotation. It is all about the report card.

3. Morale, training, tactical proficiency, and the ability to fight and win our nation’s wars all depend on having effective and available/ reliable equipment and weapons. Our tanks are 10 to 15 years old and break down a lot. Our infantrymen carry approximately the same load as that borne by Caesar’s legions. Soldiers are motivated when they have new stuff, and they want their new stuff to be fantastically tough, imminently reliable and incredibly deadly to the enemy without being too deadly to themselves. The stuff we’ve got is old, unreliable and increasingly suspect.

2. We are rotting morally and ethically. An officer will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those who do. Most Captains and Lieutenants know what this means, and suffer accordingly. Many Majors remember when they knew what it meant and can be made snappish by mentioning any of the phrases. Most Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels are contemptuously solicitous of any who believe such naïve words have any meaning whatsoever. Our General Officers parrot the words endlessly without the slightest intent of allowing any iota of the code to be practiced. The reality is that in order to please their superiors and provide the illusion of success: An officer must lie, cheat, or steal, and tolerate those who do.

1. Junior leaders and soldiers expect that their superiors will unhesitatingly sell them out for personal advantage. This explains the attention given the beret issue when the speech in which that promise appeared contained many other promises. The beret promise was believed. The other promises were not.

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