As a result of 9 years of continuous combat do you think Soldiers/Leaders are less proficient in garrison-related activities?
These areas could include property accountability, personnel readiness accountability, unit readiness reporting, Soldier standards, school allocations, equipment maintenance, budget forecasting, ammunition forecasting, training scheduling.
4 Comments on "Are Soldiers and Leaders less proficient?"
Our soldiers and leaders are definitely less proficient in garrison related tasks. Unfortunately, I think training and training management are the primary victims of the GWOT OPTEMPO. Junior leaders brought up during the height of the GWOT are now Squad Leaders and company Commanders. They have grown up in combat, conducting the full spectrum of combat operations however; many struggle to train their subordinates.
I have seen several other officers who are satisfied with programmed pre-deployment training because that is “training” based on their experience. That is not to say that they are poor officers or poor soldiers. Unfortunately much of what they learned about combat operations was haphazard and a function of “on the job training” as opposed to unit training. These leaders now repeat the cycle of canned pre-packaged training because it is what they know, although it is no longer a function of the deployment time crunch.
As a Company Commander I noticed a distinct difference in the skills and knowledge team leaders and squad leaders exhibited comparative to my time as a platoon leader at the beginning of the war. (It could be argued that some of that is likely attributable to my comparative lack of knowledge as a Lieutenant). In retrospect my NCO’s in those early days were much more adept at training others and exhibited the small nuances in training that you get from doing something so many times it becomes intuitive.
I believe that with the downturn in OPTEMPO the training skill set will gradually redevelop. The question will be at what pace can this skill regenerate, and how can we fertilize this growth. MAJ Robert L. Green’s post (previous) proposes an interesting question which if answered in the affirmative, could help. If commanders (and by default their Officers and NCO’s) are given a “level of responsibility and autonomy in the garrison environment which is closer to that exercised in combat” it would be easier to evaluate those leaders that can train and lead.
I was impressed with the work the Asymmetric Warfare Group (AWG) was doing to revive training knowledge (marksmanship specifically) on Ft. Benning several years ago. The AWG would be a perfect method of disseminating training knowledge, as it is already designed to impact training in the Army. The AWG trains units preparing to deploy and already places significant focus on training leaders “how to train.” With minor adjustments the AWG would continue to develop new (or revive old) training methods and continue to move throughout the Army assisting leaders in developing their organizations. The DOD civilians that compose many of its training teams are retired senior NCO’s and expert trainers that were brought up in a training focused era.
Soldiers/Leaders ARE less proficient in garrison-related activities. I would argue that this is a good thing. The “garrison” Army prior to GWOT institutionalized a number of practices that had little relevance to what actually occured in combat. How much time and resources was wasted preparing and briefing QTBs and USRs? As garrison-related activities take on renewed importance, we must be cautious to refrain from falling into the same bad lessons that lead to micomanagement, a zero-defect group mentality, and beliving in the “approved” solution when many solutions exist. I believe the creation of IMCOM will make it difficult to go back completely as they are a professional organization dedicated to running garrisons worthy of our Soldiers and family members.
I am not arguing property accountability, personnel readiness accountability, unit readiness reporting, Soldier standards, school allocations, equipment maintenance, budget forecasting, ammunition forecasting, and training scheduling are not important; many of these functions were required before/during/after deployment. Executing the GWOT has led to an entire generation of junior leaders (NCOs and company-grade officers) who do not understand training management. They do need to learn to need to be able to balance limited resources to ensure their platoons and companies are trained and ready to execute their key individual and collective tasks. The rest of us, likewise, need retrain ourselves as it has not been a focus the past decade. We need to balance the myriad of tasks ourselves in modeling for them that it can be done. While we do so, we must not lose the hard-won lessons gained in combat. We must remain innovative and agile, focusing on what is important and fighting against what is not.
