On re-reading, it did come off a bit glib...I'll admit. My apologies. More thoughtful response pending...
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Failure of Leadership..
- Thread starter Mumbles
- Start date
On re-reading, it did come off a bit glib...I'll admit. My apologies. More thoughtful response pending...
Bottom line, I don't think that's true. Human life has a value to us beyond dollars, certainly, especially when considered individually...father, son etc...
However, in terms of military planning and strategy, money has and will continue to be part of the valuation of people as a resource. Let's say your military goal is to occupy a small town and to prevent it's capture by a given enemy...say an Army battalion. The number of people you require to do that varies directly with how you equip and train them. On the one hand, give me enough high school football players with sticks (low cost of equipping and training) and I can keep your 1000 grunts at bay. On the other end of the spectrum give me 80 guys on the ground who are highly trained with 20 guys in A-10's etc, etc, etc....you get the point. Numbers of people, or cost of training and equipping are by themselves, not a real measure of capability or responsibility. We use money, in the form of training and equipping to reduce the number of actual lives on the battlefield without reducing capabilities but that in no way diminishes the responsibility of the person in charge of those better equipped people. The combat leader is responsible for the CAPABILITY, whether it is composed of 2 people and 200 million dollars or 100 and some lesser amount of money.
Consider what 4 people in a flight of two Rhinos can do today in comparison to 12 in a flight of 12 P-51's etc...Does the fact that there are only 4 of them diminish their responsibility at all? Does the Captain of a modern cruiser have less responsibility than the Captain of a WWII battleship because he only has half of the crew? I don't think so.
R1, thanks for insulting my intelligence. You get to do that once. I'll respect my elder this time, but you personally insult my intelligence, or any other member of this board again, and you're gonna spend time in the penalty box.
As far as the rest of your points, I didn't ask for a rose garden. I don't complain about living in a box, deploying to do my job, working late to get a bird into and thru the Middle East three days ago, working the hours we regularly work, missing my first four anniversaries, etc etc. I ask only to be given the tools necessary to do my job and the authority to get my small piece in the big puzzle accomplished. If the navy wanted a bunch of automatons, they shoulda started building those fucking crashing robots a generation or two earlier.
I bust my ass to keep the amount of shit I flush down the pipe to the people below me to a minimum. I trust my guys to drive safely, not drive drunk, not rape people...if someone fucks up and I'm asked whether they were trained, Ill roger up that i didn't insult the intelligence and character of the 99.9 to tell one retard not to be a retard. My expectations are well known...work hard, play hard. I've built a reputation as a worker, a get shit done-r, a go to dude. You don't know me, or how I carry myself at work. If I bitch to blow off steam here, it's because I consider this to be akin to closing the wardroom door and having a good old fashioned JOPA bitch sesh. It's how 90% of the on scene tactics and mission accomplishment gets done in my community, and if that offends you, then I apologize.
If it comes down to doing some bullshit ATFP/sapr/dadt/tip training some higher up has invented to give himself a fit rep bullet, or taking a bird out to practice shooting harpoons, well, power points don't come with a sell by date and it'll be there later. I wish I could believe the people above me give me the same consideration, but this is an organization where CYA is growing more important than the mission. That's what most of us squeaky wheels here chafe under, and the answer to suck it the fuck up doesn't really encourage anyone to work hard, offer solutions, shake the trees etc.
As far as the rest of your points, I didn't ask for a rose garden. I don't complain about living in a box, deploying to do my job, working late to get a bird into and thru the Middle East three days ago, working the hours we regularly work, missing my first four anniversaries, etc etc. I ask only to be given the tools necessary to do my job and the authority to get my small piece in the big puzzle accomplished. If the navy wanted a bunch of automatons, they shoulda started building those fucking crashing robots a generation or two earlier.
I bust my ass to keep the amount of shit I flush down the pipe to the people below me to a minimum. I trust my guys to drive safely, not drive drunk, not rape people...if someone fucks up and I'm asked whether they were trained, Ill roger up that i didn't insult the intelligence and character of the 99.9 to tell one retard not to be a retard. My expectations are well known...work hard, play hard. I've built a reputation as a worker, a get shit done-r, a go to dude. You don't know me, or how I carry myself at work. If I bitch to blow off steam here, it's because I consider this to be akin to closing the wardroom door and having a good old fashioned JOPA bitch sesh. It's how 90% of the on scene tactics and mission accomplishment gets done in my community, and if that offends you, then I apologize.
