Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, USA Ret.
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4
ARMY ■ November 2014
Letters
Whatever It Takes
■ Loren B. Thompson’s excellent article in the September issue of ARMY
tells us that the Army has “8 Unique
Values” we should use in order to
convey our value proposition in supporting budget discussions. He makes
a good case for that proposition by describing the unique functions that our
Army fulfills. As an American taxpayer, I see some other values the
Army provides:
1. It gives our young people an opportunity to become heroes by performing selfless service in the defense
of their nation.
2. It creates veterans who, because of
their military experience, have learned
to appreciate the diversity of our great
nation and its people. Soldiers come
from all ranks and stations as well as religions, races and nationalities. Nativeborn citizens serve alongside naturalized
citizens and immigrants still seeking citizenship. The Army is and always will be
a wonderful human melting pot.
3. Generations of Army families have
forged a significant block of leaders
who help our Army maintain its traditions and standards.
4. Army posts are living museums of
American history. Their very presence
tells stories that forged the America we
know and love today.
These values I present have a price
tag, but how do you place a price tag
on missed birthdays, holidays, high
school graduations, sporting events
and other significant events in the lives
of soldiers’ families? How do you budget for training accidents, inability to
plan for the future because of unscheduled moves, lost furniture, and the little financial and administrative errors
during a 20- or 30-year career? How do
you budget for maintaining a 24/7
state of readiness with out-of-date or
inadequate equipment?
The Army budget of which I speak
ensures that soldiers and their families
are paid a living wage so none of them
will depend on food stamps for subsistence, that the Army is fully funded for
warfighting and equipment is always
the best, that wounded veterans have
access to the best health care and rehabilitation possible, and that soldiers
who retire from the Army will be compensated according to the understood
contract with them.
The Army budget of which I speak
will not need shady agencies that use
wounded warriors as poster children
for collecting millions of dollars or
that see our wounded veterans as victims of a cruel system that used them
in war but leaves them helpless to face
the challenges caused by the wounds
of war. Every organization soliciting
funds should be held to the highest
standards of accountability.
Many of you will say, “Chaplain,
this is expensive!” I agree. I leave it to
the accountants to produce the figures.
How much is it worth for our heroes to
be ready every day to give their lives
for our freedom? Come on, America,
let’s continue to have the best Army in
the world and spend whatever it takes
to keep it so!
Chaplain (Col.) Wesley B. Geary,
USA Ret.
Plano, Texas
Not an Option
■ I was inspired to send these comments by the letter from Col. Robert R.
Ulin, USA Ret., in the September issue
of ARMY (“The Changing American
Way of War”).
From my perspective obtained from
fighting as an Infantry squad leader in
the Korean War (1950–51), serving as a
Field Artillery battalion commander in
the Vietnam War (1968–69) and being a
graduate of the Industrial College of
the Armed Forces, I agree with all of
Ulin’s poignant points except one.
Unequivocally, the U.S. should exhibit resolute determination, leadership
and tenacity in international affairs.
Nonetheless, I take serious exception to
Ulin’s closing words: “America needs
to get tough or get out—NOW.” As the
world’s only superpower, getting out is
not an option.
Col. Ben L. Walton, USA Ret.
Centennial, Colo.
Combat Experience Needed
■ I read with interest and chagrin
the September CompanyCommand article, “Leading Teams of Army Cyber
Warriors.” It was interesting to learn a
little about what these soldiers do
when on duty, but I cannot believe that
the Army is encouraging bright, fit
young officers to become cyber techies
who will work in windowless Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIF), cannot talk about their
work, and need lawyers to tell them
what is legal and ethical.
A “Cyber Brigade Combat Team” is
a real misnomer. To make Cyber Electromagnetic a separate branch is a
shame. We don’t need any more conflicted, misguided and maladjusted
people like former Pfc. Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and Daniel Ellsberg lumped together in a new branch.
With the size of the Army decreasing
dramatically, the last thing we need is
another techie branch that is anything
but combat. If anything, we have too
many already.
tlefield, not on the Internet.
There is plenty of time for promising
young officers to grow into office bureaucrats (it happens to most of us) but
not young lieutenants and captains
who need to learn how to master the
battlefield with real combat troops. The
colonels and generals who run the
Army were never “cyber geeks” in
some nameless, windowless SCIF. They
were the shooters and lanyard pullers
who knew how to fight long before
they became bureaucrats. They will not
select those new cyber officers for the
best jobs because they do not trust
them to make wise battlefield decisions. The combat-arms officers will get
the nod every time.
We are doing our promising junior
officers a disservice to put them into
cyber units before they have real combat experience. They need to ride to the
sound of the guns, not the sterile environment of an SCIF.
Lt. Col. Thomas D. Morgan,
USA Ret.
