I had a job once (or still have this job, either way it’s not important, so stop asking!) where I had to read a lot of AR 15-6 investigations. And believe you me there’s a lot of garbage investigators out there. And now for some rare empathy from FUBAR 6, it’s not entirely their fault. You see, officers don’t really get a lot of training on how to do investigations. Often, they are just randomly assigned them, typically during the worst timing possible, and often you don’t get much time or guidance on how to complete them. But I have a way to fix this! Of course I do, that’s why you are reading this.
It’s called “The School for People Who Can’t AR 15-6 Investigate Good and Want to Learn to Do Other Stuff Good, Too.” We can work on the title, but the concept is legit. Each Division HQs gets three to five field grade officers assigned to it who are either on their way out the door (retirement, med discharge, etc.), newly promoted and perhaps need to complete a school (like ILE or War College) or need to take a knee from an arduous assignment before being placed back out on the line. Whatever the reason, we need O3s to O6s for this assignment. These officers will be assigned to the Staff Judge Advocate Office with the sole purpose of completing AR 15-6 investigations, whenever the need arises.
The JAG officers will put together a weeklong course for them to complete and then these officers will start knocking out investigations as they come up. Having dedicated people assigned to this duty will help with a few things. First, we will get much better consistency with the investigation reports. This is because they will have had adequate training, and because they will have many more repetitions conducting investigations. Second, this will also help with legal sufficiency reviews as these newly appointed investigative officers (IOs) will have worked hand-in-hand with the JAG office to which they are assigned. Third, the flexibility of this assignment will also allow these officers to finish schools such as ILE, AOC, or War College without the distractions or weight of being in a Key Development position. This will be nice for those officers who are conducting these schools online as they will have limited distractions other than the investigations to compete with.
This will be a temporary assignment of one to two years. This same model can be applied to a JFHQ in the National Guard or really any Brigade and above echelon.
In the end, we will get a much better product, Soldiers will get better justice, commanders will get better answers, and these officers will have a better understanding of the AR 15-6 process adding value to whatever their next assignment might be.
Love this article? Great! Let me know and I’ll produce more. Hate this article? Well, it’s probably ‘cause you love injustice and poorly written investigations. Why don’t you go ahead, respond, and let me know why I am wrong.
*This article was written by FUBAR 6. All opinions expressed in this article are that of the author. This article is not endorsed by the Department of Defense, the United States Army, or any other state or government agency. Comments to the author can be submitted below.