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I'm sorry, I just can't make out your words through the sound of you sucking police cock in the alley there
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Jan 1, 2015 06:49
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I remember in garrison up in Alaska, we had a training exercise where we went to Fairbanks from Anchorage to do some stupid "cold weather" training. They sent our entire brigade in all the brigades vehicles on the 350 mile drive, sucking jp-8 at 40 miles per hour the whole way. Then we got there and did nothing that we couldn't do in Anchorage, in weather that was basically no worse. To make things worse, a fuel truck crashed on the way back on the icy roads. Just millions upon millions of dollars wasted on something that provided absolutely nothing that no one asked for. It's ridiculous how things like this just happen, and no one seems to know how or why.
Volkerball fucked around with this message at 06:54 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 06:50
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Haha do you really think somebody pushed their finger through the wall of a naval ship into the ocean outside.
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Jan 1, 2015 06:50
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I'm willing to believe that the rank incompetence of what passes for the United States' imperial military would let its hardware degrade to worthlessness at anchor, yes certainly.
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Jan 1, 2015 06:52
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zeal posted:I'm sorry, I just can't make out your words through the sound of you sucking police cock in the alley there
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Jan 1, 2015 06:56
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copper rose petal posted:Haha do you really think somebody pushed their finger through the wall of a naval ship into the ocean outside. While what that poster described never happened (as paint isn't going to hold back even the lightest lapping of water against it) the navy did buy a boat that experienced 'aggressive disintegration on the molecular level' from contact with water.
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Jan 1, 2015 07:08
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Raskolnikov38 posted:While what that poster described never happened (as paint isn't going to hold back even the lightest lapping of water against it) the navy did buy a boat that experienced 'aggressive disintegration on the molecular level' from contact with water. The magic of campaign finance!
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Jan 1, 2015 07:13
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Tezzor posted:I am against middle-class first worlders killing hundreds of thousands of actual bread-stealers because they would prefer not to work at Target or pay off student loans at the standard rate. Lol if you a think minimum wage is anywhere close to paying off student loans you prick. Also, the standard rates as D and D loves to point out puts people in poverty and is a major economic drag but that is another conversation. Also, for those of us who have had [at least from my history] literal generations of radical Islamist [google boko haram ]terrorists attack us while mealy mouthed liberals like yourself watched, the ability to make them at least think again about attempting to expand beyond their sphere of interest. Also calling them bread stealers is a lark when as daeash/ISIL has millions of dollars in oil wealth/stolen funds. Sorry I don't fit your "middle class white" narrative. Also to Zeal, I have seen the oldest and newest platforms, and sorry, but your roommate was probably someone bullshitting a civilian for their own ego boosting reasons, and while say Big E may be rusty, it would not spring a leak into the ocean in that manner. RCK-101 fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 09:25
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Tezzor posted:I am against middle-class first worlders killing hundreds of thousands of actual bread-stealers because they would prefer not to work at Target or pay off student loans at the standard rate.
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Jan 1, 2015 09:55
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Tezzor posted:The class structure of the United States as it exists has no real use or need for large quantities of people, specifically to this point, young people. They are under the current schema superfluous by definition. If you advocate the use of the military to patch this hole, you are not only throwing thousands of actually poor people (at best) upon the temple altar, you are also advocating in practice not only that the underlying problem not be fixed, but also that it be patched in an extremely bloody, inefficient and counterproductive manner. Indeed, much like Dickensian England had no use for the surplus population, scrooge 2.0. Keep on advocating for death to the poor all you like, I guess.
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Jan 1, 2015 10:02
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Ryand-Smith posted:Lol if you a think minimum wage is anywhere close to paying off student loans you prick. Also, the standard rates as D and D loves to point out puts people in poverty and is a major economic drag but that is another conversation. Also, for those of us who have had [at least from my history] literal generations of radical Islamist [google boko haram ]terrorists attack us while mealy mouthed liberals like yourself watched, the ability to make them at least think again about attempting to expand beyond their sphere of interest. Also calling them bread stealers is a lark when as daeash/ISIL has millions of dollars in oil wealth/stolen funds. Sorry I don't fit your "middle class white" narrative. Note the intellect and level-headedness of the kind of person to which we give ultimate power over life and death.
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Jan 1, 2015 13:17
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The Aardvark posted:Please tell us poors what qualifies as a "middle-class first worlder" so I can tell my mom she's part of the middle class. If your mom has a US military career she is almost certainly a part of the middle class and obviously lives in or is from the first world.
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Jan 1, 2015 13:20
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Tezzor posted:Note the intellect and level-headedness of the kind of person to which we give ultimate power over life and death. So, you say things that mean nothing and refuse to answer my points? Also like a good chunk of he modern mil I am support. I am Navy, and if I am providing direct fire, WW3 has occurred. But this is coming from someone who does nothing but provide useless armchair general style posts which attack opinion and not the content. Also, until you hit the mid grade ranks it is real easy to be at or below the federal poverty line, doubly so if you have kids. Please research more before posting, friend.