Steilacoom, Wash.
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We should not put our young officers, who have graduated from such
fine leadership-producing schools as
West Point, the Virginia Military Institute and The Citadel, in so-called
cyber units where they will not be
able to lead real combat troops. It is
not the cyber warriors of the world
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Qaeda and the Taliban but rather the
combat warriors who know how to
defeat and kill the enemy on the bat-
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J Buunker
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Lead story.
November 2014 ■ ARMY 5
Library of Congress
Photo Facts
■ I suspect every artilleryman
and Ordnance officer on the planet
has already pointed out that the top
picture on the first page of the August issue’s “Historically Speaking”
column shows an artillery crew emplacing a field gun. It is not yet
ready to fire. The muzzle plug is
still in place and the aiming stakes
have not been set out. It is a caisson
and not a wagon. Based on the sinIraq War a Mistake
■ While there is much to commend
in retired Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik’s
call for a more comprehensive strategy
to counter al Qaeda and its affiliates in
the August issue of ARMY (Front &
Center, “How Will This War End?”),
his cursory history of post-9/11 efforts
is seriously remiss in not recognizing
that the U.S. decision to invade Iraq is
the foremost reason why al Qaeda and
its affiliates are now doing so well.
As a result of the invasion, events
since 2003 have played almost entirely
to the advantage of our enemies, particularly in the cases of the civil wars in
Iraq and Syria and our abandonment
of Afghanistan from 2002–08. Had the
U.S. and the many strong allies we enjoyed pre-2003 concentrated on al
Qaeda rather than the hysterical, fantasy-based strategy that drove us to
topple Saddam Hussein, there is more
than an even chance we could have
substantially “disrupt[ed], dismantle[d]
and defeat[ed]” al Qaeda by now, leaving a significantly more manageable
threat environment.
Further, the alienation of allies and
6
ARMY ■ November 2014
gle handspike, girder box trails and
hinged gun shield that doesn’t extend over the wheels, I’d say it is
Austrian and not German. I agree
that it was World War I-era.
Good article, though, for an Armor guy.
Col. Raymond Pawlicki, USA Ret.
Dade City, Fla.
Editor’s Note: The Library of Congress
identified this photo as one of German
troops.
the widespread distrust of the U.S. engendered among world leaders and
populations by the invasion and occupation of Iraq have made the formulation of a comprehensive anti-al Qaeda
strategy problematic in the extreme. To
claim that the George W. Bush administration’s counteroffensive against terrorism was under-resourced is disingenuous at best when the immense
burden of our unnecessary eight-year
war in Iraq is not acknowledged. Far
from contributing to anything like a
meaningful counteroffensive against
terrorism, the Iraq War more accurately
represents one of the greatest strategic
mistakes in American history, the enduring global ramifications of which
are proving much worse than even the
most contrary regional experts predicted more than a decade ago.
Lt. Col. Jim Dorschner, USAR Ret.
Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico
Sickening ‘Business as Usual’
■ I would be surprised if I was the
only one who found it sadly ironic to
see the July sidebar on advocacy and
patronage regarding general officer as-
signments (“Advocacy, Patronage Pay
Off for General Officer Assignments”)
so closely following the Front & Center piece on integrity and honesty
(“Admit It—Lying Is a Problem in the
Military”).
The sidebar reeks from soup to nuts.
Start with the title, move on to the first
paragraph (“It doesn’t hurt to have some
influential backers …”) and finish with
the second-to-last paragraph (“Outside
clout can also boost chances …”). Sorry
to be blunt, but the sidebar—in its entirety—made me gag.
The Army promises its own that if
you work hard and master your profession, you will be recognized. This is
central to the bargain the Army makes
with each of its soldiers and is one of
the best ways the Army shows loyalty.
For most officers, this bargain means
that if promotion into the general officer ranks is possible, then every qualified officer will be given a fair hearing
for a chance to get a star (or more stars)
and an assignment.
Sadly, it’s not newsworthy to say that
officers with a patron may trump betterqualified officers. It is newsworthy, however, to see patronage now so proudly
acknowledged as “business as usual.”
I’m no naïf, but it really is discouraging to read about how the Army’s officer corps needs to do better ethically in
one article and then read about the
normalcy of patronage two pages later.
During my career, patronage was
something everyone knew existed, but
it was generally regarded as repugnant and something that tarnished the
Army’s image as a meritocracy in defense of the nation. If we are now going to view patronage as a good thing,
then the Army is in bigger trouble
than I thought. At a time when the
Army faces significant downsizing
and a hard fight getting the resources
it needs to fulfill its obligations, we
should insist that officers be selected
based on their abilities and not on
whether they have clout-bearing patrons.
Patronage is just a polite word for an
activity that lacks integrity. In other
words, patronage is lying.