To determine if the Army or Soldiers have lost their proficiency I think you have to look at the Army as a whole and over time. I believe the Army has consistently struggled to find balance between tactical and technical proficiency. I look at the Army’s proficiency like a pendulum, continually swaying from the technical proficient Army to the tactical proficient and for a short time has the proper balance of skills. In the mid 90’s to the beginning of the Global War on Terrorism our Army was very technical savory and was very comfortable with the doctrine, rules, regulations and such. You could refer it as the era of the Board Soldier. Our Soldiers trained on tactical areas but overcoming shortcomings by technical ability and staff problem solving skills. This of course is a generalization and not reflective of every unit or MOS in the military. But in my experience the Soldier winning the boards or the unit with the best stats in staff call were the ones who seemed to be reaping all those rewards Our current Army is more of the muddy boots Army. Very tactically savvy and little time for the regulations or doctrine, but more of the when I was down range mentality. Do not get me wrong, I think our Soldiers, NCOs and Junior Officers are some of the most adaptive and tactically creative minds our Army has ever had. Some might argue we are losing our proficiency at combating the large-scale maneuver fight but that can be for another discussion. This tactical leaps and bounds our Soldiers have made have had a cost on their technical proficiency. The skills and knowledge in training management, Soldier programs, and counseling have been some of the bill payers for our tactical achievements. As a platoon leader and company commander, I handled issues or steered people in directions that I was handling when I was a Team or Squad Leader. The pre-packaged deployment training has limited our junior leader’s ability to assess and develops training plans. Mission Essential Task lists and the crosswalk to find high payoff tasks to maximize training time seem to be a lost art. Today we are a tactically proficient Army but over time, the pendulum will start to sway back to the technical side unless we learn the stress the importance of both.
November 8, 2010 9:29 AM Susan Manion said:
Soldiers and Leaders are definitely less proficient in garrison-related activities. One major reason is that Soldiers and Leaders are focused on deployment tasks and fail to encompass activities such as property accountability into their daily operations whether deployed or in garrison. Many Soldiers and Leaders consider personnel readiness, property accountability, and basics such as counseling to be only garrison activities. This attitude has been prevalent in junior leaders in almost every unit I have been in since 2001. The result of this attitude is junior leaders that have been raised since 2001 that do not understand how to properly account for their equipment or complete a shortage annex, how to complete proper counseling on their troops or to coach, teach and mentor, or how to work within a budget and forecast for their training events and operating costs. Because the major focus has been on deployments since 2001, I found I have spent a majority of my time teaching and coaching junior leaders on these basic tasks to correct deficiencies in units that had become the norm since 2001.
We are surrounded by proof of this lack of understanding or emphasis on these basic tasks. One just needs to review the FLIPL data and see that there are high amounts of FLIPLs at change of command inventories because the company commanders did not complete cyclic inventories, did not understand shortage annexes, and did not use technical manuals or supply catalogs to inventory components resulting in only the inventory of the end item listed on the property book. Many company grade officers don’t know what an OER developmental support form is resulting in the junior officers never receiving proper counseling and mentorship. This in turn has resulted in a vicious cycle of little or no development of junior leaders at the company level.
It is imperative that senior leaders develop and implement junior leader development programs that focus on the basics and teach the junior leaders to include all of these basic tasks into their daily operations.
November 9, 2010 7:58 AM Shannon.McCrory said:
Absolutely, Soldiers and Leaders are less proficient in garrison-related activities. In my experience over the last few years I have seen that all areas noted have taken a back seat to deployment preparation and have had little or no command emphasis placed on them.
At the root of these issues I believe is lack of personal discipline. Several events within my previous command demonstrated lack of command supply discipline enforcement leading to involvement up to the Commanding General level based on sensitive item neglect in garrison to loss of weapons and NVGs in the field. It seemed that inspections of both personnel and equipment were both block checks with no re-evaluation of deficiencies. At the same time, one can see the lack of CSDP emphasis by looking at the FLIPL register within units. From individual to Change of Command FLIPLs government property is not being properly accounted for and Soldiers are not being help responsible. The trend was also seen downrange, although many more of the FLIPLs were for battle damage, a good number were for losses from personal neglect.
MG Terry had a good message the other morning during his recruitment speech, Command Teams need to get back to “the basics” in soldiering and training. We need to bring back inspections, bring back robust motor stables, and hold people accountable.