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Jan 1, 2015 14:14
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Ryand-Smith posted:Lol if you a think minimum wage is anywhere close to paying off student loans you prick. Also, the standard rates as D and D loves to point out puts people in poverty and is a major economic drag but that is another conversation. Also, for those of us who have had [at least from my history] literal generations of radical Islamist [google boko haram ]terrorists attack us while mealy mouthed liberals like yourself watched, the ability to make them at least think again about attempting to expand beyond their sphere of interest. Also calling them bread stealers is a lark when as daeash/ISIL has millions of dollars in oil wealth/stolen funds. Sorry I don't fit your "middle class white" narrative. Maybe you should go back to that country you care about and fight in their military. They can mobilize for war, raise taxes, enact conscription and run them off, they don't need US help. If the US actually had to mobilize for its wars they would be fought in a much more productive way.
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Jan 1, 2015 16:09
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OctaMurk posted:Nope, but he is so narcissistic and sounds so juvenile that he comes across as satire. He's also kind of a piece of poo poo and got fired from an American university in Iraq. A university that used an American history textbook written by Bill Bennett. Being fired from that kind of job is a badge of honor.
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Jan 1, 2015 17:05
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First of all, thank you for serving during those mean years. A lot of interesting things in your post- I'll try to find time tonight to respond.
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Jan 1, 2015 17:34
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Tezzor posted:If your mom has a US military career she is almost certainly a part of the middle class and obviously lives in or is from the first world. ahahahahahahaha
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Jan 1, 2015 17:39
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Weltlich posted:On one hand we have officers, which derive their commission from Congress and lead on its behalf. Major point here. It's the President, not Congress. That's why an order from an Officer is legal. The Officer derives his/her authority from the Commander in Chief. To your other point: Who will create the policies and regulations for the military? Who is the end of the line for authority that must be obeyed (unless you want to take votes and have discussions during battles)? I've thought about the problems with the officer corps, but I can't come up with anything that doesn't just create another officer corps.
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Jan 1, 2015 17:52
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spacetoaster posted:Major point here. It's the President, not Congress. That's why an order from an Officer is legal. The Officer derives his/her authority from the Commander in Chief. There's a severe racial and class divide between officers and enlisted men so even if you do it on a meritocratic scale (which is flawed for other reasons) you'll probably have a better situation than what exists today. I'm curious as to how that would effect the ROTC/military academies around the US though.
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Jan 1, 2015 17:55
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Ryand-Smith posted:So, you say things that mean nothing and refuse to answer my points? Also like a good chunk of he modern mil I am support. I am Navy, and if I am providing direct fire, WW3 has occurred. But this is coming from someone who does nothing but provide useless armchair general style posts which attack opinion and not the content. Also, until you hit the mid grade ranks it is real easy to be at or below the federal poverty line, doubly so if you have kids. Please research more before posting, friend. Presumably if someone is in a career role in the military and has a child old enough to be making relatively coherent posts on the something awful forums, they are at or above the middle ranks; not that, of course, first world poverty is or would be a justifiable excuse to be actively and voluntarily complicit in the mass death of people living in absolute poverty. I didn't notice any other points that weren't asinine cliches, and thus chose to ignore them.
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Jan 1, 2015 18:54
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spacetoaster posted:Major point here. It's the President, not Congress. That's why an order from an Officer is legal. The Officer derives his/her authority from the Commander in Chief. This was a problem in the French Revolutionary Army after it purged the officer corps of aristocrats. I recommend Swords Around a Throne: Napoleon's Grande Armée by John Robert Elting
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Jan 1, 2015 18:55
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Dilkington posted:First of all, thank you for serving during those mean years. Why do people say poo poo like this? What service? This is the real issue in the article in the OP. The author frames it as a small yet somewhat tragic sociological phenomenon that everybody barfs out these rote nationalist statements thanking The Troops, but the reality of the military only effects a statistically small number of people. He doesn't really present any resolution to this, flirting with advocating conscription but never saying it. The resolution is to stop the deference. The dissonance disappears when there is no difference between not particularly caring about them in words and not particularly caring about them in action. The author presents himself openly as a draft dodger, to the derision of many posters in this thread. I'm not sure why. I understand that the argument goes that someone else had to take his place, and maybe that person suffered as a result. This is not a defensible argument. We killed millions of people in Indochina, with effects that still directly persist decades later through birth defects, mines, unexploded ordinance, etc. Anyone who subverted that effort in any way including direct use of violence is far more heroic than someone who did what the government told them and perpetuated the slaughter. If that means that some poor slob got shot in the author's place, when looking at the scale of the death on the other side and the pointlessness of it all that is perfectly acceptable collateral damage.
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Jan 1, 2015 19:16
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I guess the interesting question in my mind that has been raised now is how do you make the officer group more of a technocrat meritocracy? There are still going to be problems with people starting at a disadvantage from their upbringing as long as all are not equal, but how do you design a military command structure from scratch that avoids most of the pitfalls we are currently struggling with?
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Jan 1, 2015 21:04
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RuanGacho posted:I guess the interesting question in my mind that has been raised now is how do you make the officer group more of a technocrat meritocracy? There are still going to be problems with people starting at a disadvantage from their upbringing as long as all are not equal, but how do you design a military command structure from scratch that avoids most of the pitfalls we are currently struggling with? You don't. It's not possible. Ultimately, there are too many vital skills that can't be strictly quantified and tested, and that in turn means that charisma and talent for asskissing is going to skew promotions. You mitigate the problem to some degree, but it's not a solvable problem.
