The recent amalgam of failures at Fort Hood could have occurred at almost any installation if we are honest with ourselves. Those failures spotlight the inherent tension between recruiting and retaining soldiers for the size of force we say we need while maintaining the high position of trust we say we want. Indeed, we have not progressed nearly as far as we should, and the need for reform is palpable at the small-unit level. We must pair well-intended, downstream initiatives with systemic, upstream changes.
The stresses across the new soldier pipeline remain ubiquitous. Finding and attracting enough recruits who meet physical, educational, and other standards is a well-known challenge. Recruiters have pressure to meet their goals, as do drill sergeants to get recruits through basic training. The result is that units occasionally receive young men or women with pre-existing physical or mental conditions pushed through an industrial-strength system. The sergeants who receive these new soldiers at their first assignment then need the time and the requisite tools to make them viable, all within a healthy command.
Several of my peers at the user-end describe their core challenge as mitigating the personnel turbulence that undercuts two interests: 1) preserving and enhancing overall preparedness for war, and 2) creating a shared sense of purpose during peacetime. Their focus often becomes an improvement to reception and integration programs and the quality of counseling. Many applaud the recent “This Is My Squad” initiative, which aims to replicate cohesiveness often found in units from the special operations community. Improvements in analytical tools that alert commanders to high-risk soldiers are also helpful, though they miss essential details often discovered after an incident. Further assistance is needed in the form of more aggressive screening criteria on the supply side of the equation to match an expanded toolkit on the user end.
For example, if a soldier does not meet basic standards at his or her first assignment, it can take almost a year to complete a discharge and get a new soldier in return. This one-for-one process has a zero-sum impact on a unit’s readiness, notwithstanding the time spent managing the litany of mandatory appointments. The comparative expediency of an honorable discharge remains attractive and many commanders bemoan when poor-performing soldiers are awarded greater Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits in a highly frustrating process than they were probably entitled. The liability subsequently shifts from the Army but not from the taxpayer. Complementary reforms to mitigate this cycle might include revisiting the duration of initial training and extending the initial period during which a soldier can be administratively discharged—from six months to two years. Efforts should also address the lengthy lead times for legal transactions and the medical evaluation board process.
An additional, more delicate concern centers on mental health and suicide prevention. The broad-brush application of “leadership failure,” in some cases, is inappropriate when a suicide or suicidal ideation occurs. The trust cultivated by some of our most dynamic leaders has saved soldiers. Initial calls for help are frequently to first-line supervisors, which paradoxically, is a proxy for a level of trust that we hope to replicate. We need a more in-depth study of these ideations to augment an added emphasis on recruits’ suitability for military service. We must also incorporate evidence-informed practices to complement junior leaders’ more rudimentary prevention efforts.
There is a clear operational impact without a combination of top-down and bottom-up solutions. Units will otherwise continue to operate without their full complement of personnel though they may exceed 100 percent on paper. The organizational energy expended and operational tempo, which we seek to reduce, will seem artificially high, perhaps at the expense of retention efforts.
It is unsurprising this confluence of factors has bent but not broken the force. Our unwavering “can do” attitude persists. Senior Army leaders are also rightly refocusing on people and recognize that small-unit leadership is necessary but insufficient to overcome broader, institutional challenges. Yet, the bar has elevated since the Gates Commission conceived our all-volunteer force. They never imagined that we would claim such a high position of trust relative to other societal institutions, a position we now do not want to cede. As retired Gen. Carter Hamm reflected, in the wake of the events at Fort Hood, a restoration of that trust is in order for the Army, lest we permanently lose that exalted position within society and amongst our soldiers.
Fort Hood might be an anomaly, but it feels like a tragic symptom and beyond a stress test of the Army. Perhaps we cannot recruit and retain a vast, quality force, or that the time will soon come when either doing so is ill-advised or technological advances render it unnecessary. This conjecture cuts against organizational impulses to preserve end strength and must garner senior leaders’ attention in the Army and beyond, certainly as they balance perceptions of operational needs and reality constraints.
Lt. Col. Jaron S. Wharton presently commands 1st Squadron, 75th Cavalry Regiment at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy and holds advanced degrees from both Harvard and Duke, where he earned his PhD in public policy. He is a Chief of Staff of the Army Advanced Strategic Planning and Policy Program (ASP3) Fellow.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.
