Thomas E. Ricks's Blog, page 220

Blog comment of the day: 'Tom Kennedy' says he is sick of hiring lazy, whining vets

This
is a well-written,
thoughtful blog post that made me think -- as did the entire discussion.
Thanks to all who participated, not just Mr. Kennedy. It also meets my metric
of being better than most of my own posts:

-- 

"I
left the Regular Army as a captain and went to work for a global corporation. I
have several colleagues at work who also left the Regular Army as captains and
now have good jobs (more on the officer side later). That is why it pains me to
write this below:

I
have had very limited success with hiring vets. The positions I need to fill
are entry level and require a high school diploma only. Starting out several
years ago, I thought that these jobs would be perfect for the typical 21 to 24-year-old first- or second- term enlistee who decided to get out and start laying
roots. So I hired a few people like that.

Without
getting into the details, my experience has been that the vets I hire expect
too much from the employer while also expecting high praise for no
accomplishments. We offered full medical and dental coverage, 401K, three weeks
paid time off to start, and a 40 hour work week. Nearly all the vets I hired
failed to learn how to manage their benefits. They didn't understand why they
had a $20 co-pay at the doctor. They didn't participate in the matching 401K
because they didn't want to see the deduction on their pay stub. They didn't
understand why they couldn't all take two week's vacation at the same time
(Christmas). Et cetera.

Worse,
the typical vet was not ready to work. We track productivity by employee and I
consistently found the vets near the bottom. After speaking and working with
these guys, it's apparent that their attitude and work ethic is lacking. Many
of them had a standoff-ish attitude among their coworkers because they'd
deployed and so-and-so stayed home. Generally, their work habits were focused
on avoiding tasks and generally hanging back to allow others to accomplish
their work for them. They very much prefer to find a small task and extend it
as long as possible in order to give the appearance of productivity.

I
haven't given up, but the last three years have been a big wake-up for me as a
civilian employer who also has military experience.

On
the officer side: Just because CPT so-and-so got out after commanding a company
and got an MBA does not mean he will step into an executive position. Officers
might have to take a pay cut from their O-3 grade to get into a new career.
And, you will never step into a position over 120 employees like you had as a
commander.

The
biggest fear of a civilian employer (at least, me) is that you will get hired,
and then drone on in your office without learning anything about your new
career and without managing your own advancement. You can not just wait out
your civilian position, take a professional development course, and then get an
automatic promotion.

So,
here are some ideas for the guys getting out:

-
Use the headhunter recruiting companies to get connected if you don't already
have an 'in' somewhere. Simple, but they stay in business because they work.

- Don't copy your OER duty description or award bullets into your resume. It's
lazy and we can tell.

- Emphasize your accomplishments over your technical duty description. If you
were rated as a 'top 3 platoon leader in the battalion,' put that in your
resume instead of your property book value. Signing for $1 million in equipment
is not an accomplishment.

- Don't talk down to civilians who don't have military experience. Sounds
simple but I hear it a lot. Also, you might not even know who you're talking
to. (I've had an AF vet try to tell me that his four month deployment was
harder than the Army's twelve month deployment because he 'couldn't get settled.')

- Have a good reason why you are leaving you military career. It can't be
because it's too much work or you can't get promoted. We know how easy it is to
get promoted and we don't want to hire a drone."

--

 

A 1983 Army War College study found 1/4 of Army brigadier generals shouldn't be

My
intrepid book researcher, J. Dana Stuster, helped me unearth a 1983 study done
at the Army War College by Lt. Col. Tilden Reid. I'd heard about this study,
and seen it cited once in Parameters
by Lt. Gen. Walter Ulmer, but had actually never been able to find a copy. (If
you find it online, please send me a link -- along with an application to be my
next researcher.)

It's
pretty strong stuff. Reid looked at the Army's new class of 25 new brigadier
generals, most of them from the infantry and artillery branches, and asked the
110 battalion commanders who had served under them to assess them.
Consistently, about one-third were rated by name as incompetent, not caring
about their people, not developing subordinates, and more managers than
leaders. Most significantly, about one-third of the battalion commanders said
they would not want to serve under that general again or be led by him in
combat. About a quarter of the new BGs should not have been promoted to that
rank, Reid bravely concludes.