If it comes down to doing some bullshit ATFP/sapr/dadt/tip training some higher up has invented to give himself a fit rep bullet, or taking a bird out to practice shooting harpoons, well, power points don't come with a sell by date and it'll be there later. I wish I could believe the people above me give me the same consideration, but this is an organization where CYA is growing more important than the mission. That's what most of us squeaky wheels here chafe under, and the answer to suck it the fuck up doesn't really encourage anyone to work hard, offer solutions, shake the trees etc.
Spekkio
He bowls overhand.
R1, you keep judging people's character at work for discussing issues on a discussion board in an appropriate topic. It doesn't mean we walk around the boat complaining about every nuance. If the response is stfu and color, why even have discussion boards?
scoob, the thing is with most of the requirements we're discussing is people don't analyze the value of them post facto. In some cases, the requirement exists so someone can say they did something about a perceived risk, even if that risk is small or nonexistent. I can't prove Sailors aren't at risk for trafficking in persons or that there isn't someone waiting in homeport for my topside watch to put down his MCU2P so he can gas him, just like you can't prove there isn't a unicorn in my backyard. So when you say to propose an alternative, how do you convince them that the program was useless by either fixing a problem that doesn't exist or being a poor cover up for the stupidity of a small minority, and just deleting it will save time and money?
scoob, the thing is with most of the requirements we're discussing is people don't analyze the value of them post facto. In some cases, the requirement exists so someone can say they did something about a perceived risk, even if that risk is small or nonexistent. I can't prove Sailors aren't at risk for trafficking in persons or that there isn't someone waiting in homeport for my topside watch to put down his MCU2P so he can gas him, just like you can't prove there isn't a unicorn in my backyard. So when you say to propose an alternative, how do you convince them that the program was useless by either fixing a problem that doesn't exist or being a poor cover up for the stupidity of a small minority, and just deleting it will save time and money?
Great point....and to add fuel to the fire, if a program works, say for motorcycle safety, how do you analyze it's effectiveness? It's the old "how do you know what prevented nothing from happening" conundrum.
Perhaps one measure of their usefulness is simply to ask the people who use it. In our motorcycle example above, asking a simple "Hey, do you feel like you got any value out of "X" class" might well be enough. I hate to say it, cause I know we've all blown them off, but an honest class critique sheet can go along way. Here to though, it comes down to trusting your people to 1) give you honest feedback and 2) believe in that feedback enough to act.
Another related problem is what I call the "data set" problem. Again, let's look at motorcycle training...a bit of a hot button safety issue DoD-wide. Because we all know about it and have heard about it, we are more likely to take a single incident within our command as an indication that we have a failing program despite the fact that we haven't considered the statistical context. While that 1 accident may not be statistically significant DoD wide where there are 200000 riders (pulled that number out of my ass), it's significance is amplified for us because we may only have 20 in our command. We therefore act as though we have a 10% problem when really we may have just lost in a game of large number theory. The individuals act while genuinely trying to protect their people, but without statistical context. This is how draconian restrictions end up in place.
MasterBates
Well-Known Member
Ah, motorcycle training.. Without looking it up, I think DOD has/had a every three years recurrent training. IIRC, it started as a "once and done" thing. Then it became take the ERC after 3. I had it as a civilian pre-Navy, and was never forced to take it again until I had been in 7 or 8 years. Then when I went to Corpus, I had to re take it because I didn't have "Their course" (SAME EXACT MSF COURSE) and was stuck hoofing it, because at the time, all I had was a motorcycle, and the gate guards had a hard on for checking cards if you didn't have NASCC stickers (I had NS MAYPORT).
Then some bases (NS Mayport, NASCC) started pulling the "every year" thing out of their asses. Because if every three years is good, every year is better.
Then the sport bike, off road and who knows what else is out there now shit came down..