November 9, 2010 8:22 AM MAJ Robert L. Green said:
Perhaps a different way to examine this issue is the garrison, not just the Soldier. There are definately some steep learning curves for our force in garrison. This hasn’t been the focus for the last decade. However, how has the ‘garrison’ environment adapted during the current conflicts? Should we allow leaders in garrison a level of responsibility and autonomy in the garrison environment which is closer to that exercised in combat? This may be another example of friction between the operational and institutional sides of the Army.
November 9, 2010 9:01 AM MAJ Brandon Iker said:
yes, we are less proficient at garrison activities, but that seems natural as most of us have spent less time in garrison. As an infantryman, I look at the tasks as being similar during deployment, but the methods may vary, and certainly the priority changes. For example, my garrison purpose of maintenance (prior to 911) was to keep my OR rate high. Now my purpose of maintenance is to put combat power back in my soldiers hands, as they will use it that day. I just hope to keep as much working as possible. In other words, the endgame for my efforts is no longer an “atta boy” at a brief.
I commanded a company at the same time as another captain (ICCC grad) who had never run a single garrison training event. This made pre-deployment training painful, but he proved to be on par with his peers during combat. Again, no great shock. That was what he knew.
The job for those that fix or replace equipment, report USR, or budget ammo or money, is tougher than pre 911. We are using stuff so it breaks (more commonly gets blown up). I suspect this will continue to be true, rather than tapering off as some indicate.
As the theaters of war become more mature and FOB life starts to look more and more like garrison, my fear is that folks will try to apply pre 911 garrison expectations, and make the numbers the priority, rather than supporting combat ops.
Remember the CSA guidance “don’t make an MOS out of garrison”
November 9, 2010 8:12 PM Mack Tugman said:
Our Soldiers/Leaders are actually more proficient in garrison-related activities than before the war(s) began.
Garrison activities continue to change due to the high OPTEMPO. No longer can we enjoy the days of locking in six week training plans. Let it go. We operate in an environment where daily FRAGOs significantly guide activities. In garrison we are guided by a greater sense of urgency, no matter the activity. Our junior leaders are more flexible, adaptive, and think better on their feet. We are a result based Army at war and in garrison. Achieving successful outcomes holds greater importance than looking right according to pre-war era criteria.
The data of property accountability and other “objective” standards no longer remain the best data to judge proficiency in garrison activities. That may sound like blasphemy to many holding on to the past.
FLIPLs occur more frequently for basically two reasons. First, company commander’s equipment responsibility is much greater in quantity and more complicated by item than before the war. Even the basic light infantry company has millions of dollars worth of complex systems. No longer can the commander account for rifles and bayonets and know he’s “good.” Every rifleman has a rifle, optic, laser, night vision goggles, tactical light, etc. Each of these items comes with multiple basic issue items. That only describes our most basic Soldier in the Army. The complexity for property accountability has increased significantly each year while we continue to improve our lethality, communication, and protection systems.
Second, time to conduct change of command inventories has not changed since the war began. Commanders must complete inventories in just a few weeks, the same time periods given in 2000. Inventorying the great amounts of complex equipment requires more time. Senior leaders often do not understand the daunting task commanders and leaders face to complete inventories. I would argue that our proficiency increased since the war started in order to meet rigid time lines during ARFORGEN.
Our current junior leaders often experience more in twelve months than most of our FGOs experienced in three years as Lieutenants. The “objective data” does not account for the reality of what leaders and Soldiers do. Today’s leaders routinely manage much more difficult issues than before the war. How many current FGOs dealt with the problems junior leaders face today? The success our Army in winning our nations wars has everything to do with our junior leaders getting the job done, both in theater and garrison.
Those that argue the notion that our Army has lost proficiency in garrison are evaluating the situation through the prism of pre 2000. Senior leaders need to reevaluate the “current condition” by asking different questions and looking at different data. Does our current data effectively evaluate the garrison proficiency of our Soldiers/leaders? Arguably the answer is no rather we have increased our abilities to meet mission requirements and take care of Soldiers.
November 12, 2010 9:00 AM MAJ John Raso said:
To answer the question, yes, I think we are less proficient at garrison activities. I think it is a statement of fact to say that the number one focus of our military, the number one priority of HRC, is filling deployment slots. As a Company Commander I had the opportunity to command in both the garrison and while deployed. In my opinion, the garrison environment had many more challenges to overcome. Whether it was platoon leadership changes or family issues or training, life in the garrison was much less focused on work than while deployed.