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Jan 1, 2015 21:12
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Outsource the promotion board to private contractors.
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Jan 1, 2015 21:24
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Volkerball posted:Outsource the promotion board to private contractors. Disclaimer: I am applying civilian business observations to the military. That would improve things but can't solve the problem. Ultimately, some familiarity with the candidates is required, since there's more to qualifications than testable technical knowledge and even practical skills. Personal and organizational skills and even the ever-nebulous 'attitude' are vital to any successful group enterprise. These are the 'leadership' skills that loving everyone likes to go on about. The problem is that it's not possible to objectively these skills, since any interviewer is going to inevitably feel that candidates that are similar to them (or who can act as such) have stronger leadership skills. It's an unavoidable subconscious bias. Th simple fact is that you can't take human perception and human error out of the equation.
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Jan 1, 2015 22:00
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computer parts posted:There's a severe racial and class divide between officers and enlisted men so even if you do it on a meritocratic scale (which is flawed for other reasons) you'll probably have a better situation than what exists today. The merit thing can be very problematic. In the 90's Officer evaluations where very narrative based meaning that your boss would write a page (or so) personal narrative about you (how good of a leader you were, your potential, education, major accomplishments, etc). If your boss liked you, or hated you, he/she could write it however they wanted from their point of view and have a huge impact on your career. The last decade or so Officer evaluations have slowly been moved to what people were hoping to be more merit based and away from supervisors having the ability to end you right there if they had an unfair personal gripe with you. What that's led to is a evaluation full of yes/no check boxes that don't tell anyone reading the evaluation anything about the person being evaluated. So even now (just as before) you have people who couldn't manage a McDonald's getting promoted and moved up because they get all the correct blocks colored in and detailed narratives (for good or ill) are out. Now to be fair you, as a supervisor, can still write a big narrative if you want to. It's just going to be an additional page stapled to the back of the check box evaluation that probably will be ignored by board members who have to look at 600 evaluations in one day to select promotions.
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Jan 1, 2015 22:05
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Weltlich posted:So, I served as a paratrooper in the Army from 2002 to 2006, and then as a security operator with the DIA from 2007 to 2010. There have been a lot of good posts and observations so far, but I thought I'd chime in with a few observations. I need clarification. Are you saying that the quality of the officer corps has been diluted by ROTC? Or is the decline in quality of the officer corps incidental, and what the commissioning of the lower classes did was fill the military with people lacking the social connections necessary to pursue systemic reform. You assert that the rise in ROTC is a result of the upper classes wanting to avoid personally serving in war. I don't know enough about the demography or class history to dispute this. What I can say though is neither Marshall or Eisenhower came from well connected families. Both made politically unwise decisions early on in their military careers. But more than any other two men they defined the standards for American WWII officership Consider Theodore Roosevelt, Jr, son of president Teddy Roosevelt. Has too much of the “rough rider” spirit in him, and the division he and Allen commands in North Africa experiences a decline in discipline. Omar Bradley, himself born into poverty (comes second on West Point entrance exam), relieves him. George S. Patton came from one of the most prestigious military families in the United States, and was a close friend of Eisenhower. During his military governorship of Germany, Patton publicly expresses too much sympathy for former Nazis. Eisenhower relieves him. The post-Vietnam defense reformers were all quintessential outsiders and difficult personalities: John Boyd, Bill Lind, Pierre Sprey, etc. (sidenote: William S. Lind is a real life example of the crypto-fascists that show up in Oliver Stone films: http://archive.lewrockwell.com/lind/lind103.html) So I disagree that the decline of the US officer corps is attributable class conflict. Reform is possible, it's happened before, and it didn't need to come from a Kennedy or a Bush. I also don't bemoan the fact that a smaller proportion of the upper classes receive commissions. If the Roman Empire is representative, filling the officer corps with members of the political class doesn't necessarily make reform easier, or make perverse incentives any less of a problem. Dilkington posted:First of all, thank you for serving during those mean years. Tezzor posted:Why do people say poo poo like this? What service? This is the real issue in the article in the OP. The author frames it as a small yet somewhat tragic sociological phenomenon that everybody barfs out these rote nationalist statements thanking The Troops, but the reality of the military only effects a statistically small number of people. He doesn't really present any resolution to this, flirting with advocating conscription but never saying it. The resolution is to stop the deference. The dissonance disappears when there is no difference between not particularly caring about them in words and not particularly caring about them in action. I was referring to the poster's time in the military: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_service The civil-military relationship is ugly- I agree that politicians and many Americans are eager to surround themselves with veterans, but don't care how well they are led or equipt. I do care, so I didn't feel too hypocritical posting what I did. Here's what some veterans think: quote:Best Defense further reading: http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/12150/abu-muqawama-breaking-down-the-barriers-between-the-u-s-and-its-military Dilkington fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 23:27
