Discussions on the draft and various side topics having to do with readiness keep gravitating towards the question; just how ready is our military.

If it's not, why not.

Personally, I've seen Marines on det, E-4s and E-5s sharing barracks rooms while Air Force E-2's had their own rooms complete with television, VCR, mini-fridge and a duty-hut full of movies.

If the lowest enlisted man has such frivolous niceties, how much more money is being wasted higher up?

What service is the fattest? What service, if any, is doing it right?

US Army major Donald Vandergriff has made a name for himself in the last few years as a proponent for, not just maneuver warfare, but doing everything better. Like training our officer corps to be tactical leaders and not junior politicians. Below is an excerpt from one of his articles, just to get the show on the road.

“a military leadership addicted to micro-management and techno-magic, a bloated officer corps, and a multi-layered organizational bureaucracy that puts a greater value on staff assignments and PowerPoint proficiency than on command in the field. The result has been an exodus of many of our best officers and non-commissioned officers and a stagnant Second Generation warfighting doctrine in a Fourth Generation world.”

During the 80s it was the same for the Air Force.
In order of niceties it's:

1. Air Force
2. Navy
3. Army
a distant 4th: Marines

Airwinger, on this we have no argument. The Marines have been forced to do more with less and I think this has proven an advantage. I think the Marines have given more study to actual warfighting than any other service.

I think TOW Gunner has the numbers right.

The military, in some cases, has gone the business school management routine.

I mentioned Vandergriff if anyone wants to look him up.
Here

It's pretty long and can get tedious but if you scroll down to 3rd Generation warfare and the part about OPA, things become more familiar.

I thought of him again because of Harry's comments. One of Vandergriff's main topics is the business school attitude among the Army officer corps. And the Army officer corps eventually affects the entire US military so this applies to us all.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Airwinger,

Many in the Army are trying to embrace a maneuver doctrine but it is a hard fought road (no pun intended).

In the book "The March Up" the subject is the Marines' march on Baghdad (big surprise - I'm citing another book on Marines) but they mention that mysterious stop for supplies or water or whatever it was, right before the Army entered Baghdad. The way the authors tell it, the Army was doing fine but some logistics pencil pusher who wasn't even in the convoy ordered the halt.

It seems even when their efforts at maneuver were going well, some logistics types from the old school were still getting their BDU's in a bind.

Donald Rumsfeld has came out for allowing service members to serve longer than 20 years if they so choose.

Rumsfeld said he’s frequently frustrated to see top-notch servicemembers, many just 38 or 40 years old, forced to leave the military -- taking with them extensive experience that they could share with others. “Why would we do that?” he said. “Why wouldn’t we want that person around, and the confidence and knowledge and experience” the individual brings to the table.

Rumsfeld was in the same circles as John Boyd back in the 70’s and very much a maneuver warfare advocate. He has been attempting, even before 911, to streamline the military and make it altogether more professional; a place for the genuine warrior.

What I’ve argued elsewhere is that maneuver or attrition styles of tactics goes well beyond how a particular unit plans to take the field. These doctrines penetrate every facet of the military from the top to the bottom. This latest addition from our SecDef is yet another small piece that will make the military more efficient and more amicable for the “boots on the ground.” Reward our warriors for being thus and create an environment centered on them and not the DoD lobbyist.

Read The Article Here

This is a good article just out from the NYPost. It's an opinionated piece that I can't really argue with though I would have been a little more tactful in stating it. Too ascerbic and you stop influencing and begin agitating.

Airmen, don't fret, he gives kudos to "regular" Air Force personnel.

Read The Rest Here

More on the efficiency topic.

Read Article Here

Read; smaller bureaucracy, more results.

The Marines have long adhered to a maneuver warfare concept, at least in part. A look at the years between the world wars shows a tremendous amount of growth in battle doctrine and warfighting outlook. The Marines, although still training with wooden rifles on 7Dec41, were the most ready American fighting force simply because the various administrations had been using them as last ditch diplomats since the turn of the 20th century. Or more simply put, they had the most practice.

