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Two very good friends of mine, Chuck Z and CJ both have had enough of Michael Yon’s crap. He sits on his Facebook page and continues to slander and disrespect honorable warriors who happen to also be milbloggers (he calls us milkooks). Some of his followers follow him blindly after falling in love with this earlier work. Granted some of his earlier work was good, but his actions of the last few months have erased all of that good.
Yon tries to claim over and over that none of us who write milblogs know what we are talking about because we have not been over in combat areas as long as he has (as a unarmed journalist or blogger or whatever he is that day). So Chuck and CJ decided to lay their “Street Cred” out there for all to see.
Oh and Yon, from me to you….SUCK IT. If you ever want to take on the Bouhammer besides banning me from your pitiful little crybaby medium (your Facebook Page) you can contact me anytime at admin@bouhammer.com.
I was first intrigued to read the article below because it quoted BG McMaster who I have long been a fan of and who will be a guest on You Served Radio on July 15th at www.blogtalkradio.com/youserved.
As I read the article I really liked it because I am glad to finally see someone in the Big Army get it. They could not be more correct when they say the leaders and soldiers in the Army MUST have negotiation skills when they deploy to either Iraq or Afghanistan.
The Army has concluded that teaching soldiers how to negotiate is as important as traditional soldiering skills designed to kill the enemy.
Weiss is part of an experiment to improve the negotiating skills of junior officers by drawing on boardroom experience.
After I was a few months into my Afghanistan tour in 2006, myself and several of my team-mates were all in agreement that our suspicions were correct. Ever since the day we stepped into Camp Shelby, MS for our 1st Army-managed deployment training we knew they were focusing on the wrong things. Since we were mobilizing to embed with Afghan army units and not with regular US Army units the ability to negotiate and work with locals had to be taught,,,but it wasn’t.
So after we were in country a few months and had conducted multiple contract negotiations with local vendors, met with village leaders on many shuras and key leader engagements and just worked with the leaders of the Afghan Army units on a daily basis it was clear this skill should have been #1 on the training list back at Camp Shelby.
Since it wasn’t taught there or even talked about, it came down to the individual’s ability to posses this skill along with a lot of patience. Fellow ETTs that were teachers, cops, consultants, or that had worked in a career that instilled into them the ability to be patient, negotiate, and compromise were usually the most successful in dealing with Afghans. There were some on my team and other teams that were walking disasters when it came to working with the locals. They had little to no patience, dis-respected the Afghans (civilians or military) and usually caused the rest to do a lot of damage control.
It is because of my history and experience in Afghanistan that I was very encouraged to see TRADOC tackle this issue and start teaching this skill along with others that are needed to work with local nationals. However it is also somewhat frustrating because I know that if the ETTs that were coming out of country from 2002-2009 had been properly surveyed and de-breifed then maybe the Army would have caught on a lot earlier.
Until recently, the Army had put little effort into figuring out what makes a successful negotiation. West Point began offering courses in negotiating as a leadership skill in 2006 and last year started the West Point Negotiation Project to spread the training throughout the Army.
Some of the fundamentals of negotiating in the boardroom are similar to what soldiers confront in combat, but troops have less time to prepare and are under more stress.
U.S. Army soldiers from 1st Platoon, Bulldog Troop, 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment make their way into Paspajak in Logar province, Afghanistan, during a patrol to check on conditions in the village on June 20, 2010. DoD photo by Sgt. Russell Gilchrest, U.S. Army.
So… I have been doing a lot of thinking.. and going back to days past. In alot of ways, on a professional level, my time as a Drill Sergeant was the apex of my career.
Everyone knows I hated dealing with the bureaucracy. Dealing with Officers and some Senior NCO’s that thought they knew how to train civilians and turn them into Soldiers. But this post is not about that. This is about the good things of being a Drill Sergeant.