The
voluntary comments at the end are especially striking. Clearly, the top third
of the new generals were real leaders. "COL ---- was the type of commander I
would want my son to serve under." "In the field, he knew his stuff better than
anyone and he reacted to changing situations with the confidence of Rommel." "I
would go to combat under his leadership anytime."

But
the bottom third are scary, especially considering this was not a survey
looking at all brigade commanders, but only that fraction promoted to
brigadier. "COL ---- said he would teach us the secrets of success that he
learned. They were deceit, misguided loyalty, finely-tuned demonstrations for
VIPs, and concentration on everything but training." "How an officer could be
selected for BG who did not know the names of his captains is beyond me." "He
lied all the time. Not once in nearly two years did I feel sure of what he was
really saying." "Several times I risked my own self-interest for what I knew
was the ethical thing to do. Other times I succumbed to his pressure and I hate
him for that." "He is pinning on stars but he lost his honor." This is the
cream of the crop?       

Reid's
bottom line: "The Army cannot afford a 25-30% error rate in selecting its
General Officers."

I
wonder what a survey today would find. Better, I think. Anybody at the Army War
College looking to demonstrate they care more about the Army than they do about
their own career?   

Rebecca's War Dog of the Week: Remembering Kory and Cooper

By Rebecca Frankel

Chief Canine Correspondent

In the summer of 2007 Cpl. Kory D. Wiens, 20,
succumbed to wounds received after an IED went off while he was on patrol in
Muhammad Sath, Iraq. Alongside of him that day was Cooper, his bomb-sniffing
yellow Labrador, who was also killed in the attack. Their remains were sent
home to Dallas, Oregon where the Wiens family buried Kory and Cooper's ashes
together.

The press release issued by the Oregon National Guard a couple of days
after his death, commended the work Kory and Cooper did together:

Their abilities to detect TNT, C-4, detonation
cords, smokeless powder and mortars saved countless lives by taking explosives
and other IED manufacturing materials off the streets of Iraq."

The press release also noted that Kory was "an
easy going kid," "a good story teller" and that he and Cooper "shared a special
bond, [and spent] most of their time together."
Last week, officials at Fort Carlson in Colorado
honored the team by dedicating The Cpl. Wiens and Cooper Dog
Park to their memory.

Kory's family, who attended the dedication
ceremony, told
reporters that he often referred to Cooper as his kid,
and fretted over being away from his dog while he was on leave. The young
handler even had hopes of re-enlisting after his three-years of service were
complete "in hopes of remaining Cooper's handler and then adopting him when
Cooper was retired."

A stinging detail of Kory's devotion to Cooper
came after the Army returned personal effects to the family. "There were so
many dog toys," Kory's grandmother told the  AP.
[[BREAK]]

In his MySpace bio -- the page, over five years old, is still active and now serves
as a memorandum message board -- the former high school quarterback wrote:

"My name is Kory Wiens, I like to work on trucks
and cars. Im from Albany Oregon. ... I love my dog that I have here, he is the
best thing in Ft.Leonard Wood. My job is to play with him all day! ... Now Im in
Iraq!!!!! Having alot of fun, hard to belive huh? Well I have Cooper with me so
everything is alright. Hopefulley ... ."

His profile picture is of Cooper, fast asleep in
his crate.

What would realistic ethical training be like? And why don't we have it?

There's a terrific, thoughtful piece
on the need for realistic ethical training in the November issue of Army magazine. It is by Kevin Bell, who
was an Army captain and left to do graduate work in Middle Eastern studies at
Princeton.

Why, Bell wonders, do we have tough and realistic combat
training, but not equally realistic ethical training? Here is what I think the
nut of the piece is:

As a profession we have to adjust our training so that we
know what to do when rage tells us that it's OK to go beyond the limits of
tactical questioning with a captive. We can't stop there, though. We need to
talk to our peers and subordinates about the real challenges of ethical
leadership in a way that acknowledges how our job culture can warp our
understanding of morality.