The Corps did not officially embrace maneuver warfare as a doctrine until the 80’s under then Commandant Al Gray. (The CMC when I entered.) Not having MW as an official doctrine, they did unfortunately leave the Corps open to some of the same blundering that the other services went through though the warrior ethos that the Marines have always been known for was always present.

That isn’t recruiting poster blather. The warrior mindset has always set the Marine apart from his peers. And it is also why maneuver warfare is not simply a tactic for taking to the field but it is a daily inculcation of; smarter, faster, better – because you have to be. Below I’ve excerpted a paragraph from D-N-I. A history lesson may bore some to tears though please, at least, make note of the fact that both Army and Marine took to the same field in the same basic fashion. And, this is key, that so many of the Army retreated while still having the ability to fight. This isn’t a knock on some of the fine, high-speed units the Army possesses but it does seek to analyze the effect of the non-warrior officer class on the regular Army.

*OPA was an act by congress after WWII that established much of the careerist practices plaguing the military today.

“The first test and failings of OPA and its influence on Army personnel policies relating to the individual and fairness occurred under the test of combat in Korea. At the Chosin Reservoir in Korea in the first week of December 1950, the Army’s 31st Regimental Combat Team (RCT) of the 7th Infantry Division was destroyed. The specifics are all that more horrifying with one in ten of the RCT’s 3300 soldiers coming out capable of continuing to fight. Furthermore, not one organized unit was able to function after the 7th Infantry was evacuated from Wonsan. The RCT, and most of the division for that matter, would have to be rebuilt because all of its artillery, vehicles, and crew served weapons were left behind as were nearly half of the troops, captured, dead, and wounded. On the west side of the Reservoir, in the same terrain, with the same equipment, against the same ratios of Chinese troops, as well as fighting in the same horrible weather, the Marines fought their way out of the Chinese envelopment. They brought out almost all their artillery and vehicles, all of their wounded. Their losses were bad at 50%, but only two companies out of the two regiments in the 1st Marine Division had ceased to function as effective combat units. The division would be rebuilt in a short time and act as the 8th Army operational reserve within weeks of its evacuation from Wonsan.

Maneuver warfare is much more than simply how you draw the lines on a map.

As a historical note, the 31st Infantry surrendered 9 April 1942 to the Japanese 14th Army in the Philippines. I believe that they were also involved in the "Porkchop Hill" battle. They fought in Siberia during World War I. Talk about a tough luck regiment.

airwinger wrote:

quote:

all of their wounded

Joe Pazzini (won a Bronze Star there) of the 'chosan-few' told me he saw wounded marines left behind...and KIAs 'bulldozed' into mass graves...

airwinger wrote:

quote:

Personally, I've seen Marines on det, E-4s and E-5s sharing barracks rooms while Air Force E-2's had their own rooms complete with television, VCR, mini-fridge and a duty-hut full of movies.

(were the Marines billeted by the Navy?)

Weatherman
Joe Pazzini (won a Bronze Star there) of the 'chosan-few' told me he saw wounded marines left behind...and KIAs 'bulldozed' into mass graves...

Anecdotal evidence presented by what is for all intents and purposes, an anonymous poster on the internet cannot credibly refute the mountains of documented evidence on the subject of the Chosin Reservoir.

The excerpt I quoted is from an Army major, highly respected and dedicated to the bettering of the U.S. Army. He and many other Army personnel have studied and acknowledged the Army’s failures in Korea in order to make things better.

Misplaced pride on the part of the Army commanders cost many thousands of American lives in the first part of the Korean conflict. Major Vandergriff and those like him are working to eradicate such hubris from the officer corps, and thus, to save lives.

