The only USMC four star generals are the commandant, assistant commandant, centcom, and comisaf, four in total. The Marine Corps also has the smallest total number of general officers and highest number of personnel per general officer.

Three star MEF commanding generals do report to three star component commanders. I can't say how that really works but it has been that way for a while without any obvious issues.

The service staff does include multiple three star deputy commandants running departments. I don't see that ending anytime soon, but I also don't see a service headquarters that deals with three star component commanders dropping its main staff positions down to two stars.

In terms of operational command, since 2004 command of ground divisions with 2-3 regimental combat teams/brigades has been pushed down to a one star with a two star in theater overseeing the combined air-ground task force including the air wing and logistics group. Since that model started in Iraq and was used again in Afghanistan, it seems to be working pretty well.

Bullet No. 3 is the same idiot mentality that gave mobilization-station commanders the idea to issue separate National Guard ID badges post-Desert Storm and post-OIF, along with the direction that active-duty soldiers need not render proper salute or respect to the National Guard officers wearing those badges.

I was surprised to encounter the same attitude on Disney Drive earlier this year--but the Active Component soldier quickly puckered up when asked if he'd like to have an open-mic conversation with his commander.

The National Guard. You can't go to war without it. Quit trying to divide the Total Force.

Kind of appears that someone either in DOD or in Congress, or both is trying to separate the NG from its 2 services by having a NG 4 star on the JCS. Who does that 4 star represent, the 54 fiefdoms of the NG, the ARNG or the ANG. For sure that person cannot talk to the military utilization of the NG as an entity. Author is right that kind of an act is separating the NG from the other services vice integrating. IF Guard is to be part of the service for which they wear the uniform, then it is even questionable to have state headquarters. This is truly an anachronistic, convoluted situation requiring years of study, reorganization and logic, where little exists now. Why does a state governor need an F16 squadron? Enough said!

Here's one I've been working on for a while: Special Forces/Operations, not the National Guard, should be the 6th branch. Each branch should roll its SF elements into the new branch (as they already sort of do with SOCOM).
I totally support divorcing the Air National Guard from the states, but it's awfully handy for a governor to have his own militia in time of need.

I would rather die first before letting that happen. The Army would run it and be about numbers and having good uniforms, I have ZERO faith in that Organization to put out a quality product. Army used to run SOCOM pretty much exclusively, they go outside the SOF community for decades then come back in just because they have a tab and 4th star and bring the conventional mindset with them. The two groups who are very good in the Army are under JSOC and that is why they remain good, that and a nice Presidential Directive, if big Army every got a hold of them again I would bet they slide. Uniformity over Skills and free thinking and numbers over quality. They would put everyone through the same selection, go for numbers, etc...also, the SOF forces all have different missions, only MARSOC is starting to duplicate missions. Now, MARSOC, NSW and SF all share the same METLs to a degree but that is not the same as being good at them.

Army SF-Primary FID
SEALs-Maritime DA Force
MARSOC-Expeditionary FID
Rangers-Light Infantry, Support for SMUs
SMUs-Navy & Army, with each having crossover but Navy getting the NOD on Maritime Ops
Air Force-SOF Aviation with PJs and CCTs acting in supporting and LNO roles for other SOF units and CSAR for pilots.
TF-160th-SOF Aviation

Not how do we get people for this SF service? One of the real issues with Special Forces is that they must have a body of people who are trained, experienced, mature and developed to select from. That is the difficulty with even trying to add an SF battalion to each group, you have to denude the NCO corps of the Army to obtain NCOs to grow SF. It takes years of experience to develop someone from member of squad to SF team member. Don't think creating a SF service is quite managable. Nowhere to pick and grow.

Eric,

While FID ("expeditionary" and "combat" preceding the acronym are interesting constructs) is a mission of Special Forces, please don't forget that our primary mission is Unconventional Warfare. While in UW we help an insurgency or resistance movement to overthrow, coerce, or disrupt a government, FID is the flip side of that coin. For the last ten years we've lost our way with putting black velcro on and conducting DA a la Rothstein's "elite regulars" as the principle trainup for OIF and OEF ( for too many CJSOTF Cmdrs, it was all about conventional metrics like kill counts and PUCs at the end of a rotation). However, lately the 1st Special Forces Regiment is getting its UW act together. With GEN Dempsey pushing GPF assumption of FID, our ability to conduct UW is what Regiment is hoping will carry the budget and force structure over the next few years.