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Tezzor posted:Presumably if someone is in a career role in the military and has a child old enough to be making relatively coherent posts on the something awful forums, they are at or above the middle ranks; not that, of course, first world poverty is or would be a justifiable excuse to be actively and voluntarily complicit in the mass death of people living in absolute poverty. I didn't notice any other points that weren't asinine cliches, and thus chose to ignore them. The author presents himself openly as a draft dodger, to the derision of many posters in this thread. I'm not sure why. I understand that the argument goes that someone else had to take his place, and maybe that person suffered as a result. The answer is simple. IT is because he would not accept the fact that he was doing what may have been in his opinion morally right but legally wrong. If we chose to accept this, like civil rights movements, you must be willing to accept civil consequences for your actions. If you simply run, when you could have accepted your jail sentence, you at best look like a self serving coward who lacks intellectual honesty and the willingness to accept the most terrifying part of protest: the possibility of consequences. My secondary concern is as a typical white elite, he does the same drat thing most posters in threads like this do, willingly ignore actual minorities for their pie in the sky logic. Also, if you think running away to Canada helped, you are wrong, because every day you would sit in jail could be used as an argument for moral conviction, showing the (US voting public) that "This war is unjust, see how young people are more willing to stay and suffer," while running away promotes a narrative, and as much as I hate to say this, all life, doubly so in the era of TV and newspapers (since this is pre APRNET), is a form of Grand-Guignol theatre where perception is more important than the objective reality. Panzeh posted:Maybe you should go back to that country you care about and fight in their military. They can mobilize for war, raise taxes, enact conscription and run them off, they don't need US help. Third world countries should pull themselves from their boostraps while dealing with their arbitrary borders? Hmm, sure sounds like some delicious white man's burden here. I mean, well gently caress, after years of being economically challenged when ethno-religous strife happens we should just let those "Negroids" take care of themselves. Also, nice secondary racism, "Go back to X", you fuckhead. This is what literally lead to the Rwanda .. debacle, so please stop posting about things.
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Jan 1, 2015 23:36
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spacetoaster posted:Major point here. It's the President, not Congress. That's why an order from an Officer is legal. The Officer derives his/her authority from the Commander in Chief. On point one you're absolutely right - that post got away from me in terms of length and some errors slipped through the cracks. Congress creates the positions, and the executive commissions people to fill them. I've edited my post to reflect that - thanks for the catch! And I agree, it's hard to think of a solution that isn't just a purge. Ideally, what I'd like to see is a pared down officer corps, with warrant officers filling a lot of the working positions that junior officers currently fill, as well as staff positions at the Batallion and Regiment levels. Having a management branch isn't necessarily a bad thing - and honestly to keep a war running it's necessary - I'd just like to see it become as divorced from class and politics as we can possibly get it. I feel bad doing these WALLS OF TEXT but if it helps the discussion for people who have had limited contact with the military to get a better idea how the system works from the inside, I don't mind typing it out. I'll have a couple of anecdotes later, for a more subjective take on how it works, but for now I figured it might be helpful to understand how the chain of command generally works in an objective sense. If you've been in, you can feel free to skip this or read it and add commentary: For most services (Army, Air Force, Marines - The Navy and Coast Guard are special snowflakes,) there are two basic wings of command: Officer and Enlisted. I'll go through who they are and what they do in the context of a combat arms unit, and I'm going to try and do it with out any sass or smart assed comments: Officers Cadets - Pre-officers still in ROTC or a military university. Occasionally, they'll get farmed out to a unit in garrison (that is to say, a unit not deployed to a war zone) as a sort of internship. They'll be assigned to squads (more on those later) to shadow squad leaders, observe, and participate in training. They also get used as a lot of interns get used - fetching coffee, etc. 2nd Lieutenants (O-1) - This is the entry level position for an officer. They're generally assigned as platoon leaders, but occasionally they're sent down to Battalion Headquarters (BN HQ) to work in one of the S shops (S-3 is operations, for instance, S-4 is supply, S-1 is admin and HR, etc). Generally, a 2nd LT being farmed out to anything other than S-3 should be worried, as the S shops aren't prestigious and don't lead to fast promotion. 