Image credit: III Corps and Fort Hood
With regard to the matters presented in our article above, consider this analysis:
Scenario "A":
If the problem is that military leaders, for whatever reason, are not provided sufficient human resources to do the job, then the "fix" for this problem, it would seem, is to give military leaders such numbers and types of human resources as they require.
(Requires that tons of folks be provided up front, and provisions made to quickly and easily get rid of those folks who do not meet the mark or do not show promise. Note that this eliminates the need for waiting for replacement folks to arrive, which as the author of our article above indicates, today requires the lengthy process of first getting rid of those who cannot cut it.)
Scenario "B."
If for some reason this is not possible (to wit: providing our military leaders with the human resources that they require to do the job, for example, via a process such as I describe above), then the task of military leaders — given this reality — becomes to both "cherish," and to "husband," the human resources that they HAVE been given.
(After all, these folks are who you are going to have to go to war with — come the proverbial hell or high water — and it is very likely that you are not going to get any more. And even if you were going to get some more in time of war, you certainly will not, then, have time to train them, or time to mold them into a team, like you have now with your present human resources.)
Recommendation:
Military leadership, at every level, should sign a statement that they understand that:
a. While Scenario "A" is what SHOULD happen in a perfect world,
b. Scenario "B" is their actual fate and reality — and, accordingly, the fate and reality of our country — come peace or come war. And that, accordingly,
c. How they apply their leadership talents — and how they handle their leadership responsibilities — SPECIFICALLY AS RELATES TO CHERISHING, RETAINING, TRAINING AND HUSBANDING EVERY HUMAN RESOURCE THAT THEY HAVE BEEN GIVEN — this will, substantially:
1. Determine their (each military leader's) future (to wit: whether they have a long or longer military future or not) and, correspondingly,
2. The future of our country.
(Now the "monkey" is clearly on their back — and not on the back of the "system" as-it-were — as indeed, if all were right in the world [see my Scenario "A" above], it clearly should be.)
Re: my initial comment above:
Given the task of military leaders as I describe it in my Scenario "B" above (see the cherishing and husbanding of rare and potentially non-replaceable human resources);
Given this such task, might not military leaders, today,
a. Share this understanding — routinely — with their junior enlisted soldiers also; this, so as to:
b. Have everyone "onboard" as to what is at stake here — what is being compromised — what is being dealt a potential "death blow" (to wit: a unit's war-fighting ability and, accordingly, a unit's ability to stay alive and protect one's country); this, when they, or anyone else for that matter, harms (via sexual harassment or anything else) one of their fellow soldiers?
(One might chose to use "sexual assault" and/or "sexual harassment" as an example here — but not use it exclusively as such — this, given that the true context here is simply "harming or allowing the harm of a fellow soldier is a serious crime; this, given that such undermines our ability to stay alive, undermines our ability to maintain good order and discipline in our unit, and, thus, undermines our ability to fight as a unit and protect our country — as we have all sworn an oath to do.")
Military is how my brothers came out of the projects orphaned early in life. One retired Texas highway patrol the other deceased wet brain syndrome (Vietnam medic) his is the military wake up and run it right or move and let someone else run it. The way you all are going now we .ight as well let the prison gangs act. O they possibly are.
Well you have the last vestiges of BabyBoomers at General Officer Level leading Brigade and Battalion commanders from Generation X’ers who are leading mid-grade officers and NCO’s who are millennials….. then these millennials are in charge of the lower ranking Generation Z….. and Army and it’s outsourcing think tanks have done little to study how all these generations of Soldiers communicate….. throw in some gender and cultural bias and BINGO you have Fort Hood!