One of the biggest issues was military schooling. Whether we are talking about BNOC for enlisted Soldiers or the Advance Course for Officers, with the number and length of deployments getting those Soldiers into schools and back to the unit is an issue. If you combine schools with changes of command, PCSs, and retirements the time between deployments is much more a rebuild the unit time period than a training period.
While it is easy to say that the time between deployments is a great opportunity to re-establish contact with the family it is not always so easy to execute because of other requirements.
So, yes, I think we are less proficient at garrison activities but the major reason is because we are focused on recovering from the last deployment and preparing for the next deployment.
November 12, 2010 3:38 PM Rick Johnson said:
To answer the question directly, leaders are less competent in “garrison” activities than we were on 10 Sep 2001. It does not take an incredible mental leap to understand that with a decade of persistent conflict as an expeditionary force, a particular skill set associated with steady-state home station operations atrophies.
I see our challenge in the upcoming years as one framed by training our newest leaders in these systems as we reinvigorate them. Some prescient commanders have maintained a focus on systems like property accountability during deployed operations, and even in a manner which did not “detract” from sustained combat operations. By harnessing our re-discovered institutional focus on decentralized execution by empowered junior leaders, systems like maintenance and resource allocations can be even stronger than they were ten years ago if we can cast them in the same importance as we do during deployed operations.
November 22, 2010 2:32 PM MAJ L. Swinton said:
I do feel that many of the tasks that we sometimes refer to, as garrison tasks have not always received the necessary emphasis at times, due to the OPTEMPO in the past 9 years. However, I think we must be careful as we attempt to categorize fundamental organizational requirements in the form of “garrison tasks”. These tasks, which include property and personnel accountability, scheduling of training, maintaining of equipment are areas that leaders and Soldiers must conduct during deployments, as well as during that period when they are back at their permanent duty assignment.
The administrative issues, damage to property or sustainment challenges just does not disappear when we leave the garrison environment. Leaders and Soldiers will still be required to deal with these issues, even though they are out of that garrison environment. I feel that during deployments, many of our leaders and Soldiers find themselves having to utilize skill-sets to address those “garrison tasks” more often at times during deployments, than they do at their permanent duty assignment.
November 23, 2010 2:31 PM robert.k.walker said:
I believe that the soldiers stability operations skills are almost non-existent today. In the last nine years Soldiers have used up materials for combat operation with little knowledge on how supplies for operations are generated. The Army garrison is a stable operation that requires forecasting for recourses sometimes a year out. The maintenance and training cycles for the masses have never been learned, because our training area for most of the last 9 years has been the middle east. I do not believe that Soldiers are going to do well once we transition back to the garrison phase after the war. I believe that we will have more alcohol, drug, and domestic violence in garrison. Soldiers are going to transition from the fast pace one year deployments and daily need for vigilance to the slow day at the motor-pool and boring training cycles, and meaningless exercises. There will be a great need to train Soldiers not only on how to perform basic garrison skill, but also basic life skills without war. If the Army will prepare now for the day when combat operations are over, we can be prevent a dip in morale. The Army must plan to retrain the good soldiers after the war by creating a mission for them in garrison as big as the one they are on now
December 14, 2010 7:49 PM Frank Reyes said:
Without question our proficiency in garrison-related activities has diminished. Nine years of continuous combat has refocused our efforts and emphasis to our war fighting functions. The art in achieving the fine balance between garrison type functions and war fighting type functions disappeared out of necessity following the events on 9/11. However our skills of property accountability, personnel readiness accountability, unit readiness reporting, Soldier standards, school allocations, equipment maintenance, budget forecasting, ammunition forecasting, training scheduling still exists but just not as refined. Leaders charged with these responsibilities pre-9/11 were raised with an emphasis in these skills, in a sense, your successes or failures in these competencies determined the outcome in your performance reports. Those who entered into the service post-9/11 have been raised an environment where the emphasis on garrison type skills is not as paramount as war fighting functions.