1st Lieutenants (O-2) - 1LT's are generally given the same jobs as 2LT's. A 2LT with his head screwed on fairly straight, and an assignment as a Platoon Leader ought to make 1LT in six months to a year. Usually, the senior 1LT in a company will get assigned to the Executive Officer (XO) position, where he (or she) will be the Company Commander's (CO) liaison with the supply section, as well as handling all sorts of company level admin. The general idea is that the CO has better things to do with his time, and depending on the CO this may or may not be the case. Captain (O-3) - When a 1LT gets promoted to CPT, they'll generally be sent to an S Shop. This can either be a career enhancing move, or the kiss of death. For most non-career officers, this is the terminal rank, and they'll finish out their ROTC contract before going back to the civilian world. The S Shops are where politicking at the Battalion level really takes place, and junior CPTs will try to make names for themselves in the hopes that the BN CO will take notice. A Captain who finds themselves in favor with the BN leadership will be offered the chance to command a company, which is the first real step on the road to being a career officer. Major (O-4) - With a few exceptions (air units, etc), MAJ is almost universally a staff position. A good CPT will be promoted and assigned as a BN XO (doing more or less the job a 1LT does, just at a higher level,) or sent to one of the G shops (Like an S shop, but at higher level, usually headed by a General, hence the 'G'). You will occasionally run into a command major - usually in war zones where a CPT got promoted, but was unwilling to leave his or her command until the deployment ended. Lieutenant Colonel (O-5) - This rank can either be found in staff offices at a G shop, or for the few lucky ones who have greased the right palms, as the Commander of a Battalion sized element. Once an officer makes this rank, it can be almost certain that they have their sights set on making General before they retire. Few of them will, but nearly all of them try. Colonel (O-6) - Another rank that can be in Command (Brigade or Regiment, usually,) or in a staff position. The COL is the last of the field grade ranks (MAJ, LTC, COL), and the last rank (in theory) that has any sort of tactical control of units. Above this, concerns are strategic and operational. Brigadier General (O-7) - The first General Officer rank. They're usually assigned as base commanders for smaller bases, and deputy commanders of larger bases. You'll also find them in staff positions at the Pentagon. "One Star" Major General (O-8) - Occasionally a base commander at a larger base, this rank commands a Division level unit (Like the 82nd Airborne, 1st Cavalry, etc). Also Pentagon level staff. "Two Star" Lieutenant General (O-9) - Traditionally a Corps level commander, but more modernly they're generals who are assigned to special commands (JAG, etc). They're pretty uncommon to run into, unless you're stationed at the Pentagon. I think I saw one of them once in the wild, at a chow hall in Baghdad. General (O-10) - The big cheese. This is joint-chiefs of staff level. Typically there'll be one assigned per theatre of war. Enlisted* *Each of the services have their own enlisted rank names, but they all follow the same pay scale. I'm going to go with the Army ranks on this since I know them well enough not to gently caress them up too badly. The Marines use a system very close to this. The Air Force and Navy have "Airmen" and "Sailors" instead of soldiers, but from what I know, the general duties and expectations of rank are about the same across the board. Private (E-1) - The basic, entry level position. PVTs aren't expected to know anything, and any work assigned to a PVT ought to be supervised by someone. A PVT that doesn't mess up too badly can expect to be promoted within 6 months. Private (E-2) - This rank is pretty much just a slight pay raise from PVT. Private First Class (E-3) - In theory, a PFC is a private who doesn't need as much instruction. They should know how things are done, but they still require a certain level of supervision. The private ranks are seen, to a large degree to be "training" ranks. These soldiers have been through basic training, and through "advanced training", but there's a lot of tacit knowledge that doesn't get imparted until a private has arrived at his duty station and been assigned to a platoon. Specialist / Corporal (E-4) - Almost all E-4's in the Army are Specialists. This means that they've been at their jobs long enough to be trusted to know what to do, and do it without someone looking over their shoulder. They're not officially in charge of anyone, but at the same time, a sergeant should never have to worry about if one of his/her specialists is doing the right thing. Often sergeants will assign a private to a senior specialist for mentoring during training. Every once in a blue moon, there's a SPC that gets passed over for promotion even though the NCO's in the company feel he/she deserved it, so a lateral promotion to Corporal gets issued by the Company Commander. A lot of SPC's decline this promotion however, since it means they'll be doing an E-5's work while drawing E-4 pay. Sergeant (E-5) - Sergeants are the first rank of Non Commissioned Officer (NCO), and are usually given charge of four or five junior enlisted soldiers. In an infantry company, SGTs are usually the leaders of the fire teams, consisting of themselves, a SPC, two PFCs, and a PVT of some flavor. Staff Sergeant (E-6) - The SSG can either be assigned to a squad level position where he'll manage a few SGT's, or she/he will be sent down to an S shop to take a position assisting the officers in the staff offices. Sergeant First Class (E-7) - The SFC can either be assigned a staff position, or placed in charge of a platoon in the Platoon Sergeant position. PSGT's have a few roles. First, they manage the SSG's who are running the squads that compromise the platoon (usually 4 to 6). Second, they are in constant contact with the company XO, their Platoon Leader, the company supply Sergeant, and the company First Sergeant to make sure that their platoon is equipped to complete whatever mission the Company CO hands down. Lastly, they are there to provide a mentorship role to the Platoon Leader. The average SFC has 10+ years experience, so smart 2LT's listen when advice is given. Master Sergeant (E-8) - This is an odd rank, at least in the Army. The rank is Master Sergeant (MSG), but the coveted position that an E-8 normally holds is that of First Sergeant (1SG). First Sergeant is a rank based entirely on the position of being the highest ranking NCO in a company, and the responsibilities that come along with that. A 1SG serves as the NCO advisor to the Company CO, a higher-ranked advocate for the supply sergeant if S-4 is withholding needed equipment and supplies, a disciplinarian, a confessor, a fixer of problems. For smaller disciplinary offenses by soldiers, a 1SG can use his discretion as to whether or not to pursue punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) by informing the company commander, or impose immediate justice via creative punishments (which might include