Thomas E. Ricks's Blog, page 113

Captain: I want nothing more than to stay in the Army -- but is that fair to my wife?

By Capt. Troy Peterson, U.S. Army

Best Defense guest husband

I'm at my 5-year point (initial
commissioning obligation complete) and although I've signed up for ~3 more
years, my desire for an Army career is being seriously challenged by the Army's
career progression model and the inherent difficulty in supporting my wife's
career. The lack of self-determination needed to coordinate our careers is a
major problem for us, and this concern seems to be growing in the younger
generation in the Army.

Like the
Marine's wife in your most recent post on this
topic, my wife is a true professional and a career woman. She's worked on Capitol
Hill, worked abroad for the U.S. government, and now she's getting her master's
degree from an Ivy League school (while we live apart for a couple
years) -- all so she can continue to work in the public sector and we can both
stay true to the ideals that mean so much to us.

Many of my peers face this situation;
married to an educated, professional spouse who can't just pick up every 2 or 3
years to relocate to wherever the Army decides we should be, and continue their
own meaningful professional career. It's a fact of life that opportunities vary
with location -- Fayetteville, NC, and Columbus, GA, don't have the same job
prospects as DC or New York. We don't expect the Army or anyone else to
change that. I want nothing more than to continue my Army career, but if I have
to, I'll find another way to continue serving my country and my ideals while
allowing my wife to do something she finds professionally significant.

From the Army's
perspective, this issue is a major part of the larger concerns
about career satisfaction, retaining talented and strong performers, and
competing with other professions for talent. My question is this: If the Army can have a great program for
dual-Army career couples, why can't we also be more accommodating of
dual-career couples who happen not to both wear ACUs?

My wife's
"civilian" status doesn't mean her desire for a career of service is
any less valid. Instead, the rigid career progression and lack of
self-determination are forcing me to consider leaving the military entirely in
order to preserve my marriage. However, the Army can adjust to prevent this
stark decision from being a reality for many families. I've seen many couples
get good results from the Married Army Couples Program. The answer for the rest
of us isn't another, bigger Army program, but instead to reform the rigid
career tracks and allow greater personal autonomy in job selection and
relocation. Enabling individual initiative and greater personal control would
facilitate dual-career couples achieving greater satisfaction, prevent us from
facing a decision to leave the force just to preserve our families, and allow
the Army to better retain what we so often say is our most precious resource --
our people.

CPT Troy Peterson is an infantry officer
stationed at Ft. Benning. He served previously in the Second Cavalry Regiment
in Vilseck, Germany and Zabul Province, Afghanistan. This article represents
his own personal views and not those of Infantry Branch, the U.S. Army, the
Department of Defense, the U.S. government, nor even the pitching staff of the
Florida Marlins.

The CIA people who found bin Laden: What they're thinking about what they did

The other night I
went to a preview of Manhunt,
a HBO documentary that will air on that network on May 1 and thereafter many
times on CNN.

The documentary
was like a high-class version of a Frontline episode, filmed and edited well,
with expensive touches like music. One of the themes was how many
of the analysts who targeted bin Laden were women.
Another was how isolated it felt to be in the CIA after 9/11. Overall, I found
the film a great document, but too inclined to give the CIA a pass, especially
on the issue of torture and on some specifics, such as how the
Khost bombing that killed seven CIA officers in December
2009 was allowed to happen.

But what I want to
talk about today was the discussion following the film, which was even more
interesting. (I took notes, having asked Peter
Bergen, the documentary's executive producer,
beforehand if I could, and was told yes.) It felt historic, a bit like being in
the same room with the D-Day planners.

It also felt a bit
like an encounter group. Clearly there had been strong disagreements within the
CIA about the course they took:

Phillip Mudd, a
former deputy director of counterterrorism at the CIA, began the conversation
by saying he was not proud of what they did but that they did what they believed
they had to do.




John McLaughlin,
who was deputy director of the CIA on 9/11, recalled "how alone the CIA felt"
in the years following the attacks.




Susan Hasler, who
used to write the daily intel brief for the president, followed with a twist on
that: "It was extremely lonely....We just didn't understand why we were going
into Iraq" in 2003.