During my entire time in the military, I have witnessed the slow erosion of the NCO corps into what it is today. Only the oldest of the NCO’s remember back when “The Backbone of the Army” still had backbone. Some of the finest NCO’s I ever worked with, was back when I was a Private. I remember watching the best CSM I have ever witnessed, let alone work for (CSM Sneed) lock up a Major who came into this office with the wrong attitude. I cant remember if it was SFC Hxxxx-Pxxx or SFC (Darth Vader) Rxxx who told one our Platoon Leaders “sir this is my platoon, you are here to learn what the capabilities are of this unit and sign paperwork. So.. there is your desk, go have a seat, watch, and learn. Let me deal with the training.” Now maybe my brain is getting fuddled in my old age but I also recall a young SSG Troy Sxxxxxx, during the endless weeks of JRTC of not doing much, but staring at the grass and getting no fire missions, taking the senior SPC’s into the Fire Direction Center (FDC) truck and giving them FDC classes, utilizing the Mortar Ballistic Computer (MBC), and the M16 plotting board.
Back when I first started, anything to do with the welfare and training of Soldiers was NCO business. Officers stayed out of it. “Beans and Bullets” (was what is was all about). Well, since that time NCO’s have become broken. A combination of major very publicized poor decision’s, complacency, and outright laziness have besieged my beloved corps. And the Officers either chose to start accomplishing the NCO tasks out of need or because the NCO was weak enough to allow it.
So it is my belief and many of my peer’s that the NCO corps is broken. But I also believe it is healable.
How do we heal it? Well lets look at what made the NCO corps great back in the day (if you had to boil it down to the core reason), I would say it was “technical expertise”. Without the technical expertise the NCO had nothing on the Officer. The technical expertise applied to a couple areas. How to relate to the junior enlisted and actually teach, not just read power point slides, It applied to knowledge of how the Army actually runs.. not necessarily how the books say it should run, and of course the Technical Expertise of your individual MOS.
In order to heal it we have to give the “Backbone” what it was lacking to begin with. This is Education, both Formal and Informal. It goes back to the Adage. “Knowledge is Power”. This all starts at the very beginning.
When I first went to the “United States Army Drill Sergeant School” I was overwhelmed. It seemed that you had to be perfect to be a good Drill Sergeant. I was going to be expected to stand in front of damned near 210 civilians to give classes and demonstrations. During my first time on the little stage at Echo 1-34 giving a class, yet another “Death by Power Point” presentation, I could see it in the eyes of those Soldiers still awake. They were receiving the information, but it was not being learned… and I snapped.
All of a sudden I became a different person. I was up on that stage pacing back and forth, changing the tone in my voice from loud, and harsh, to soft spoken. I was relating the information to either personal experiences, or movies, or video games, and all of a sudden the Soldiers were sitting up.. eyes wide open. Information was being processed. I would say outrageous, often times “illegal” things (things that some officer deemed as inappropriate) to keep the Privates involved in the lecture. I developed a case of tourette syndrome . Foaming at the mouth. The number of Soldiers unable to stay awake dropped off dramatically.
This is when it occurred to me. Only an NCO can break that PowerPoint slide down “Barney style” so that the Soldier actually digests what the information means. Then it also occurred to me the awesome amount of power a Drill Sergeant really has. And I was instantly addicted to this part of that job.
The REAL power a Drill Sergeant has (and really ANY NCO HAS) is not in the amount of pain, or smoke sessions they can give (although smoke sessions are great training aides). It is in their ability to teach, and in the legacy they can leave behind. As a Drill Sergeant, I had the best opportunity to date to actually do what I felt is important in fixing my beloved Corps. I could mass produce “Mini- Macs” and set them forth into the military. It is often said there are three names you will never forget in your life. Your Mom, your Dad, and your Drill Sergeant. I put everything I had into those classes. I provided the best training myself and my battle buddies could come up with. Sometimes, even on the edge of what some officer said was legal. A couple times I even went to the other side of what was “legal”. I did this because I decided that the amount of power that was entrusted into me by the mothers and fathers of the Soldiers I was training, far outweighed the amount of butt chewing I would get. These Soldiers deserved outstanding leadership, and the best training that I could give them.