There is a lot more to quote in the article. First, he says,
let's stop pretending that there is a huge distance between someone who
tortures and someone who is a good officer. Also, don't make people think
through the ethical distinctions for the first time when they are seized with
rage and grief over the death of a comrade. But, he continues, "lack of realism
in detainee training is only the most obvious problem."  

Don't just preach to small unit leaders, he says. Give them
concrete support that enables them to operationalize ethical standards. "It isn't
enough to know the rules if we are still unsure in a time of weakness what to
do with detainees who might have tactically useful information."

Bell's only misstep, I think, is his last sentence, about
how if these changes are made, "The next generation of junior leaders will
thank us." This rings false to me. Actually, if he is right -- and I believe he
is -- I doubt they will thank anybody, they will just assume this is the right
way to do things. (As a writer, I think people often go on a little too far in
their conclusions.)

But that's a minor gripe. It is an article worth reading,
and Army magazine is to be commended for running it. I hereby award it The Best
Defense prize for best defense commentary of the month. 

Gray and strategy (III): Not using time in warfare? Then it may be used against you

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I was glad to see Gray
in his 17th essay tackle time as an issue in warfare. This was something that I
puzzled about in Iraq but never really felt I came to understand. In the first
two years of the war I had the sense that time was wasting, that opportunities
were passing by not to come again, but that no one seemed to be noticing this.
(I also was amazed back in 2004 that the phrase "tactical patience" was seen by
some officers as a contradiction in terms.)

"Time is rarely neutral," he writes. "If it is not used
wisely by one belligerent, it is likely to be a vital weapon in the enemy's
arsenal."

I would have understood the war better if I had seen this
sentence back in 2004: "in irregular warfare, that between guerrillas and
regular forces, time can actually be the prime weapon of the militarily weaker
side."

Update from Afghanistan: This guy says the cuts in RC East will hurt the transition

By "An American Official"

Best Defense guest whistleblower

Regional Command-East has forgone efforts aimed at
transition in favor of continuing kinetic warfare. In an order issued in late
September, provincial reconstruction teams throughout the easternmost provinces
of Afghanistan are facing dramatic cuts, upwards of 60 percent for some, by the
end of the year. The effort is an attempt to meet President Barrack Obama's
goal of cutting deployed military forces by perhaps 23,000.

While RC-E is making cuts across the board, other commands
are trying to avoid fragmenting PRTs, which serve as the driving force behind
transition. PRTs are comprised of military, Department of State, U.S.
Department of Agriculture, and USAID experts who are highly specialized in
combating sources of instability through empowering and mentoring civic
leaders, constructing development projects, and educating public. They serve as
a positive U.S. presence in a nation devastated by decades of war and strife.

As the U.S. tries to move toward a feasible "exit
strategy," many PRTs are laying the foundations for U.S. consulates to
house DoS, USAID, and USDA representatives for years to come. However, with
cuts favoring the traditional warfighter in the East, PRTs will be forced to
"do less with less," while still struggling to bring transition to
war-torn areas of Afghanistan.

For the last five years, PRTs have suffered reduced freedom
of movement and the ability to show US presence in a positive way. As a stepchild,
PRTs now fall under the battle space owners, who could care less about the PRT
mission as long as "bad guys" are still alive.

In Iraq, the success of PRTs was largely due to structuring
them under the U.S. ambassador. However, in Afghanistan, PRTs are a
"two-headed monster" with the civilian components reporting to the
embassy and U.S. forces reporting to the brigade task force. "Infantry
runs the Army," marginalizing the impact of PRTs and making them
subordinate to a kinetic force. [[BREAK]]

PRTs fall under the same guidance as the warfighter,
patrolling with heavy guns and strong military presence. However, just a few
years ago, PRTs, who fought to remain separated from the battle space owners,
drove pick-up trucks and could walk among the community. The idea was simple:
"The more risk you take, the less you are at risk." Local people
could see that the PRT was there to help, but that has long evaporated in favor
of combat since the infamous surge. After all, battle space owners could not
let PRTs be without their gross oversight, so they swallowed them under their
commands.