Jose Rodriguez, a
former director of the CIA's clandestine operations, also was in the audience.
He is remembered today as the man who ordered the destruction of the videotapes
of some post-9/11 CIA interrogations. In the documentary, he downplays the
significance of waterboarding. In the post-showing discussion, he said that,
"We took a lot of risks, but we were successful."




Another guy with a
Southern accent, whose name I didn't quite catch (I don't know the intel world
nearly as well as I know the military world -- he's probably a big name), said,
"We destroyed the enemy. However we cannot kill them all." So, he said, "We
have to give people hope...in Kabul, in Gaza, in their own neighborhoods." This
was a kind of theme of the end of the discussion -- that the CIA did what it
could tactically, but that for long-term success, there has to be a national
strategy that they couldn't provide.

What I found myself
wondering as I listened to all this was a question an Army officer who worked
on Guantanamo issues asked me years ago: How can you win a war for your values
by using tactics that undermine them?

At the end of the
discussion, I turned to the woman
standing next to me, who I think had just been identified in the film as the
chief bin Laden hunter. "So, are you Jessica Chastain?" I
asked, referring to the actress who played that role in Zero Dark Thirty. (Yes, I know, on reflection, it was a stupid way
to put it. I have been told that the Chastain character was a composite of several
of the CIA women, including Jennifer Matthews, who was killed in the Khost
bombing.)

"No," the woman
replied, "Jessica Chastain wasn't there." Great answer!

Chechen war expert: 'This is a big deal'

By Christopher Swift

Best Defense bureau of Chechen affairs

I've done fieldwork on the insurgency
in Chechnya and Dagestan and have studied the war there for nearly 15 years.
I've also interviewed several very prominent rebels.

This would mark the first time
Chechens have attacked any sort of U.S. target. Up until now their focus has
been on Russia. This is a big deal. And it shows how the conflict in the
Caucasus has metastasized into a kind of globalized jihadist theatre, at least
in the minds of the young people fighting there.

These guys likely had no connection
to the Caucasus Emirate in person;
connection would likely have been online. This looks more and more like
"resonant effects," rather than something planned and executed by a
cadre-level organization.

Chechens I know are completely
crushed. Let's hope the FBI gets to the remaining suspect before the Chechen
refugee community in Boston does. Boston welcomed and protected Chechen asylum
seekers like no other city. Those people will tear these kids to pieces for the
harm they've done.

A midday update:

As I'm learning more and more, it
looks like most of these "connections" would have been online rather
than through working with a terrorist syndicate out in the field. These
kids have been out of Russia for more than a decade. And it looks like
they've been living highly compartmentalized lives as well.  

Based on these facts, I doubt
we have a Faisal Shahzad-style situation.  The Caucasus Emirate is about
two companies in size. Most of these guys are living in tents in the
mountains and constantly moving between safe houses. Their reach
outside the region is very limited. Even the Kavkaz website is run
outside the region.

I've been in that terrain. It's very difficult physicial and sociological ground to traverse, even
for a local. So I'd be shocked to see that they were connected
directly to the group.

Mid-afternoon update:

It looks like the bomber was in
Russia just last year. If this is true, then we may in fact have a Shahzad-type event on our hands. It's still too soon to know whether this is
international or a lone-wolf event based on these new facts.

Christopher Swift
is an adjunct professor of national security studies at the Georgetown
University School of Foreign Service and a fellow at the University of
Virginia's Center for National Security Law.

Editor's Note: The headline on this post has been changed.

Chechnya's war just arrived in the United States

By Christopher Swift

Best Defense bureau of Chechen affairs

I've done fieldwork on the insurgency
in Chechnya and Dagestan and have studied the war there for nearly 15 years.
I've also interviewed several very prominent rebels.

This would mark the first time
Chechens have attacked any sort of U.S. target. Up until now their focus has
been on Russia. This is a big deal. And it shows how the conflict in the
Caucasus has metastasized into a kind of globalized jihadist theatre, at least
in the minds of the young people fighting there.

These guys likely had no connection
to the Caucasus Emirate in person;
connection would likely have been online. This looks more and more like
"resonant effects," rather than something planned and executed by a
cadre-level organization.

Chechens I know are completely
crushed. Let's hope the FBI gets to the remaining suspect before the Chechen
refugee community in Boston does. Boston welcomed and protected Chechen asylum
seekers like no other city. Those people will tear these kids to pieces for the
harm they've done.

