Green Beret Open Letter

[Danger41]

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/15/570810197/u-s-army-green-berets-accused-from-within-of-lowering-standards

 

An unnamed SFQC cadre member wrote a letter talking about how the culture at the SFQC has changed to drive graduation numbers up instead of getting the right guy for the job. Pretty damning accusations that sound very similar to a lot of the complaints I hear from the UPT bros.

I think the author(s) raise interesting points with not too much in the way of emotional grandstanding.

Also, the response from the 2 Star is interesting in his defense of treating the objective measurements as diagnostics and not pass/fail events.

Thoughts?

[Heavywanabe]

Poor Army guy, so many emotions in his open letter....

 

 

[juacey]

Having been in an FTU that has never washed out a pilot (100% graduation rate), I can confirm this is a morale drain. 

[ClearedHot]

The impacts of these decisions will be paid in blood across all of the services.  Our accident rate is already trending up and I predict a big spike over the next 2-3 years as we flood the combat forces with inexperience that should have been filtered at the RTU/Selection process. 

[Mark1]

4 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

The impacts of these decisions will be paid in blood across all of the services...

Yes, and they already have.  Sadly, it's going to take something massive to turn the trend around.  Watched an incident make front page news for weeks.  When it was adjudicated human error was cited but the root cause of diminishing standards wasn't even mentioned.  A few individuals were removed from duty as aberrations in an otherwise healthy system with the implication that the mess had been cleaned up.  That's a lot easier for brass to do than to accept that the system they watch over is fundamentally flawed...as a result of their command decisions.  Media happily went away after the spectacle died down and business continues as usual.

[di1630]

Yes, and they already have.  Sadly, it's going to take something massive to turn the trend around.  Watched an incident make front page news for weeks.  When it was adjudicated human error was cited but the root cause of diminishing standards wasn't even mentioned.  A few individuals were removed from duty as aberrations in an otherwise healthy system with the implication that the mess had been cleaned up.  That's a lot easier for brass to do than to accept that the system they watch over is fundamentally flawed...as a result of their command decisions.  Media happily went away after the spectacle died down and business continues as usual.

Which incident?

[Mark1]

12 hours ago, di1630 said:

Which incident?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunduz_hospital_airstrike

You can pretty much ignore any of the specific factors focused on in any media report of the incident, or Gen. Campbell's briefing of the incident's investigation results.  They're all contributing, not causal, factors.  The causal factors are much more fundamental.

[fire4effect]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmudiyah_rape_and_killings What happens when you really lower standards. I remember a pre deployment meeting long ago where a medical officer casually stated that she was in the process of obtaining an adequate supply (for the duration) of anti depressants for those deploying soldiers  who had been prescribed them. Talk about a WTF moment. Perfect example of the "Strategic  E-4" A small group of low level troops doing something stupid with strategic implications. More than a few attacks were carried out by the locals/insurgency in retaliation. Unfortunately not the only example. To all you junior officers and NCOs remember you set the tone/example for the behavior of those under you and I frankly wonder where they were when this all went down.