extra duty after hours for a week, impromptu physical training, essay writing, etc). For career enlisted, this is a good terminal rank before retirement. Some will go on, but if you can make it this far, you did ok. (Also: FUNFACT - Any rank of enlisted person can be a 1SG. The lowest I've seen is an SSG, but it isn't entirely unheard of for a SGT to get shoved in the slot for a few months during heavy personnel turn-overs.) Sergeant Major (E-9) - The final enlisted rank, and one that only is found at Battalion level or higher. The intended role of the SGM is to act as a high level advocate for enlisted concerns and to enforce discipline within the ranks. This is largely a staff position, even in the role of Command Sergeant Major (CSM) which is sort of like 1SG, but it can be at any level above a company. (i.e. there's a BN CSM, a Brigade CSM, a Division CSM, a Corps CSM, and finally there's Sergeant Major of the Army. They're all E-9's.) Warrant Officers W-1 through W-5 - Warrant officers are basically super NCO's who were found to be super skilled at their jobs and so they were sent to a special school to make them really anal retentive about things. No, really. Like at warrant officer school, after you use your toothpaste in the morning, you blow into the tube to re-inflate it before putting it back in your immaculately organized toiletry drawer. When the instructor comes around to inspect, everybody's drawers had better look EXACTLY the same. Warrant Officers get assigned to jobs that are technically demanding, and require a lot of attention to detain. Helicopter pilots, supply depot managers, HUMINT agents - these are warrant officer jobs. How a mission works What follows is roughly how a mission works, starting from the top, and trickling down: The President decides that foreign policy needs to include a military option. He turns to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and instructs them to come up with a plan to invade, say Iraq. This is patterned on the 2003 invasion, but isn't it exactly. The Joint Chiefs call their staff at the pentagon, and instruct them to start gathering and collating intelligence about Iraq. When the intel is returned, they pour over the findings and begin to come up with numbers: How many troops will be needed, what kind of troops to send, etc. They draw up a manifest of which units are available to be sent and which of those will be sent first. Warning orders are issued to the commanders of those units, so that they can begin preparing for mobilization. The commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, a Major General, gets a warning order. He immediately gathers his staff and informs them, and instructs them to begin preparations for deployment - he'll need maps, supplies, etc. Meanwhile, more explicit operation orders begin to come across his desk defining the mission more in depth. Some of them modify previous orders. He looks at the area of responsibility (AOR) he's been assigned, and begins to subdivide that area and assign it to the commanders of the Brigades under his command. He sends warning orders to the commanders of those brigades. The commander of 1st Brigade, a Colonel, gets the warning order and begins to task his staff with preparations in the same vein as the Division level, but more focused on the tactical needs of an Infantry Brigade. As his staff gathers info on supplies and transport logistics of getting the brigade to the fight, more orders come in from Division telling the commander what AOR of the Division's AOR he's been assigned. He issues warning orders to his Battalions while simultaneously sending requests for logistics and support back up to Division. The Commander of 2/7 Infantry Battalion, a Lt. Colonel gets a warning order stating that his troops are being mobilized and that has a timeframe to get them combat ready and at the air field. He gets his staff together, comes up with a plan to conduct last minute training for one week, followed by a one week loadex to get all critical equipment packed up and in containers bound for Kuwait. Warning orders are issued to Company Commanders. In the meantime, more operational orders flood in, detailing 2/7's AOR within 1BDE's AOR. Maps are poured over and possible movement routes are planned, though 1BDE will have the final say on the infiltration route into Iraq. Two weeks later after getting numerous orders for training and prep, the commander of B Company, a Captain, gets a warning order telling him that transportation to the airfield will be arriving at 09:30 tomorrow morning and that he should have 100% accountability of his men at that time and have them loaded up to fly out to Kuwait. He calls in his XO, the 1SG, and the Platoon Leaders to give them the news, and they come up with a rough plan of action. They decide that they will have all men accounted for at 0600 to make sure no stragglers miss the flight. The Platoon Leaders (2LTs) take this news to their Platoon Sergeant, that there will be a formation at 06:00 for accountability, and that all men should have their personal equipment with them and ready to go at that time. The Platoon Sgt (SFC) instructs his squad leaders to have everyone ready to go at 05:00, inspected and ready to fly. The Squad (SSG) leader tells his Team leaders that he wants them do a pre-inspection before anyone goes home that evening, so that at 5 o'clock tomorrow morning there aren't going to be any deficiencies in equipment. The Team leader (SGT) takes his four troops out to the parking lot to have them empty out their ruck sacks and hold up items on the check list as he calls them off. At 11pm, after replacing two red lens flashlights and one defective camel-back bite valve. he gets the OK to send his troops home with instructions to return at 04:00 tomorrow morning. The Private First Class loads onto a bus at 09:30 the next morning, after being inspected three more times. He asks his team leader when breakfast chow is going to be. The Team Leader asks the Squad Leader. The Squad Leader asks the Platoon SGT. And the question echos back up the chain of command in the form of supply orders. And that's generally how orders and missions work - orders echo down, being slightly modified at each stop, and requests echo back up, being modified in turn. The fact that our military gets anything done is astounding, considering that command and control is just a version of the "telephone game."