Christopher Swift
is an adjunct professor of national security studies at the Georgetown
University School of Foreign Service and a fellow at the University of
Virginia's Center for National Security Law.

Rebecca's War Dog of the Week: Wilbur's adventures in Afghanistan (and news of note)

By Rebecca Frankel

Best Defense Chief Canine Correspondent

I came across a series of photos of Wilbur, a
U.S. Marine Special Operations dog, taken over the last few weeks in
Afghanistan by Marine Corps photographer Sgt. Pete Thibodeau.
The collection of images follows Wilbur through Helmand Province -- working
security, encountering livestock, playing fetch in front of an idle Humvee, and
watching a group of children, his ears pricked in earnest attention.

Today's post title (and the use of the word "adventures") isn't
intended to be flippant -- Wilbur is a Special Ops dog, which means his job is
especially taxing and dangerous. But Thibodeau's photos show the non-violent
side of combat-zone living from Wilbur's point of view with its own kind of
wonder and whimsy -- a view worth seeing.

More photos of Wilbur are after the fold but first a couple
of War-Dog Announcements:

60 Minutes will
be airing a segment on MWDs this Sunday, April 21, called "Sniffing Out Bombs." The
show sent a correspondent out to Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona, home to the nation's
premier pre-deployment course run by the USMC and Gunnery Sgt. Kristopher
Reed Knight and his crew of experienced handlers. (I spent two weeks there last
year.) Longtime readers of this column are likely to see the faces of those
written about here
on the CBS news show this week.

For DC locals (and supporters near and far): The Third Annual Annapolis 5K Run & Dog Walk is
raising funds for America's VetDogs
-- an organization that "provides service and assistance dogs,
free of charge, to disabled veterans." The run
will kick off at 9 am this Sunday at Quiet Waters Park in Annapolis,
Maryland. Looks like early registration has closed but walk-ups are welcome,
as are dogs -- leashed, of course. 

[[BREAK]]

Wilbur vs. cow:

 

Wilbur watches children after Afghan National Army special forces escorted a district governor to a school on April 15:

 

Wilbur receives his "favorite toy" as a reward for a job well done after "successfully sweeping a build site for an Afghan Local Police checkpoint":

 

Wilbur tries on his handler's gear after a mission:

 

Hat tip to TR for sending the opening photo and an
accompanying and particularly apt caption, "Nothing like feeling safe in a war zone."

Rebecca Frankel is away from her FP desk, working on a book
about dogs and war.

Vietnam war expert: There's a lot to appreciate in the new book 'Hanoi's War'

By Richard Coffman

Best Defense bureau of Vietnamese War
affairs

Hanoi's War is an important book drawing on secret Vietnamese Communist
Party and government archives and chronicling how Hanoi planned and waged war
in Vietnam following the defeat of the French in 1954.

More than that, the book surfaces
serious dissension at the highest levels in Hanoi over priorities, strategies,
and resources undermining, among other things, preparation for the Tet
Offensive of 1968 and leading to arrests and purges. Had Washington and Saigon
had a clearer picture of this, the war certainly would have been fought
differently, and the outcome might well have been more favorable. It's probably
fair to say that we knew as much about Hanoi's leadership then as we do the
North Korean leadership today.

As it was, this book describes how
badly U.S. bombing in the North and significant ground incursions into
communist base areas in Cambodia and Lao hurt Hanoi's war effort. It further
shows the utter failure and enormous cost of Hanoi's major offensives in 1968,
1969, and 1972, which forced the North into greater dependence on the Soviets
and Chinese and ultimately to engage in negotiations to force U.S. withdrawal.

The author, Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, a
native-born Vietnamese, naturalized U.S. citizen, and professor at the
University of Kentucky, had access to a wealth of official Vietnamese language
archives, personalities, and unpublished manuscripts. Among others, she
interviewed Hoag Minh Chinh, once North Vietnam's leading communist
theoretician and a purged dissident. She had access to the unpublished memoirs
of the first of communist party First Secretary Le Duan's wives, who served in
the Mekong Delta for years

Lieng-Hang not only plows much new
ground, but does so in a well-organized, lucidly argued, and well-written
chronological treatment of the Vietnam War and Hanoi's direction of it. Readers
will be grateful for her facility in writing and organizing this substantively
dense material, and that she makes clear that the archives she reviewed were
sanitized and by no means complete.

