-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Soldiers For The Truth Foundation "Are Things Getting Better?" TABLE OF CONTENTS SITREP From The President - 13 JUNE 2001 Through Zman’s Gun Sight - It’s Not Getting Any Better! HACK’s Target For The Week - Happy Birthday Joe & Jane The Big Picture: Article 01 – Pentagon Scales Back Expectations for Dramatic Change Article 02 – Army Ad Not Right 'One,' Foes Say Article 03 – China's Army Practices Taking Island Voice of the Grunt: Article 04 – Technology vs. People Power Article 05 – Quality of Recruits; A Mixed Bag - Non-Deployable Females Article 06 – Officer Shortages: Mustangs Might Be An Answer Article 07 – Thinking We’re a Business is Putting Us Out of Business Article 08 – Bad Military Leaders – You Can’t Vote Them Out! The Sergeant’s Corner: Article 09 – Saudi Arabia – A Positive Experience Article 10 – Leadership By Survey: The Management Disease Military Health Care: Article 11 – Anthrax: Parents Become Activists Article 12 – Self-fulfilling Hindsight Special Feature: General James Gavin Scholarship Established at Harvard GI Humor: Article 13 – A Bird Dog Named Colonel Medal of Honor: Article 14 – Father & Son: MacARTHUR, Arthur, Jr. & Douglas Admin / Log Net Editors Note - Article Submission - Contacts - Service Editors Donations - Subscribe - Unsubscribe - Archives Text Only - Printer Friendly Version SITREP: SITUATION REPORT: 13 JUNE 2001 Thanks for all the responses to our recent issues. Let me know if there are topics you’re interested or concerned about that SFTT should cover with a little burst of fire. Key for our activist intent is that you keep forwarding your take on relevant issues to your political representatives. Questions of the Week: 1. Do you think life and readiness in your service is improving? 2. Still interested in your opinions on the Light Armored Vehicle (LAV III). 3. Army personnel: Give us your SITREP on the Beret introduction. Support - Admin / Logistics: Donations: Keep us in the fight! Compare and read the AUSA magazine and similar publications and check how many sergeants, vets and regular troops get a word in, compared to general officers and field grades. Make secure online donations from the web site at URL: http://www.SFTT.org/donations.html. For Check or Money Order Contributions, make your check payable and mail to: Soldiers For The Truth Foundation Post Office Box 63840 Colorado Springs, CO 80962-3840 SFTT is a 501 (c) 3 Non-Profit Educational Foundation. The SFTT IRS EIN is 31-1592564. All donations to Soldiers For The Truth Foundation are tax deductible. How You Can Help: You can help with your continued financial support - Article Submissions - Forwarding SFTT Signals to your local papers and elected representatives. Sending Letters to the Editor and to Local News Outlets. And always feel free to send the "Truth" to Soldiers For The Truth Foundation (SFTT). Privacy Policy: We respect your privacy and will not compromise your identity, your e-mail address or your duty position. Your confidentiality is guaranteed. SFTT does not sell or give away our mailing list or any membership information. Please contact us for assistance on "Secure Communications Methods". POC on Network Security is "Top Viking" E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] SFTT Contacts: Send Articles & Information to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Talk to the Boss: If your message is urgent and you think Zimm needs to see it now, fire it directly to the President/Editor in Chief at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] SFTT Contacts: - www.SFTT.org/contacts.html Volunteer Editor's: www.SFTT.org/volunteer.html SFTT Team Members: You are our most valuable asset. You are the frontline recruiters, information sources and intel gatherers for Soldiers For The Truth. Keep up the good work. Thank you for your support. Prepare for Action -- "Crew Ready! -- LOAD SABOT -- DRIVER MOVE OUT!" Ralf W. Zimmermann President SFTT E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Zman Through Zman’s Gun Sight It’s Not Getting Any Better! By Ralf W. (Zimm) Zimmermann President, Soldiers For The Truth SFTT Dateline USA - 6 June 2001 Study after study confirms that our Army and the military culture are coming apart at the seams. Attrition of experienced, but disillusioned hands is hurting readiness, but senior leadership hasn’t done more than apply band-aids and commission follow-up surveys. Since I left the Army in 2000, I’ve maintained constant contact with those who spin the wheels and who put steel on target. Their letters and calls reveal the truths that identify the ills and the possible solutions to our readiness problems. After the last survey reports, I was bombarded with messages from old soldiers who know the deal but who are seldom asked for input. Why doesn’t anyone take guys like a Chief Warrant Officer 5 (CW5) with 35 years in the trenches, as soldier, NCO and officer seriously? Here are some examples what he and others say about life in a unit of the Army’s rapid deployment Corps. * On leadership: "After 35 years, I can no longer deal with poor leadership. Today’s leaders are more scared of the equal opportunity office than of getting soldiers killed. They strive to outdo each other with superficialities, instead of conducting morale-boosting training. Checking the box and lying defines life as an officer today." One junior Captain reiterated to the Chief that she was leaving the Army because of "cat box" leadership. She explained it as leadership, too busy with covering up crap, instead of tackling low morale and training troops. * On training: Today’s troops are spending lots of time in the field but get little training. The CW5 stressed that recently, it required 2,000 troops to provide the training "scenery" for 25 senior officers, when a command and control exercise or a simple terrain walk could have done the trick. * On female troops: "Leaders are terrified of female soldiers, and scared to make them meet standards. Why else are they selling size 8 7/8 hats in the clothing sales store other than trying to circumvent making females meet hair standards? When the body fat limit for females was 34%, many couldn’t meet the standard. Leadership solution: Raising the limit to 36% -- and still, the same number can’t meet the lowered standards." * On standards: Units are constantly lowering standards for discipline and reenlistment. Recently, a Division redefined "good troop": "Leaders on post were told that separation criteria would be increasingly scrutinized. We were told that if a soldier had