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Jan 2, 2015 00:30
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Ryand-Smith posted:The answer is simple. IT is because he would not accept the fact that he was doing what may have been in his opinion morally right but legally wrong. If we chose to accept this, like civil rights movements, you must be willing to accept civil consequences for your actions. If you simply run, when you could have accepted your jail sentence, you at best look like a self serving coward who lacks intellectual honesty and the willingness to accept the most terrifying part of protest: the possibility of consequences. I see no particular reason why one should feel obligated to submit oneself to punishment by the state for refusal to be forced to do things by that same state which are immoral and wrong. quote:My secondary concern is as a typical white elite, he does the same drat thing most posters in threads like this do, willingly ignore actual minorities for their pie in the sky logic. Well, he didn't go to Canada. he bombed his medical exam. As for the consequences, this is and has always been an after-the-fact excuse. Maybe it is true that it would be slightly better for the antiwar effort if they went to jail (although I doubt it would be much at all) rather than going to Canada or trying to get out of the military. But we don't really get the luxury of dictating to other people that they should go to prison to serve our efforts or they are morally compromised, and it's incredibly clear from the intent and background of people who make this kind of argument that they simply want to see the offender punished for their apostasy, and then cast around for some excuse they can tell themselves as to why their nationalist vengeance fantasies are legitimate and actually beneficial. quote:Third world countries should pull themselves from their boostraps while dealing with their arbitrary borders? Hmm, sure sounds like some delicious white man's burden here. I mean, well gently caress, after years of being economically challenged when ethno-religous strife happens we should just let those "Negroids" take care of themselves. Also, nice secondary racism, "Go back to X", you fuckhead. It's so interesting to see standard pompous half-coherent tumblrism employed in the advocacy of joining the loving United States military. What a time to be alive
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Jan 2, 2015 00:42
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Weltlich posted:And that's generally how orders and missions work - orders echo down, being slightly modified at each stop, and requests echo back up, being modified in turn. The fact that our military gets anything done is astounding, considering that command and control is just a version of the "telephone game." Well, it's not slight modification at each step. A Division commander writes an order for all of his brigades. A brigade commander reads the portion of the order that pertains to his specific brigade and then creates an order for his battalions. The battalion commander looks at the brigade order and pulls out the portions that pertain to his specific battalion. And on down the line it goes. A commander cannot simply write an order that says: "Hey all you guys over there, go kill all those guys over there." I mean, he could. But that'd be a huge loss if he was facing an opposing officer who did things like plan and prepare his logistics, support, etc. The ability to manage a battlefield (logistics, support, medical, combat, etc) isn't something that's learned overnight. I don't really think that the warrant officer corps is cut out for that, as they are subject matter experts in technical fields and don't really have time to devote to that kind of education. I think a good start would be to slow down the promotion train. There was once a time when a captain (company commander) was really the old man (not just jokingly referred to that way) because he had been in a good long time and was mature. Now, we have captains who've barely clocked 3 years total military service. I look at some of my personal military officer heroes and they spent close to a decade (or more) at the rank of lieutenant.
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Jan 2, 2015 00:45
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Tezzor posted:I see no particular reason why one should feel obligated to submit oneself to punishment by the state for refusal to be forced to do things by that same state which are immoral and wrong. Martin Luther King posted:In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law. I think the logic is that by not submitting yourself to punishment, you're essentially rejecting the general legitimacy of the government making the law as well as the law itself, whereas by simply disobeying the law you're simply rejecting the morality of that particular law. If you regard the US government as essentially legitimate, in the sense that, say, armed rebellion against it would be wrong, than trying to avoid the legal consequences of a crime, even a crime you regard as morally right, becomes a bigger step. I'm not saying I agree 100% with the idea myself (I think it's a lot more complex than King acknowledges; there are degrees of unjust laws and degrees of evasion and defiance of laws), but it's by no means a patently absurd idea. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Jan 2, 2015 |
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Jan 2, 2015 01:42
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Silver2195 posted:I think the logic is that by not submitting yourself to punishment, you're essentially rejecting the general legitimacy of the government making the law Perhaps, but there's nothing inherently immoral about rejecting the legitimacy of a government and if the factual argument for it is justifiable then there's no reason we should demand punishment, the purpose of which is supposed to be deterrence. We have no morally justifiable reason to wish to deter people from rejecting illegitimate governments, or, less broadly, immoral policies by otherwise legitimate governments. The Vietnam War was an aggressive war, predicated on a lie, which killed 50,000 Americans, about 20 times as many foreigners, and crippled and traumatized countless more on both sides. Governments have fallen for far less. That quote is from King's letter from Birmingham Jail, and while it is indeed possible that that is what he sincerely believed, it is also possible that he was attempting to cast himself in the most moderate light possible to gain general sympathy. The notion that it is the right thing for the justifiably rebellious citizen to freely deliver themselves into the clutches of the government for punishment may be the best option to express politically within the climate of that government, but I don't think it's a principle we would or should like to generally apply.
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Jan 2, 2015 03:12
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Ryand-Smith posted:Third world countries should pull themselves from their boostraps while dealing with their arbitrary borders? Hmm, sure sounds like some delicious white man's burden here. I mean, well gently caress, after years of being economically challenged when ethno-religous strife happens we should just let those "Negroids" take care of themselves. Also, nice secondary racism, "Go back to X", you fuckhead. The RPF managed to end the Rwanda thing without help. When people know the US isn't going to save them it suddenly lights a fire under their rear end. It's like with the RVN, when we were extremely active, ARVN would just back off and wait more, because they knew the US was gonna bail them out. Those guys needed some serious tough love.