Nevermind the crap taught in some of the classes was being taught by a MA2 who had about zilch riding experience (Kville) and I ended up taking the BRC 3 times in 4 years because the ERC wasn't available.
I know how to ride. I used to race as well. I used to give all the "wannabes" the advice of get a smaller, less powerful, light bike at first.
Back in the 1990s, it was common to see 16 year old guys with their permit or license riding CB125s, CX500s, CB450s but usually nothing bigger.
Now? Save a couple guys I know and talked to, they all bought a way too fast crotch rocket, or a way too big bagger/cruiser.
The whole thing though is just requirement creep to CYA for "leadership".
18-22 year olds (E3 and O1s away from home for the first time with money) are going to buy crotch rockets they can't handle. BR
Guys having a midlife crisis (Chiefs and LCDRs mostly) are going to do the same, or buy a way too big or choppered out cruiser for their nonexistent experience.
Those were the two big risk groups that I saw. Of course, if they adopted Harrier Dude's patented TRA system, only O2-O3 and O5+ and E5-6 and E-8+ would be allowed to ride.
Then some bases (NS Mayport, NASCC) started pulling the "every year" thing out of their asses. Because if every three years is good, every year is better.
Then the sport bike, off road and who knows what else is out there now shit came down..
Nevermind the crap taught in some of the classes was being taught by a MA2 who had about zilch riding experience (Kville) and I ended up taking the BRC 3 times in 4 years because the ERC wasn't available.
I know how to ride. I used to race as well. I used to give all the "wannabes" the advice of get a smaller, less powerful, light bike at first.
Back in the 1990s, it was common to see 16 year old guys with their permit or license riding CB125s, CX500s, CB450s but usually nothing bigger.
Now? Save a couple guys I know and talked to, they all bought a way too fast crotch rocket, or a way too big bagger/cruiser.
The whole thing though is just requirement creep to CYA for "leadership".
18-22 year olds (E3 and O1s away from home for the first time with money) are going to buy crotch rockets they can't handle. BR
Guys having a midlife crisis (Chiefs and LCDRs mostly) are going to do the same, or buy a way too big or choppered out cruiser for their nonexistent experience.
Those were the two big risk groups that I saw. Of course, if they adopted Harrier Dude's patented TRA system, only O2-O3 and O5+ and E5-6 and E-8+ would be allowed to ride.
Harrier Dude
Living the dream
Wrong.
Under TRA, all motorcycles will be illegal. The only acceptable two-wheeled conveyance allowed will be razor scooters. And even then they will only be allowed with helmets and full sets of pads, chest protector, and boots.
SAFETY VIOLATOR!!!!!!!
I guess sidecars and motorcycle trailers would be right out.
True to form, every experience in Casey's life can be categorized as "worst experience ever."
All kidding aside, the MSF course requirement has been around for at least 20 years. I don't like being forced to go to the ERC every three years, but I always learn something and am probably a better rider for having done all those courses. In the spectrum of alleged Big Navy evils, this one shouldn't rank too highly.MasterBates
Well-Known Member
My beef is the bases making up bs to be "more safe". And the creep from once, to three, to local annual, to sportbike, to off road being added in.
Of the six times I went, only one of the ERCs was worth my time. I'm always learning, but sitting through the same annual power point is not learning, nor effective training, no matter how much the DON says it is.
That one good ERC was taught by a guy who had been a motorcycle cop in Jacksonville for ten plus years and raced on the weekend.
Sent from a van down by the river via Tapatalk
Of the six times I went, only one of the ERCs was worth my time. I'm always learning, but sitting through the same annual power point is not learning, nor effective training, no matter how much the DON says it is.
That one good ERC was taught by a guy who had been a motorcycle cop in Jacksonville for ten plus years and raced on the weekend.
Sent from a van down by the river via Tapatalk
So in an effort to say it's not ALL a failure of leadership, apparently someone listened because there is no annual requirement for motorcycle training at Mayport, and hasn't been for years. Same same for the SW Region.
Shack. It's not…thanks.
Sorry if I came across as "judgmental of character". Not my intention. Roger all.