Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession
Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession by Dr. Leonard Wong and Dr. Stephen J. Gerras, U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute
Untruthfulness is surprisingly common in the U.S. military even though members of the profession are loath to admit it. Further, much of the deception and dishonesty that occurs in the profession of arms is actually encouraged and sanctioned by the military institution. The end result is a profession whose members often hold and propagate a false sense of integrity that prevents the profession from addressing—or even acknowledging—the duplicity and deceit throughout the formation. It takes remarkable courage and candor for leaders to admit the gritty shortcomings and embarrassing frailties of the military as an organization in order to better the military as a profession. Such a discussion, however, is both essential and necessary for the health of the military profession…
Truly a problem, but one I doubt anyone will do anything about. Senior leaders will, with furrowed brows and serious expressions, say we need to “get after this,” but the root causes will not go away.
The sad truth is it happens all the time:
Unit Status Reporting (USR) – Due on the 15th of the month, but everyone wants a “pre-brief” at every level. Your average company commander has to put his stuff together two weeks early and “make assumptions” about what things will look like as of the 15th.
Additional Training – Endless required additional training, and no time to do it. Print out the slides, set them on a table with a sign in roster, and tell Soldiers to look at them and sign off. Or, gather them at the end of the day formation and tell them “This is your SHARP/EO/Whatever training: Don’t be an a**hole and treat others how you would want to be treated. What are your questions?”
Maintenance – You know if that a tank/vehicle/aircraft will break or come into a service if you use it, so you just park it. It’s not available for training, but it’s counted as “up” so you can boost your Operational Readiness (OR) rate.
Sad really.
Reflection of our culture? Ends justifies means?
Only our ends haven’t looked really neat lately…
I thought this was a very brave subject to choose. Although I don’t feel qualified to comment on the text, it’s a question people in general should consider more often.
Best,
A. Scott Crawford
Is this an Army problem or national problem? Of our many leaders / managers in government or private industry, how many have “mis-spoken”? Isn’t mis-speaking a lie, like when one says “You can keep your doctor…” or “there was sniper fire when we got off of our helicopter in Bosnia”..? Not justifying what happens among Army leaders and the reports they submit but I don’t think it is just “Army culture” that allows this.
Perhaps if we, as a culture, were less focused on avoiding hurt feelings and more on telling it like it is, we’d stop lying to ourselves and everyone else. This might allow for actual progress on the projects, programs, endeavors, and/ or operations we embark on.
Former JCoS Casey foresaw “mission command” to encompass….”a dialogue in a fear free environment designed to foster trust…trust being the cornerstone of MC”……fostered by the commander and his staff……
A lot of hype the first year and then utter silence when he left……
And today….MC has totally failed to achieve what Casey envisioned as the way forward in the coming years and so urgently needed to counter UW and non linear warfare….
Anyone who states otherwise is “dishonest” in this business…..
The current “culture” in the US Army and the rest of DoD is simply designed to protect those in command and their ability to get promoted…nothing more nothing less……AND this extends even worse into the civilian DAC structure where over the last five years a large number of positions were “handed off underhandedly to former LTCs and COLs and anyone who doubts that this was the case is also being “dishonest”…..if not basically lying about the current “cultural environments” of both the military and their civilian component environments….
mred…..there is a side effect that former JCoS Casey missed…if MC is thoroughly instituted and run correctly as he envisioned you will get an interesting development.
The commander, leader, business boss will get simpler with his comments and thoughts and he will get clearer with his statements as will the rest of the group.
It is really hard to be simple and clear…as way to many people think you are a plain simpleton so many shy away from trying when the opposite is demanded in MC either the military brand or the business brand.
derp
http://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pdffiles/PUB1250.pdf
The first two portals I tried to access the pdf (51 pages) required a CAC card.
The portal on google search (above) gave me free access.