To students of communist ideology and
tactics, Hanoi's War neatly describes the rise to the pinnacle of power of
communist party leader Le Duan and his close associate Le Duc Tho, and the
marginalization of Ho Chi Minh and General Vo Nguyen Giap. Indeed, these latter
two internationally acclaimed heroes of the Vietnamese communist revolution, widely
thought to wield unchecked power in Hanoi, sat out the Tet Offensive, Giap
pouting in Hungary and Ho taking the waters in Beijing.

We further learn that despite Le Duan's
repeated failures of strategies and tactics in the war in the South and immense
personnel losses and the virtual destruction of the northern economy, he held
on to power by virtue of brutal and non-stop repression. Even before the
infamous Hanoi Hilton imprisoned U.S. airmen, it held scores of Le Duan's
political opponents and dissidents, both real and imagined. His purges even
claimed senior military officers close to Giap and some who helped plan the Tet
Offensive.

In these and scores of less
consequential matters, this book should humble Western intelligence and
diplomatic observers, journalists, historians, academics, and the international
left who got so much of North Vietnam wrong then and whose mistaken
interpretations and judgments persist to this day.

Make no mistake, this is not
revisionist history. The book's subtitle gives us a clue to her leanings: "An
International History of the War for Peace in Vietnam."

The author persists in describing the
Vietnam War as "unwinnable" for the United States, which certainly must come as
news to such eminent contemporary historians as Lewis Sorley and Mark Moyar,
whose recent works, even without primary sources on Hanoi's troubles, make
clear that the outcome in Vietnam was far from inevitable. Moreover, she has a
palpable antipathy for Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger even while brilliantly
and in great detail describing how they simultaneously leveraged both Moscow
and Beijing to squeeze Hanoi -- and against his deep instincts, Le Duan -- to
get the best possible negotiated deal extricating the United States from
Vietnam.

Indeed, Le Duan so preferred massive
offensives designed to trigger popular uprisings in the South that he sent his
right-hand man, Le Duc Tho, to Paris to keep the lid on the negotiations. This
follows Le Duan's pattern in dispatching trusted generals to command the headstrong
southern communists who believed their revolution was betrayed by the 1954
Geneva Accords. How ironic -- or perverse -- that Le Duc Tho won a Nobel Peace
Prize for his service in Paris.

Finally, she attributes Hanoi's victory
not to its persistence and tenacity, not to winning hearts and minds in the
South, not to the enormous sacrifices of North Vietnam's armies and people, nor
to U.S. politics which hamstrung and undermined the U.S. effort, particularly
under Richard Nixon, but to the unwavering and irresistible pressure of
post-colonial, third-world, anti-war nations fed by Hanoi's clever propaganda
and diplomacy and eager to teach the United States a lesson. This, she avers,
is perhaps the greatest legacy of Hanoi's war and serves as a model to those
planning future revolutionary campaigns against Western powers.

This flight of fancy only slightly
detracts from what is otherwise a major and unique contribution to our
understanding of what we faced in Vietnam. Students of military history, the
Vietnam War, and revolutionary communism have much to look forward to as these
archives are more fully mined in the years ahead.

Richard Coffman served as a Marine Corps officer in Chu Lai
and Danang, RVN in 1965-1966. He then served in the CIA for 31 years, analyzing
the North Vietnamese leadership there from 1967 through 1972.

Lt. Gen. Caldwell: What the Army needs now, most of all, is to develop leaders

By Lt. Gen. William
Caldwell, U.S. Army

Best Defense guest
columnist

I recently had the opportunity to speak
to approximately 1,400 majors attending the U.S. Army's Command and General
Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Ninety-eight percent of the U.S.
Army majors at CGSC are combat veterans. Over 80 percent have more than one combat
deployment, and nearly 40 percent have deployed three or more times.