Precisely sir. The intercultural differences which diversity and inclusion emulsifies today military is exactly what needs to be addressed with EBPs (Evidence Based Practices. Similarly to fortune 500 organizations, so is the military; in such; modeling should mirror. If in fact 5 different generations currently make up the military, just as the civilian sector creating policy and procedures that have worked for them could potentially mitigate the massive subpar leadership. Leadership is subpar not because of negligence, but because of ignorance. Practices that work in the past do not work with this new diverse workplace. Incorporating leadership training focuses on implementing EBPs of diversity and inclusion could create the buffer needed. Requiring sigma six at certain levels of leadership or incorporating into professional development courses will assist in training the new diverse force. Applying legitimate problem solving and critical thinking such as DMAIC, Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control and more importantly following up and revisions will provide think banks with data to analyze which will either prove or disprove the problem statement of "why the military is going through such a harsh transition". Folowing that up with class on Tuckmans team development theory and teaching that to leaders will provide as a guide to understand the generational differences. Start with this. EBPs, DMAIC, Tuckmans theory= better leaders, educated leaders, effective teams, better war fighters.
Backbone of the Army. MS Public Administration.
I’ve thought about Colonel Wharton’s article for a couple of days. At first, it reminded me of the Navy going on jihad against its Sailors following the explosion of the USS Iowa’s number two turret in April, 1989. I came to reject the thought, being a clear overreaction.
Yet despite some vague suggestions for changes, the article dives into the situation at Fort Hood and becomes a discussion on Soldiers simply not being good enough for the Army. So that’s the conclusion about the situation at Fort Hood? How would the family of the late Specialist Vanessa Guillen react to this article? I agree, a few Fort Hood Soldiers shouldn’t have been in the service at all. But using too broad a brush is intensely demeaning to other Soldiers on Fort Hood, who are doing their best to serve honorably in a hostile environment.
Finally, I must give Colonel Wharton due credit for (at best) a well-intentioned article. On the other hand, it demonstrates why the current (at best) tone-deaf leadership can’t fix Big Army any more than they can flap their arms and fly to Mars.
It is highly apparent that the U.S. military is being forced to correct massive societal moral, and educational failures while trying to maintain a fighting force based on the sacred ideals of duty, honor, and country. Ironically those very societal, moral, and educational failures have arisen due to the rejection of the ideals of duty, which stem from a deep sense of personal obligation over personal entitlement; the abnegation of individual integrity in favor of public virtue signaling through the social media echo chamber; and an education system that presumes stifled progress is a function of society's inability to advance victims of myriad forms of historical discrimination. When USAF generals are obsessively worried about call signs, squadron patches, and other logos giving offense to one self-described victim group or another then, sooner or later the aggrieved determine what is important. I am sure these kinds of constraints force the Army to tread carefully in dealing with bad actors. I believe you cannot have a stable force when educational achievement (however established), individual temperment unconsistent with good order and discipline, fitness, and antagonistic behavior are not weeded out within the first eight weeks of basic training. When good NCOs are retrained by conventional psycho-babble and political correctness, the backbone of the force will break and God Help their more maleable and pliant replacements. The U.S. raised and trained a great Army in 1917 from a mostly rural and under-educated populace. What that Army had was an unyielding belief in America and the primacy of individual responsibility in achieving the goals of the country. They called them "doughboys." Actually, that is a misnomer, they were made of steel. Today we have doughboys but you really can't say it, can you? That is the whole problem in a nutshell.
Regarding soldiers getting through the system that shouldn't. I would rather do without than have people that can't or won't make standards. TRADOC should be able to accept that some people will fail. I would rather lose the money spent on training that person that couldn't make it through for whatever reason than pay a bigger price later on. This should apply to EVERY school in the Army, basic training, flight school whatever.
Every person is not cut out for military service. The entire reason for training being stressful is to test the individual and if they are found lacking, remove them from the system. I understand that we do not want to toss someone just because they couldn't do a specific task correctly the first time, but there seems to be a reluctance to accept attrition in the training pipeline where there should be. Any school with the appropriate amount of rigor will fail a certain amount of those attending. The Army should understand and budget for that fact.
This alone would not solve the problems at Fort Hood or anywhere else, but it would cull out some of the individuals that become problems for commanders in the field. And that would at least be a good start.
I guess I am confused. Has the quality of the soldiers joining today changed that much?
I retired from the Army in 1993 with the rank of Master Sergeant. During my time in I served as a recruiter right after the draft ended at the end of Vietnam. There was a lot of pressure on recruiters to get the numbers. Even so, we still didn't except substandard people.