less than four "hot" urinalysis results, we would still keep him/her. Good leaders should turn a habitual drug user around." Even weight control is no longer rigorously enforced, while failed Physical Fitness (PT) tests are blamed on the unit and bad junior leaders. * On the war-fighting ethos: Many NCOs maintained that many of their soldiers would run, if faced by a determined enemy force. The lowest number the CW5 recalled was around 25%. "Half of the female troops and about a third of the male troops actually believe that the Army shouldn’t be focused on war." * On taking care of the troops: Today’s soldiers believe the military should be focused on taking care of them. "The only difference between 50% of our Army and welfare recipients on the outside is we wear uniforms." * On senior NCOs: "Our Sergeants Major used to take care of soldiers. Now they have turned into enlisted generals. I am sick of hearing E9s talk about how they are taking care of our troops while playing pseudo commander. First Sergeants used to be real soldiers and set the example, now they answer with their titles, and not their names. Since when did 1SGs become royalty?" The old trooper concluded his letter: "I have tried to fight the good fight. I have always chosen doing the right thing over the party line and I have made a few friends in my 35 years. Given a choice, I would not change anything I have done, but I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel." The Chief, who has my utmost respect as an old warrior, clearly identified many of the ills that I too experienced during my last years on active duty. I highlighted them in a retirement letter that made it into newspapers and a leadership piece in Army Times about two years ago. My hope then was that things would improve, for the benefit of a better and more lethal Army. To finally get things moving, the new Secretary of the Army should pick the brains of old warriors, like the CW5, who is retiring soon. Copyright © 2001 - R.W. Zimmermann, LandserUSA. All rights reserved. [EMAIL PROTECTED] HACK HACK’s Target For The Week - Happy Birthday Joe and Jane By David Hackworth This week, the U.S. Army celebrates its 226th birthday. And while it's an institution that's served our country well, it's sure showing its age. Like most organizations that have grown long in the tooth, the Army has become a massive, top-heavy bureaucracy that's thin on fighters and heavy on memo-writers and brass. Chances are it no longer has the right stuff to storm the beaches like Col. Jim Van Fleet's regiment did at Normandy or smash a powerful Chinese Red foe the way Col. Paul Freeman's regiment did at Chipyong-ni. Feats like those are the Army's reason for being - defending America - and we can't afford to take chances with our national security and risk our warriors' lives in the interests of social experiments that run against the grain of soldiering. Instead of protecting us in the 21st century by maintaining the high and hard kill-or-be-killed standards key to surviving the Normandys and Chipyong-nis, the U.S. Army has become a flabby, politically correct corporation that no longer has the kind of senior leadership the Van Fleets and Freemans provided. For the past 50 years, I've watched the Army slowly disintegrate. It's gone from an Army where sergeants were sergeants and captains were captains and where no one above them would dare do their jobs, to generals micromanaging squads and companies - and where trust in any rank above major seldom exists. Unless, that is, a soldier is fortunate enough to be in a Ranger battalion or in a unit with a CO who's somehow escaped the corporate mentality that's been strangling our Army since it started copying Big Business's management techniques. Back in the Van Fleet/Freeman Army, commanders didn't flit into command, punch their corporate card and flit out. They stayed with their soldiers year after year, gaining their trust by their own example - and along the way they learned how to fight and lead. Recently retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, who's now busy bad-mouthing the Pentagon for his screwing up the Serbian War, is one of the new corporate-general types. Clark, with a total of seven years with troops out of 33 years of service, spent the other 26 years punching his corporate ticket in "career essential assignments" such as getting a graduate degree, serving in the White House, being a general's aide and doing time on high staffs. All were critical punches for him if he wanted to wear stars in our modern Army. Freeman and Van Fleet didn't go to Harvard Business School, nor did they have graduate degrees from fancy universities. But they had degrees in their soldiering trade earned at the University of Hard Knocks, where they learned to lead troops well and win battles by doing. The corporate copycatting and ticket-punching started during the Korean War; by the time we got into Vietnam, it had so accelerated that few at the top understood that guerrilla war. Battalion and brigade COs were rotated out every six months, and the average company CO's time with troops was three months. Officers were too busy playing musical chairs, advancing their careers, to learn their trade, and the grunts quickly - and survival-smartly - lost all trust for their officer leadership. The lion's share of our Army's serving generals' resumes are frighteningly similar to Clark's. Few have a clue about what's going down with the troops. Most are a reflection of their gurus. A corporate general mentors a bright captain - who reminds him of himself way back when - and guides his career, then the captain eventually becomes a general - an exact clone of his mentor - and the institutionalized sickness is passed on. Five years ago, I told the Army Chief of Staff that hundreds of disheartened sergeants and captains were telling me they were quitting because the Army had lost its way. He said I was wrong: "My staff assures me that Army attrition is well below average." The general was into big-time denial. Tens of thousands of our best and brightest have since quit, and the hemorrhage continues. The black beret that our soldiers will slap on their heads this week as "An Army of One" birthday present won't fix the problem. Only leadership can do that. Sadly, I see few serving generals made of the same stuff as Freeman or Van Fleet. David Hackworth's Updated Web Site is at Web URL: http://www.Hackworth.com Send mail to P.O. Box 5210, Greenwich, CT 06831. *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? 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