But for all the hardships they've endured over the past
decade, the next few years will be still be challenging, but in a different
way. Our active-duty Army will trim nearly 70,000 soldiers from its ranks, with
over 24,000 being involuntarily separated. Those who make up our formations may
become frustrated as training resources dwindle, and as soldiers spend more
time at stateside bases performing duties that just a few years ago none of
them would have even had time to do, like picking up trash and mowing the
grass.

However, this cycle is nothing new. I first experienced it
37 years ago, as a second lieutenant fresh from West Point. In 1976, I joined
an Army which had just emerged from a painful war in Vietnam, and was beginning
to transform from a large conscript force of nearly 1.5 million soldiers to a
smaller, volunteer Army roughly half that size. Many predicted that the
All-Volunteer Force (AVF) would be an absolute failure; yet, by the time I was
a major, our volunteer Army had won one of the most overwhelming victories in
military history.

What made the difference? We did have great weapons, but our
ultimate success was the result of the quality of our men and women in uniform.
After Vietnam, we made leader development our top priority, investing in our
people, and in their education and training.

In 1974 only 61
percent of recruits had a high school diploma. During the latter years of
the draft -- as well as the early years of the AVF -- crime, drug use, and
racial tensions ran high. To fix the force, we had to concentrate on recruiting
and retaining quality people. We instituted a zero-tolerance policy towards
drugs, eliminating nearly a division's worth of soldiers for substance abuse in
the early 1980s. Instead of relying on draftees -- committed only to a few
years of service -- we developed a skilled, professional Army. To grow such a
force, we had to invest in programs which helped keep soldiers in uniform for a
lifetime, such as increasing pay and offering re-enlistment bonuses. We also
began to institute family support programs and child care services, making the
Army a family-friendly institution. Today, 60
percent of the active-duty force is married.

The new Army required recruits with the education,
intelligence, and motivation to operate its new high-tech equipment. We also
discovered that the best predictor of successful adjustment to Army life was a
high school diploma. Today, over 99 percent of our active-duty Army has a high
school diploma or its equivalent, and recruiters are excluded from signing up
those who score within the bottom tier of their mental aptitude tests.

Finally, the Army underwent a revolution in training,
establishing its Combat Training Centers, starting with the National Training
Center in the California desert in 1980. There, entire brigades could
participate in large-scale mock battles with a fully-equipped Soviet-style
opposing force. The training was so rigorous that many felt that a rotation
through NTC was actually harder than the Gulf War.

Having spoken to the most battle-tested group of officers
our Army has ever produced in my career, it's clear that we must retain the
last decade's worth of talent and experience, all while cultivating the Army's
future leadership.

Leader development begins with a focus on making leader
training our number one priority. However, during peacetime, professional
development is especially difficult. Units may be manned at less than optimal
levels, and commanders may be tempted to "hang on" to a stellar performer,
instead of allowing them to attend the developmental opportunities they
deserve. It will be easy for many to justify short-term success for their
organization at the expense of the long-term health of our Army. Our future
leaders must be able to think strategically, understanding how their actions
affect the Army at large.

They'll have to reflect upon, and write about, the lessons
learned from the last decade of war, and they'll have to apply those lessons or
principles to future conflicts. At the same time, they'll need to realize that
future conflicts rarely resemble the last one. Our adversaries have noticed how
reliant we are on digital communications -- and are trying to hack our
computers, jam our signals, and neutralize our satellites. When these systems
fail, we'll truly appreciate the value of leader development. Mission command
can only succeed if the next generation of leaders is trained to think
strategically -- "two levels up," as we say. We need leaders who can fight and
win with minimal guidance. To do that, we must afford them the opportunities to
learn and grow, and to capitalize on their unique experiences and knowledge.

LTG William B. Caldwell is currently the commander of U.S.
Army North (Fifth Army) in Fort
Sam Houston, Texas. He will retire in July, after 37 years of active service,
to serve as the president of Georgia Military College.

Free Jonathan Pollard? I don’t think so

By Noel Koch

Best Defense guest columnist

In the run-up to President Obama's trip to the
Middle East, apologists for Jonathan
Pollard, the U.S. Navy civilian convicted of spying
for Israel, urged Pollard's release. This has become a recurring event led, strikingly, by Israeli
leaders.

Here are two reasons why it is absurd to
consider ever releasing Jonathan Pollard:

First, the
Israelis have never told us who his co-conspirators were.