By early next year, in specific areas of the East, PRTs will
soon rely solely on battle space, kinetic warfighters to accomplish their
mission. Throughout Afghanistan the public understands the distinction between
PRT and "door kickers," but those once clear lines are being blurred.
This blending may look to save taxpayer money and reduce redundancy, but that
is dependent on mission priority. With a focus on kinetics, one can expect PRTs
will be left thumbing a ride and often left in the dust. Additionally, the same
people who attacked Taliban, destroyed buildings and perhaps incidentally
killed civilians will now transport DoS, USAID, USDA, and uniformed PRT members
to some of those same villages. Although protected by the might of highly
skilled and trained warriors, perhaps the civilian counterparts will look like
easy targets.

Since the surge of military forces in 2009, Afghan support
of U.S. presence in the country has dropped to near all-time lows. The drop
seemingly corresponds to increased combat operations; additionally, there has
been an increase in attacks against U.S. forces. This may be because there are
more troops on the ground, but it may also have to do with decreased trust in
what U.S. forces are doing in the region.

PRTs exist to strengthen trust, faith, and confidence in the Afghan and U.S.
governments, while kinetic warfare seems aimed at destabilizing Taliban forces
regardless of the cost. Although the cost is clear, new cuts jeopardize efforts
even more.

As U.S. efforts in Afghanistan aim to return troops,
Department of State and other U.S. agencies will be left "holding down the
fort." Without a strong PRT presence to remain by their side, they will
instead be left "holding the bag."

"An American Official"
may be the guy sitting to your right. Or may not be. You never really know, do
you?  

Actually, failure IS an option

If there is one
phrase I could expunge from the U.S. military vocabulary, it would be that
"Failure is not an option." Of course it is. And refusing to think
about it seriously actually makes a bad outcome more likely.

Yesterday morning one
of my smart CNAS colleagues, Shannon O' Reilly, was wondering aloud why the
Pentagon didn't plan more for the option of the United States being kicked out
of Iraq. The excuse being given, apparently, is that there was worry that such
planning would leak.

I think that is just
too damn convenient an alibi. I actually think that the bureaucracy dislikes
planning for anything less than victory. No one likes planning retreats. The
Army especially emphasizes optimism even when it isn't called for.

The problem with this
is that, as David Kilcullen has pointed out repeatedly over the years, the host
government you establish in places like Afghanistan and Iraq must at some point
stand on its own two feet and demonstrate its independence. Inevitably, it will
have to distance itself from the U.S. government. Basically, we should have expected to be kicked out at some point.
In fact, had we done so, it might have been spun as a sign of success. But that
would require some unconventional thinking, some serious consideration of the
American relationship with host nation governments --and some long-term
planning for that day of expulsion.

What makes this blog fun to do: A robust exchange between Hammel and Hunter about the meaning of that Marine photo

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I really liked this exchange
between "Hunter," whom we know to be an Army officer, and Eric Hammel, about
Hammel's guest column Monday about his favorite Marine photo of World War II. I
don't know who is correct, but both made me think. I suspect Hammel may be
right here. I remember a guy who had been an intelligence officer in the
Pacific in World War II recounting how he decoded a message and saw that he was
going to be involved in the planned invasion of Japan. He thought, Well, that's
it, I am going to die this year. Then he vomited.

I wonder if a counterintuitive metric of blog quality is how often the
comments are better than the average post. (Speaking of blogs, wouldn't "The
Burn Pit" be a good name for a blog about daily life while deployed to a
combat zone?)

Anyway, Hunter wrote:

While it's
nice to think well of these folks, and they certainly did their job and did it
well...but I can't help but think, through my cynical eyes, that the thoughts
running through these guys heads were "1) this shit sucks 2) we're all
gonna die 3) we're skylining like mofos." In no particular order.

Sorry it's not
the prettified version, but it's probably pretty real.

Eric Hammel replied:

I thought
about the above comments all day. What I conclude is that you don't think the
way American troops in the Pacific thought during the spring of 1945. This
takes nothing away from your experience, and it adds nothing to theirs. The
times are not the same.

The men in the
photo knew that they were nearing the end of a long war. They thought they
would die on Okinawa or Kyushu or Honshu, so they felt they had little to lose
by rushing across open ground or a skyline. In fact, getting killed or wounded
on any day on Okinawa was better than the pain of living in order to be killed
or wounded later. My father, who had barely escaped the claws of the Holocaust
and had already fought on Leyte, ended eighteen days in the line on Okinawa
with a shattered hand. He felt for the rest of his long life as if, by virtue
of just the last, he had won the ultimate lottery.