Col. Michael Hallisey, USA Ret.
Mechanicsville, Md.
Redefine ‘Winning’
■ “Military Innovation Through
‘Brilliant Mistakes,’” by Andrew Hill
and Col. Charles D. Allen, USA Ret.,
(July) was a thought-provoking and insightful article that should cause all senior leaders to question how strategy
is evaluated.
It should be mandatory reading for
all general officers. They, along with
their inner circle of colonels, seem to be
stricken with the disease of predetermined outcomes. We have witnessed
this with numerous warfighters and
combat training center rotations. Anyone thinking outside the box was often
told to shut up and had to go stand in
the corner. Senior leaders don’t handle
failure well because it may reflect on
their officer evaluation reports (OERs).
We give lip service to the notion that
the enemy gets a vote. And, too often,
opposing force actions are heavily
scripted.
I think someone forgot to inform the
Iraqi insurgents about the script. The
Army tends to be an organization of failure avoidance during training events.
War games should be laboratories of
ideas and experiments. Besides fearing
OER retribution, I believe leaders avoid
failure because no one wants to question
our holy doctrine. We should be asking:
Why? Is it still valid? How can the enemy exploit our tactics, techniques and
procedures, doctrine, and strategy?
What are we missing or not seeing? We
too often wish away unpleasant things.
The event involving retired Marine
Corps Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper was
eye-opening, and his feedback should
have been embraced. Simply put, it
was brilliant. Outsiders or subordinates who challenge the status quo are
frequently dismissed by senior leaders. Furthermore, some senior leaders
tend to embrace new ideas only when
the idea was their original thought or
if the idea was generated by their
trusted initiatives group.
Winning during an experiment
should be defined as disarray, chaos
and failure. After all, isn’t it better to
prove something false in a simulation
rather than in combat?
Col. Dennis D. Tewksbury, USA Ret.
Carlisle, Pa.
‘Talent Management’?
■ ARMY magazine has recently published several thought-provoking articles. Many of these articles raise the ire
of some readers and spur professional
discussion and learning for others. I
consider July’s “Talent Management:
Six Constraints on Senior Officer Succession Planning” one of those articles.
The authors’ focus on senior officer
succession planning and six pitfalls in its
execution seems out of place in a magazine that usually garners a greater reader
base. While the wartime allowance for
Army general officers increased from
303 to approximately 375, this number
remains small in comparison to our
overall officer corps. While the article
and the cited larger pamphlet published
by the Strategic Studies Institute are interesting reads, they miss the mark in informing the greater officer corps on talent or “performance” management.
Without recapping the authors’ six
points, some understanding of fieldgrade and senior field-grade officer
management may be useful. Foremost,
the authors imply that the Army G-1
should manage senior officers. In fact,
the Chief of Staff of the Army (CSA)
and Vice Chief of Staff of the Army
(VCSA) play a significant role in senior
and general officer assignments, with
the VCSA personally approving every
O-6 assignment. This oversight is very
similar to the authors’ reference to
Gen. George C. Marshall’s management style and appears effective.
The authors shy away from performance management and the actions that
U.S. Army Human Resources Command (HRC) executes to assign officers.
In short, HRC determines assignments
for officers from second lieutenant to
lieutenant colonel, balancing the needs
of the Army and the professional development requirements of the officer. Assignment officers are hand-selected to
serve in HRC and represent the top of
their year groups. These officers use
guidance from the HRC commander
and Army G-1 to make these assignments, ensuring officers are generally
assigned to positions where they can develop professionally.
In addition, the Army continues to refine how high performers are selected
for O-5 and O-6 command positions.
Following a Department of the Army
centralized board process, officers are
slated for command positions. This slate
is approved at four levels: first by the
HRC commander, then the Army G-1,
followed by the VCSA and finally by the
CSA. Officers are slated based on their
past performance and future potential.
This is something more than the invogue civilian sector “talent management,” which uses variables that do not
always apply to the military.
The authors end by stating that current systems are cobbled together and
operate using institutional muscle memory. This sentiment is apparently based
on their own biases developed from
working at the Army’s Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis (OEMA).
Located at the U.S. Military Academy,
OEMA is not located within the Army
mainstream. One would expect such an
organization to be located at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where midgrade officers
go to study, or Carlisle Barracks, Pa.,
where the U.S. Army War College resides. Both sites would offer unfettered
access to officers who have recently returned from leadership positions.
I enjoyed reading the article and
hope that others will engage in this discourse to truly consider the term talent
management. Field commanders are the
most qualified to conduct true talent
management. These leaders groom
their best officers for subsequent positions of authority, recognizing talent
with appropriate evaluations. They are
the true talent managers of our force,
not an academic rule book.
James Sisemore
Fort Hood, Texas
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November 2014 ■ ARMY 7