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Jan 2, 2015 04:00
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Dilkington posted:
3) I'll take this one first because I think it's important in context. I agree with you very much in this point, and I am, by no means advocating for a return to an Aristocratic officer corps. The officer corps moving to draw in more commissions of working class is not a bad thing in and of itself, and can be a very good thing. What I am advocating for is a mindfulness that our current military leadership tradition is based on an antiquated model that reflects a class dynamic that no longer exists. When a 2nd LT shows up to his first duty station, fresh out of ROTC, and he is given living quarters that are superior to a SSG with 7 years of service, there's an implicit message: you are superior - not because you've worked harder, not because you know more about your job, not even because your parents had wealth and power - you are simply just better. That's the root of what I want to see removed from the officer corps, not class, but the trappings of class that still exist just because they're "tradition." 2)To a degree Eisenhower is an exception that I can hold up to illustrate my points. He was not born a wealthy man, and when he worked his way to an army commission, it really meant something. College in Ike's (and for that matter, Omar's) day was not a forgone conclusion for a high school graduate, and to be sent to West Point was a big deal for both of them. Both men were acutely aware of where they came from, and neither took the privileges of their rank for granted. But when I talk about what makes an officer superior, Ike and Omar (and Harry Truman, and others) really did have something to be superior about. While they became officers after the age where commissions were just handed out to the Upper Class, they live during an age where just getting a high school diploma was uncommon enough, let along a college degree. But now, the university is approaching the point where it's just an extension of high school. A quarter of the enlisted men in my airborne infantry company had college degrees or some sort of post secondary education. Among the operator detachment, it was more like half of us. So ROTC becomes less of a superior education and more of a Fraternity. 1) More the second than the first, but not exactly. First, instead of thinking of the current crop of officers as "lower class," I think it's helpful to think of them as "working class." This is a group of people who have traditionally worked very hard to make a living, but have had a low level of ownership over the means of that living. But if you ask most americans what class group they fall into, they're going to say "middle class" no matter if they're working retail of if they're sitting on the board of a bank. It's not just that they don't have political and social connections to enact reform - even though those connections can be forged by virtue of being an officer - it's that they don't really believe in class distinctions to begin with. spacetoaster posted:Well, it's not slight modification at each step. Oh totally, but I was oversimplifying just so I wouldn't have to go into the arcane arts of writing Op Orders and Fragos. One of the most frustrating things about talking to people about the military is having to not take for granted all of the acronyms and jargon. It's kind of like when my IT friends start talking about their work coding. After the first few minutes, I just tune out and stare off into the distance until the wizards stop talking about their spells. And I agree that would be a good start. The whole "You have Twenty Years to make O-7...GO!" thing engenders some pretty cut throat office politics that leaves good officers wanting to bail out as soon as their contract is over.
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Jan 2, 2015 04:53
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Panzeh posted:The RPF managed to end the Rwanda thing without help. When people know the US isn't going to save them it suddenly lights a fire under their rear end. It's like with the RVN, when we were extremely active, ARVN would just back off and wait more, because they knew the US was gonna bail them out. Those guys needed some serious tough love. Is this a joke post? 800,000 people got hacked to death with farm tools over 3 months, and no one did anything. There's no high ground whatsoever in what the US did. Within weeks of the genocide kicking off, there was one American left in the country, and he worked for a private charity and refused to leave!
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Jan 2, 2015 06:17
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Tezzor posted:Perhaps, but there's nothing inherently immoral about rejecting the legitimacy of a government and if the factual argument for it is justifiable then there's no reason we should demand punishment, the purpose of which is supposed to be deterrence. We have no morally justifiable reason to wish to deter people from rejecting illegitimate governments, or, less broadly, immoral policies by otherwise legitimate governments. The Vietnam War was an aggressive war, predicated on a lie, which killed 50,000 Americans, about 20 times as many foreigners, and crippled and traumatized countless more on both sides. Governments have fallen for far less. I agreed that whether King actually believed it is debatable. Either way, it's not something Ryand-Smith just made up.
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Jan 2, 2015 06:38
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Could someone elaborate on that US "Up or out" principle? As far as I understand, US officers either get promoted or sacked. While I can see the appeal from a darwinian evolution pov, I see a number of big problems with this: 1: Someone who is a very good captain can be a pretty crappy lieutenent colonel. From my experience, managing a platoon or a company does take different skills then managing a brigade or a division. 2: It propably increases conformism a lot since you really need that promotion to not further but simply maintain your career, and conformism gets you promoted. 3: It may well end up creating a glut of higher echelon officers, because they all want to get promoted, and if they all pass all of the checkbox, then you get more colonels then you even want to deal with.
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Jan 2, 2015 06:58
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Mightypeon posted:Could someone elaborate on that US "Up or out" principle? As far as I understand, US officers either get promoted or sacked. While I can see the appeal from a darwinian evolution pov, I see a number of big problems with this:
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Jan 2, 2015 07:09
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