I also served as a First Sergeant. It was my job to ensure the soldiers in my unit were properly trained and prepared. I was also responsible in making sure the NCOs in my unit were doing their job.
I also was stationed at Fort Hood.
The bottom line as I see it, is that if a soldier is failing, it is probably because his or her leader, didn't do their job.
Bill,
An ORSA friend of mine an I did a back of the napkin analysis of the available recruiting population today compared to 1988 (largest recruiting mission of the last 10 years of Cold War). Even accounting for the doubling of adolescent obesity, there are 25% more available 19 year old high school graduates today than there were in 1988, and this larger population is being asked to fill a force that is 60% as large as in 1988.
This is a leadership problem. Don't forget, the only GO to so far be held to account for the issues at Ft. Hood, was the guy who was trying to fix the problem. I find the assumption that everything was perfect the day he showed up (it must be because the Army didn't relieve the previous commander).
Although I had read about some of the issues at Fort Hood and the successive incidents it wasn’t very visible for me considering the typical daily onslaught of information I get from many media sources. The situation just got overwhelmed by other news or quasi-news. I am also retired and never served in Infantry, Armor, or artillery during my active or Reserve Component tenures, but in formations that traditionally had been open to women for at several decades.
However, when the Fort Hood report was released, I downloaded the pdf and read it. I was shocked to say the least and quickly called a friend who daughter just recently enlisted into the active Army a few months earlier. I told him to find out if she was going to one of the large power projection platform installations that the Army created back during their posts consolidation in the late 90’s/early 2000s.
In my mind Fort Hood was not an anomaly. I don’t completely agree with the author’s premise that Fort Hood was symptomatic of both upstream and downstream issues. To me most of the Hood issues were and likely are downstream issues associated with both severely under resourced / under prioritized support functions AND inadequate all echelons leader training and leader attention. To me it appears that when Secretary Carter decreed the opening of all military service career fields to women in December 2015 ( https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/632536/carter-opens-all-military-occupations-positions-to-women/#:~:text=Defense%20Secretary%20Ash%20Carter%20announced,open%20to%20women%2C%20without%20exception.&text=%E2%80%9CThey'll%20be%20allowed%20to,into%20combat%2C%22%20Carter%20added ), the Army probably severely failed in both their assessment and planning for such implementation and the adequate resourcing and gradual phased implementation of such policy at the larger installations that had a mainly male Soldier TO&E unit population. Introducing women into major almost all-male formations in large numbers coupled with under resourced (and typically haphazardly trained part time or detailed duty personnel) support functions (SAPRs, etc.) was a disaster, at least at larger locations where TO&E leaders, installation command & staff, and supporting medical and Criminal Investigation (CID) assets where it appears wholly unprepared. [As an example, the CID capabilities at Fort Hood were almost criminally under resourced in terms of experienced and trained investigative personnel.] I urge every Army leader and interested Soldier to read the Fort Hood report (https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/2440007/army-secretary-releases-results-of-fort-hood-review/ ) in its entirety – there is a litany of command failures outlined by the committee.
My opinion is that the Fort Hood report is not an anomaly but was and likely still is symptomatic of major Army Soldier locations; places like Forts Hood, Bliss, Benning, Stewart, etc. – anywhere we have traditionally had large groups of generally mostly male formations that now routinely have females in their ranks. I also opine (from my own experience) that the rest of the more male & female integrated Army career fields have had a much longer history and experience with both sexes in the ranks during the day, as well in the barracks at night, and in the field. That does not mean that issues don’t exist in those settings either – I just believe the severity of issues do not rise to what was outlined in the Hood setting.
I believe many points by other commentators are “on the mark” in many areas. I commend the author for “teeing up” this topic for discussion and outlining what his thoughts are for Army upstream personnel issues and potential improvements.
As to the author’s discussion of what appear to be Army upstream Soldier recruiting, initial training, and leader development areas, I have no significant comments. They may have had a negative impact but I believe it pales when compared to downstream preparation, leader training & leader involvement/enforcement of standards, and adequate resourcing and positioning of critical supporting functions.
I hope the Army’s People First Task Force organized by the Secretary of the Army will not only get at systemic issues but also rapidly incent the Army to correct outstanding issues highlighted by the Hood Report.