Second, the
Israelis have never told us how much of the information they obtained was
traded to nations hostile to the United States.

Pollard was arrested on November 21, 1985 while
trying to escape into the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. In March 1987 he
was convicted in a
plea bargain that permitted him to avoid a public trial, as a result of which there would be no public record
and thus no public awareness of the full extent of his crimes or why he
committed them.

The narrative
aggressively promoted by his supporters in Israel and the United States paints
Pollard as a committed Zionist prompted by his love for Israel and concern for
its security. It ignores other facts, e.g. before he began spying for Israel, he
had already reached out to other
foreign intelligence organizations, one of which actually was an enemy of
Israel, in an effort to capitalize on his position as an analyst with access to
classified U.S. information. The plea agreement also helped obscure the fact
that Pollard was bought and paid for by the Israelis; his motive was money, not
warm feelings for the Jewish state.

Israel's damage
control efforts included the contention that the Pollard escapade was a rogue
operation not carried out through the nation's normal espionage channels. This
much would prove to be true. Pollard was not being run by Mossad. As
is often the case with missteps between states, this one was rooted in personal
animus. Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger's reluctance to put the lives of
American military personnel at the disposal of Israel's interests promptly
produced the usual result: a smear campaign in which Weinberger was implied to
harbor anti-Semitic sentiments. Especially ill-disposed to Weinberger was his
Israeli counterpart, Ariel Sharon. Among other things, Sharon was convinced
Weinberger was refusing to share intelligence of interest to Israel.
Accordingly, Sharon set about to get the alleged intelligence on his own.

Sharon's agent in this endeavor was legendary
Israeli intelligence operative Rafi Eitan. Rafi found his dupe in the buyable
Jonathan Pollard. Here begins an aspect of the matter hidden from public view
by the manner in which Pollard was prosecuted. It has served the Israeli
narrative for Pollard to be seen as some sort of super spy. He was nothing of
the sort. He simply exploited his trusted access to Navy computers to withdraw
information his handlers instructed him to get. At least some of the documents
were secured behind alpha-numeric designators. Pollard had no idea what these
designators represented. He was simply told to extract the associated
documents.

Thereupon rests one reason Israel has from the
outset been anxious to retrieve Pollard, and one of several very good reasons
Pollard should remain in prison to the end of his life sentence. U.S.
intelligence personnel have long known that Pollard didn't act alone and that
there were other, still unidentified (or at least unprosecuted), traitors to
America involved in this undertaking. Who identified for Pollard the specific
documents he was to pull out of the computers? Israel hasn't told us.

In the netherworld of espionage, competent national
agencies trade information. It is known that the information Israel bought from
Pollard was exchanged with other national agencies to the detriment of U.S.
interests. Some of the damage to the United States is known. Some may not be.
In any case, Israel has never given the United States a complete accounting of
what was stolen (to be sure, Pollard himself doesn't know) and what was passed
to enemies of the United States.

Jonathan Pollard got what he wanted: money,
jewelry, and paid trips in exchange for his treachery; he got what he deserved:
life in prison. Unlike Judas, who had the grace to hang himself in shame, he
lives in the hope that his purchasers will spring him so he can enjoy the
apartment set aside for him, the money they have been banking for him, and the
hero's welcome they have promised him for betraying the United States.

Noel
Koch served in the U.S. Department of Defense from 1981 to 1986. During this
time he worked with Rafi Eitan, advisor to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir on
terrorism, and later with Amiram Nir, who held the same position with Prime
Minister Shimon Peres.

Stand back!: Military wives speak, and the situation is even worse than I thought

The more I read, the
more I am persuaded that getting the leaders of the U.S. military to recognize
that marriages are different now is of utmost importance. Here is
one:

As a military spouse and struggling
professional, I've found that maintaining my career has taken Herculean efforts
on my part. My spouse is still a CGO and I eventually had to resort to more
creative measures to keep my career aspirations afloat. I truly believe there
is a giant culture shift afoot in the military community and it isn't just
Junior Officers...it's across the board. All military spouses, regardless of
their servicemembers' grade are fighting tooth and nail to hold on to a shred
of their professional identity...and many of us just give up. Unfortunately the
price of giving up is astronomical and when these military spouses try to
reenter the workforce 10, 15, or 20 years later, it's demoralizing and a slap
in the face. Thank you for writing this piece. I am dying to hear more.