The Japanese
on Okinawa had built a hedgehog defense within a hedgehog defense in twisted
hill country composed of one skyline after another. They knew what they were
about. Once the Americans engaged the outer hedgehog, they were all in a war of
attrition. But the Japanese had no recourse to troops--or anything--that wasn't
on Okinawa on the first day of battle. The Americans had unlimited resources to
bring up and bring in as needed, which they did--two army infantry divisions
and a Marine regimental combat team were added to the original Tenth Army OOB.
Both sides knew how the cards had been dealt. The four Marines in the photo
knew it. So the thing I think the four were going over in their heads were: Can
I drop fast enough if the other side opens fire? If not, will it be quick?
Because, with me or without me, we are winning.

Thanks, vets! Now get lost. Or, how I found out that ex-military need not apply

by Matt Collins

Best Defense potential bonus marcher

Last week, the
Wall Street Journal had an article
about a company that had 25,000 applicants for a single position but did not
hire anyone because none of the applicants were "qualified." The
author, an HR expert from Wharton, cited this kind of inflexiblity, refusal to
pay competitive wages, and the death of corporate training and apprenticeships
as contributing to unemployment. Veterans are some of the hardest hit hit by
this insanity.

While I
understand that it is difficult to translate military experience into the
civilian job market, this is getting out of hand. Reuters just ran a
story that mentioned a medic who couldn't use his background to get a job
as he would need two more years of school to get the same civlian medical
qualifications he had in the military. I know one grunt with tours in Iraq and
Afghanistan who bagged groceries for two years after he got out, then took a
job as a defense contractor in Afghanistan. I recently applied for a job as a
security guard, but didn't get it because I did not have the right credentials.
I've carried a gun in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, but I apparently need
more training and licenses to carry one around an office building. 

There have been
some great intiatives to try to help veterans use their military background in
the civilian world. But, some skills simply don't cross over. There are no
civilian artillery observers or mortarmen. My roommate at Annapolis was a SEAL.
He has a degree in oceanography, speaks fluent Hindi, and is frighteningly good
at swimming and shooting people. I wonder where he will take those skills in
the private sector. I know of some service academy grads who don't list their
time in the military on their resumes.

As the military
draws down in Iraq and Afghanistan, more and more veterans are going to try to
enter the workforce. The Department of Defense and others have threatened
stated
that defense cuts could raise unemployment another percent. I understand that I
bear the brunt of the responsbility for translating my experience into civilian
language. I don't expect companies to meet me halfway, but a little consideration
would be nice. If firms are going to continue to expect perfect candiates to
emerge fully formed from Zeus's head like Athena, a lot more veterans are going
to be filing for unemployment. At least
the defense contractors are still hiring ... for now.

Matthew Collins spent 10 years as a Marine
Intelligence Officer, including tours with 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion, the
Defense Intelligence Agency and the British Army. Now he's an otherwise unemployed
MBA student at St. Louis University.

Who had the first democratic system?

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Like I said, I've been reading further afield lately, and am
almost finished with Michael Grant's The
Rise of the Greeks, which is my idea of fun. Fill in this blank: "Thus
in respect of basic equalities, [ ] was the first authentic, thoroughgoing
democracy among the Greeks or anywhere in the world, as far as its citizens
were concerned." (P. 93, paperback)

The answer is below.

Grant also says that the early Greek philosopher Anaximander was poking
around with evolutionary theory, hypothesizing that "higher formers had
developed from lower forerunners, so that human beings, at first a kind of fish
in the water, had shed their scales on dry land so as to adjust their way of
life to this new earthy medium." (P. 162)

So what is the answer? Oddly, Sparta. He also says that
Spartan women enjoyed unusual privileges, with property rights, the right to
speak freely, and freedom to engage in adulterous affairs, partly "owing to the
continuous and urgent need to maintain and increase the Spartan birthrate." (P.
98) I guess this was the Spartan version of "don't ask, don't tell."