I stated initially that this isn’t a knock on the Army, I have the utmost respect for the many outstanding Army units in our nation’s history and now existence. But the Korean war is the most glaring example of military ineptitude and the bloody cost that it can have.

The crux of the matter for this post is to point out that amid the slashing of the military that happened post-WWII (as often happens after a large war) the Army went one direction while the Marines retained the warrior ethos in their officer corps. This is Vandergriff’s point; that the officers, the leaders have to do more than crunch numbers and attend all of the right schools.

Thus the point isn’t one service versus another, but to take an honest assessment of the situation and make sure we are doing the right things now. Major Vandergriff is working to undo the many discrepancies that OPA and the Cold War era military brought about and sure enough, changes are happening. Two weeks ago, SecDef Rumsfeld announced that he was trying to do away with the “up or out” promotion system that OPA originally instituted and Vandergriff has indicated as being one of the flaws in the current officer corps.

Weatherman
(were the Marines billeted by the Navy?)

No. The deployment that I was specifically referring to was VMFA-323’s WesPac during the first Gulf War. Over Christmas of 1990, those Marines, myself included, were deployed to Kadena Air Force base, a very nice, even plush facility.

Each F-15 had it’s own bomb proof, reinforced concrete hangar/revetment. Each revetment had its own ground support equipment, the remove before flight tags brand new. The Marines had all of their birds on an open flight line with two sets of GSE to service them all (one squadron).

The base gym was one of the nicest gyms I’ve ever seen in my life; and I worked as a personal trainer for awhile after the Corps, I know gyms. The movie theatre was comparable to what you would find here in any given American city.

The AF barracks were nicer than most college dorms I’ve seen where E2s and E3s had their own rooms, with small fridge, television and VCR provided.

These kinds of facilities are in such contrasts to other branches, particularly the Marines, that the waste is evident. Our servicemen should never do without simply for the sake of doing without, but country club style living for those that are supposed to be warriors is indeed a waste.

Hackworth, RIP, wrote an article a few years ago that I have folded up in a drawer somewhere, wherein he broke down the officer to enlisted ratios and compared those officers duties.

The Air Force has the most officer per enlisted man, and the Army is a close second. The Air Force pilots, during the bombing campaign in Kosovo were billeted in plush hotels in Italy, costing the taxpayers, ultimately, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Marine Corps pilots stayed with the troops in regular tents.

The warrior ethos versus the bureaucratic morass.

quote:

Marine Corps pilots

quote:

Joe Pazzini (won a Bronze Star there) of the 'chosan-few' told me he saw wounded marines left behind...and KIAs 'bulldozed' into mass graves...

Anecdotal evidence presented by what is for all intents and purposes, an anonymous poster on the internet cannot credibly refute the mountains of documented evidence on the subject of the Chosin Reservoir.

The excerpt I quoted is from an Army major, highly respected and dedicated...

AW...I'll take Joe's word for it.

about the others...remember these?

quote:

If you tell the Navy to secure a building, they will turn out the lights and lock the door.

If you tell the Army to secure a building, they will occupy it and forbid entry to those without a pass.

If you tell the Marines to secure a building, they assault with heavy fire, capture the building, fortify it and call for an air strike.

If you tell the Air Force to secure a building, they will negotiate a three year lease with an option to buy.

A friend of mine who is a Lt. Col in the AirForce used to be a procurement type. When talking about why the Corps always gets jacked in the procurement process, he blamed it on their staff officers, basically not wanting to be there.

'There' being Washington and the various centers for lobbying and cajoling the powers that be to obtain the gear. All they talked about, he said, was getting back in the field or flying again or whatever there thing was.

It seems the AF (and probably others) have specific billets for procurement, whereas the Marines just send guys out on temporary duty.

So they keep their warrior ethos but get jacked like a newbie on a used car lot.

Where's an LC 'Ollie' when ya need
his money orders?

Maybe that's why Ollie got caught, he was old infantry, little rough around the edges you know.