And here is another:

I am the wife of a JO currently stationed at
Camp Lejeune. I am also an attorney. I have finally found work in the booming
metropolis that is Jacksonville, N.C., with the caveat that I was offered only
part-time work with no expectation of partnership (as everyone knows we will
pcs in a couple of years). Further, I make 1/5th the salary that I made when we
were married 5 years ago (my pre-Marine Corps life), and, to put that in perspective,
my former law school and law firm peers are currently law partners making 3-4
times what I was making 5 years ago. Put simply, the lost income is staggering.
Only I am responsible for my choices in life, and I certainly don't regret
mine, as I love my husband and the Marine Corps very much. But I never imagined
it would be so difficult to find work. I have applied for countless gov't
positions -- anything to get my proverbial foot in the door, mostly contract
procurement jobs for which a college degree is not required -- and have never
gotten so much as an interview. Thank you again for posting on this topic. It
is a frustrating life, for sure.

And from a thoughtful
male, after reading some of the comments from men:

I think some of the critics on this thread are
hammering on the wrong nail. They think they are hearing serving officers say,
"I wish I was posted in or near a big city." What they are actually hearing
serving officers say is, "I married an educated woman with some gumption.
There's not a lot for her to do with her education and gumption in F-ville. If
the Army doesn't think more about this, then I have two choices: (1) lose the
career or (2) lose my spouse." I don't think this is whining. I don't think
this is a case of guys saying I'm a wimp and can't make it in Fort Hole in the
Woods. This is the voice of reason looking for some reasonable answers.

Does the military encourage innovation? See at the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum

By Roxanne Bras

Best Defense
department of innovation

If you're in the military and
have a good idea, do you know where to go? As recent debates erupted over
whether the military encourages innovation and retains talent, I asked friends
this question. Many had vague notions about programs at Leavenworth/IDEA Program/Quantico,
but not a single person said he had confidence in this process. Now the plural
of ‘anecdote' is not ‘data,' but in the absence of a survey about junior
leaders' confidence in senior echelon responsiveness, I'm going to venture a
guess that the low confidence exhibited by my peers is not spurious.

But we've debated this before,
practically every month. Compare all the junior officer blog posts saying that
good officers are frustrated with a geriatric bureaucracy to all the senior
leaders' assurances that everything is fine. What do you get? I don't know,
because these discussions quickly become personal, distracted by red herrings,
and unsupported by data.

So is the military encouraging
innovation? We can write about it, or we can test it by reaching out to
emerging leaders and listening to their ideas. A group of junior officers has
come together to try and do just that. We're organizing the Defense Entrepreneurs
Forum (DEF), a three-day conference at the University of Chicago, because we believe
that our peers have great ideas, strategies, and inventions that can make our
military better. And we hope that senior leaders will work with us in this
process; this conference is developed in a spirit of duty to our military and
its continued improvement, not disloyalty or arrogance.

(Un)fortunately, this conference
couldn't be better timed: The military's run out of money. Now it must really
think. DEF hopes to provide a place where junior leaders can come together to
propose new ideas, network with people from different services and ranks, and
learn how to translate ideas into action. General officers and civilian
entrepreneurs are also attending, keeping us from just preaching to the choir.

And so you don't think we fully
drank the Kool-Aid, we'll admit it: Slogans and buzzwords about innovation and
change can sound starry-eyed. But the process of moving from brainstorming to
actionable innovations is messy and hard to capture in a bumper sticker. That's
why we want to move this conversation to a physical space where we can get
together, discuss ideas, and help create road-maps for implementation.

Please take few minutes and check out www.def2013.com, then
register and come to the conference! If you have an idea, no matter how random,
technical, or high-level, submit it to our Ideas Competition. We'll be picking
the best innovations, and the winners will be able to share their ideas at the
conference. We've also arranged for an excellent series of speakers, and lots
of time for small groups and informal discussions. Sign up for more
information, tell us what you think on our Facebook page, get
involved, and we'll see you in Chicago.

Roxanne Bras is a captain in the U.S. Army, and a member of the DEF board.  The views expressed here are her own and do
not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense, or
the U.S. government.