What’s important to take away is that even in a deployed environment, those garrison type functions translate in the expeditionary world. The required skills exist, but as mentioned previously, those skills are unrefined. As a leader, the trick is to find that right balance between the two functions. With the possibility of home station dwell times increasing, the unrefined art of garrison-related activities needs to be given the appropriate level of attention. Garrison type functions aren’t a lost art, just one in need of attention and mentorship.
December 16, 2010 8:35 AM Michael Sowa said:
I agree that Soldiers and leaders are less proficient with garrison-related activities as a result of 9 years of continuous combat. I believe the command at each post should implement training on garrison-related activities to its assigned Soldiers and leaders. This is accomplished by the post agencies conducting training on the garrison’s standard operating procedures for property accountability, unit readiness reporting, school allocations, budget forecasting, ammunition forecasting, and training scheduling. This post specific training will provide the Soldiers and leaders the knowledge to successfully conduct garrison-related operations.
January 20, 2011 4:43 PM johnny.a.woods said:
There is no question that the tempo of the Army over the past 9 years has rendered Soldiers less proficient in garrison-related activities. For the past 9 years, Soldiers have deployed (12-15 months), redeployed (12-15) and then deployed again. During the redeployment cycle/reset, Soldiers are required to prepare themselves for the next deployment. Soldiers are delaying military education, civilian education, family responsibilities, etc..all for the mission.
It is understood that Soldiers are required to perform mission first but at some point, Soldiers need time to reset their garrison-related activities. I believe one of the major shortcomings to this tempo is the diminishing time our Soldiers and Leaders are able to spend with family. It is not only the deployments that cause separation but the time spent preparing for the deployment as well. In a 36-month span, I was either deployed or prepping for the deployment for 26 months. I literally watched the birth of my daughter and before I knew it, she was walking/talking. We must do better.
February 9, 2011 2:25 PM MAJ Overgaard said:
Yes, I do believe soldiers are less proficient in garrison-related activities. Many of the proficiency issues are a byproduct of the ARFORGEN process in manning and equipping units.
During the reset phase personnel turnover and changes of command affect unit cohesion and continuity. Units continue to face manning problems well into the train ready phase. In fact, it is not uncommon for a soldier to arrive at a unit after the MRE/MRX and then deploy with the unit a month or two later.
Reset and LBE also affect garrison related activities. Collectively the programs take away ownership of equipment. Instead of taking care of equipment, and for the most part teaching soldiers how to maintain equipment, soldiers can just simply turn it in to a civilian and they will take care of it. Very little maintenance is performed in garrison anymore, the only time a soldier normally works on equipment is when they are deployed.
Restoring dwell time to 24 month or more in the future will give units and leaders more time to get back to the basics and will restore some of the garrison proficiency.
February 12, 2011 10:03 AM Timothy D. White said:
I feel that leaders and Soldiers in todays military are much less proficient in Garrisin related tasks as a result of the past ten years of continuous combat operations in the Global War on Terror. Many of our Soldiers and leaders have seen very little time in garrision in recent years; therefore they are not use to operating in that environment for a prolonged period of time. Those who have joined the military since 2001 likely have any indication of what a unit traditionally does in its role in garrison operations. With the ARFORGEN model in place, units RESET, go into the train/ready phase, and then are depolying out again. Normal garrisin related activities are difficult to master with that being the case. That said, typical garrison functions are rarely performed to a high standard or to a point where they can be retained to any great degree for the future. As the Army transitions and focuses on operations in on one front, units will have the opportunity to spend more time in garrison and leaders should really focus on refining those critical garrison related skills that have been absent from our Army for several years now.
March 4, 2011 11:20 AM Maj Francisco Hornsby said:
In the Air Force, we face the same problem when it comes to performing duties back at base-level or in Army terms, “in-garrison”, especially for those career fields that are heavily deployed. Many of our career fields are spending much of their time training Afghan and Iraqi militaries, much of it not pertaining to their core skill set. Those that are not training are attached to Army units, many of them being young CGOs who in the past would be spending their time becoming proficient in their Air Force and base level duties. Eventually, this will hurt certain career fields in growing great officer/NCOs because they will great at excelling in a deployed environment, but not so great in terms of training Airmen to be proficient in their core skills, as well as supporting home base activities.
v/r
Maj Hornsby
SG 5A
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