I am Proud of what I have done as a Drill Sergeant. I am proud of what every one of my battle buddies has, (past and present) , or will do. And now all I have to do is pray to the big man upstairs, that I set forth enough motivated Soldiers that a few of them will attempt to become a better NCO than I, and therefore fix my beloved Corps. God Bless you guys!
We’ve got LTG Freaklley coming on the show this evening, and we’re pretty excited to have him as this is 2nd visit to You Served Radio. Lieutenant General Benjamin C. Freakley assumed command of U.S. Army Accessions Command, Fort Monroe, Virginia, on 18 May 2007, consisting of U.S. Army Recruiting Command, Fort Knox, KY; U.S. Army Cadet Command, Fort Monroe, VA; and U.S. Army Accessions Support Brigade, Fort Knox, KY. Additionally, General Freakley exercises Department of the Army directed executive agent authority over the United States Military Entrance Processing Command, North Chicago, IL, and executive oversight of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command Human Capital Enterprise Board. You can read more about LTG Freakley at www.usaac.army.mil/cg.html.
Tony Canzonieri and Abel Moreno from Vets4Vets.com will join us in the second hour. Vets4Vets is a non-partisan organization dedicated to helping Iraq and Afghanistan-era veterans to heal from the psychological injuries of war through the use of peer support. Founded in 2005 by a decorated Marine Corps combat veteran of Vietnam, Vets4Vets was selected the next year as one of the 50 outstanding nonprofits in the country serving returning veterans by the prestigious Iraq-Afghanistan Deployment Impact Fund (IADIF) for $1.2 million in start-up funding. Abel Moreno served 7 years in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division 307th Engineer Battalion as a L.E engineer. He served one deployment in Afghanistan and one deployment in Iraq. He supported the 3rd Brigade Combat team along with L.E support with Charlie Company 307th Engineer Battalion. Duties performed were fortification, engineer recon, convoy security and demolitions. He has worked with Vets4Vets since 2006 setting up peer networks through out the country for Afghanistan and Iraq veterans. He leads and runs weekend workshops for Vets4Vets participants’ and is currently the Deputy Director for Vets4Vets.
If you can’t make the live show at www.blogtalkradio.com/youserved, you can listen to and download the archives afterward at that link or from iTunes.
1. So McChrystal is gone ( a serious mistake on the part of the President) 2. Petraeus has been demoted down to lead the fight in Afghanistan 3. Who will lead CENTCOM or are they expecting Petraeus who fainted last week before a Senate Committee to do both jobs?
I never guessed that Petraeus would be asked to step down and do this job, and God Bless the man for agreeing to do it. He is the best choice to try and keep the disruption of this abrupt change of command to as low as impact as possible on the troops.
So now I am waiting for that POS Eikenberry to be fired along with that ineffective Holbrooke. The relationship between the military and civilian leadership in Afghanistan is a two-way street. If the Ambassador and Special Envoy don’t get along with Karzai and cannot influence him or even get a meeting with him then they need to be FIRED asap and some people need to be put into place that can be effective at their job and get along with the military leadership.
If the current administration truly cares about Afghanistan, the progress there and our ability to eventually leave then they need to fire these two impudent men right NOW!
For those that could not listen to the BBC’s World Have Your Say Radio program today, here is the link to the entire one hour show. A major part of the 2nd half-hour was taken up by the President’s speech announcing that he had fired GEN McChrystal.
U.S. Army soldiers from 1st Platoon, Bulldog Troop, 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment make their way into Paspajak in Logar province, Afghanistan, during a patrol to check on conditions in the village on June 20, 2010. DoD photo by Sgt. Russell Gilchrest, U.S. Army.