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From: Mike Marthaller
Date: 24 Jul 2000
Time: 07:38:37
Death Spiral.
You leave out a very important part of the equation.
The same situation is happening to the NCO Corps. The NCO's who traditionally have been able to pull the young Lt.s fat out of the fire when the stuff hits the fan.
Possibly a part of this problem is this seemingly tunnel vision concept that the way to "Fix" the modern military is only through the Officer corps.
A corps that really got it's toe hold in post WW 2 in spite of well written documents saying a lot of "O" jobs could and should be filled by warrant officers and enlisted men (WO's and EM).
Today when the education level of many NCO's is equal to "O"s this makes even less sense. The "Paper/Power Point" presentations to the congress Etc. are top heavy with career self serving Officers.
Now this is not to say the NCO's are not doing a bit of the same, but if both "O"s and NCO's are forced to work together on the Congressional presentations and the final presentation is REQUIRED to be a consensus presentation we would start to see a swing back towards a center position that would be more troops serving and less SELF Serving.
More WO"S and remember "Flying Sergeants" which in the AF could in Choppers turn loose a lot of "O" slots plus lower the cost of doing business.
You do not need a Ph.D. to lead in combat, How much "Troop" time is lost in a 20-25 year career by forcing people who wish to soldier to instead burn the candle to continue to gather more "Degrees" What ever happened to the school of hard knocks. Of learning by doing, and the opportunity to learn from actual mistakes and MORE IMPORTANTLY not being frightened that sharing them so others can learn from MY mistake will be the Career kiss of death?
Mike Marthaller
"If you surrender one freedom others must soon follow"