MISSION REPORT: FORT FUBAR
SITREP: But did anything bad happen? The unfortunate truth of a “successful” command in today’s Army
Sure, your battalion may have jumped into enemy territory, defeated a division worth of enemy, and singlehandedly won the war, but you also had three SHARP cases in your rear detachment, thus you didn’t promote a culture of supporting the Army’s SHARP program. Turns out your command was unsuccessful, and we are not promoting you the Colonel. The Army’s senior leaders are becoming more and more risk averse by the day. Successful commands are no longer defined by what went well but rather defined by the absence of anything bad happening. This has led to commanders trying their best to not make any waves so that they can get promoted. By not really doing anything at all, you can minimize the risk of something negative happening during your command and get promoted. In fact, many LTCs and COLs are actively trying to duck command as investigation systems such as AR 15-6 and the IG are being weaponized to prevent career progression, even though the substantiation rate is extremely low!
So how do we fix this?
- No personnel action without due process. Allow for promotions to continue to go through even if someone is flagged for an investigation. Look at the allegations and the preponderance of evidence. If there is not overwhelming evidence to support the allegation (like a video of Ray Rice punching his wife [ouch]), then we need to let the investigation run its course before deciding to stall or end someone’s career. Remember that you can always take the rank away later if the allegations come back substantiated. Also keep in mind that substantiation rates are EXTREMELY LOW. Punishing people for false allegations is the new standard in the Army and this should not be the case. Let the investigation play out. Give all people involved due process. You would want the same.
- Stop overreacting. Not everything needs a response. Play the percentages. People don’t care nearly as much as we think they do. Keep the mission as the primary focus. Just because some private or even field grade messed up, doesn’t mean we need a safety stand down or a new policy. Wait until you see a trend. Your IG can help this as well, as they are the primary monitors of trends in a command.
- Encourage prudent risk and innovation. Don’t stifle creativity. Encourage your leaders to take risks and try new things. This is how we improve the organization. Without trying new things, we become stagnant. The enemy is out there thinking of new ways to kill us. We should be doing the same. If something is safe, it is probably easy and doesn’t need to be trained. We need to be training the dangerous, hard things that can get people hurt; not shying away from them. Without applying some B.S. risk assessment that was plagiarized from 5 years ago, encourage your commanders and subordinates to apply a little common sense and then execute.
A great example of our risk averse nature is a shoot house at local base I train at. In order to use the shoot house with live ammo, each soldier has to go through several certification courses lasting several weeks. So, what do commander’s do? They don’t send anybody to it because it takes too much time. But then, we deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan, sprinkle magic fairy dust on our soldiers and say “ok, now you can enter and clear rooms without any training, because this is war.”
I even see this crap at ranges where we demand soldiers place their weapons on V-notch stake, get rodded on and off and ensure they never touch a loaded gun unless they are actively shooting from the firing line. This promotes poor weapon handlining as soldiers are now terrified to touch a gun with bullets in it. And then…we sprinkle magic fair dust on them in combat a say, “hey, walk around anywhere you want, including stressful combat situations with your loaded rifle, even though you have no training doing so.” Instead, we should be training them how to move with a loaded weapon and be responsible in handling their firearms.
Then comes my next favorite part…commanders alerting the ROE to have red, amber, and green status for loading weapons. “Sorry Mrs. Johnson, your son died. His weapon was on red status because of a commander’s policy, due to someone having an accidental discharge and he did not have time to load his weapon and shoot back before the enemy fired multiple rounds at him.” What is crazy is that both the accidental discharge which caused the stupid policy, and the death could have been avoided by accepting prudent risk and doing proper training!!! So, the bottom line is, don’t avoid risk. Implement common sense ways to mitigate (not eliminate) risks and train, train, train till they can’t screw it up.
If we are not training the hard things then we will fail as an Army. If we are not trying new approaches to war fighting for fear of something bad happening, then we will fail as an Army. Your command should be defined by how great of a job you did. It should be defined by your successes. It should not be defined by the absence of bad things happening. Don’t be a coward. Live the Army value of Personal Courage. Take risks and improve the organization through a command worth writing home about.
Love this article? Great! Let me know and I’ll produce more. Hate this article? Well, it’s probably ‘cause you’re a coward. 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.