Rather than research SOCOM as its own service, I'd look at the conventional force structure mirroring underway within USASOC and USASFC in particular. We've sold our soul to Big Army based off the command and control functions of OIF/OEF and convinced ourselves we need monstrous support battalions and other enablers. Gone are the days of an ODA infiling a country with less than a pallets worth of gear and effecting change!

B team, Expeditionary is what the Marines and NSW are about, we simply do not have the support infrastructure that the Army has, it is the way they are set up. We want more Air Support? Gotta see the Army or AF. We want more vehicles? Often enough, depending on location, we gotta see the Army. There is a lot more to it of course but we are not set up the way the Army is, outside of small boats of course. Just do not have the organic assets that Army does. While I know that UW is a primary part of your METLs/Mission, FID falls under that and is often a primary way of getting your foot in the door and UW in the classic sense is training a guerilla force as a proxy as well as the intel side of it. UW is a catch all. Let's be honest, FID is your forte and what you guys are known for, VSO is right up your alley and why SF has the lead on it.

"Rather than research SOCOM as its own service, I'd look at the conventional force structure mirroring underway within USASOC and USASFC in particular. We've sold our soul to Big Army based off the command and control functions of OIF/OEF and convinced ourselves we need monstrous support battalions and other enablers. Gone are the days of an ODA infiling a country with less than a pallets worth of gear and effecting change"-

Could not agree more. All of SOF is supposed to be a small footprint force but as of late everyone wants in and Big Army want's a piece of the pie just like Big Navy. Both have been paying for things that SF and NSW get and now, like the Mafia, they want their return on the money and we are all going to pay and not like a minute of it.

"Kind of appears that someone either in DOD or in Congress, or both is trying to separate the NG from its 2 services by having a NG 4 star on the JCS. Who does that 4 star represent, the 54 fiefdoms of the NG, the ARNG or the ANG."

The organization of the National Guard by state makes it an ideal tool for Congress - those folks empowered to ‘raise armies and maintain navies’ - seeking to funnel funds to their states and districts - far more so than with the USAR, where DoD has much more power with regard to shaping and stationing the force. [Anyone want to make an argument that Rep. John Murtha had nothing to do with a Stryker BCT being put in the PA Army National Guard?] Strengthening the Guard politically/bureaucratically helps make it easier to use it this way.

This type of politics isn’t unique to the Guard - numerous fights about weapons systems, stationing (hello, carrier homebased in Mayport Naval Station), etc. are motivated at least in part if not in whole by dollars. We used to refer to the ‘senators from Boeing.’

This is not a reflection on individual Guardsmen - just as Trent Lott’s threatening to block defense appropriation if ships weren’t built in Pascagoula was not a reflection on sailors, etc. It’s the nature of our political system.

Does it make sense to have a ‘National Guard’ organized on state lines nowadays? Valid arguments could certainly be made for doing away with Guard, reducing the hurdles for Title 10 forces doing some missions, and having governors able to access the USAR for emergencies, etc… whether or not that would be the theoretical ‘best’ option, such a change is unlikely - a lot of people would have to agree to reduce their ability to control the flow of resources.

Random clarification for the BolandJD's comments re: Point 8:
The 82D maintains regimental integrity within BCTs for the Infantry BNs, only. Since each BCT has a CAV Squadron now, there is the oddity of having a random SQDN (3, 4, 5, and 1, I believe) from the 73rd "Regiment" assigned to each BCT. The FA BNs are also similarly off kilter. It is also worth noting that none of these "stepchild' BNs matches up with the number of the BCT - for example, 1st BCT (504th PIR) has 3-73 CAV and 3-319 FA, while 3rd BCT (505th) has 5-73 CAV and 1-319 FA. I suspect other units "regimental" constructs after modularity are similarly hodge-podge.

As a history major, I like the idea of Regimental identity. I'm just not sure the way we're doing it makes sense - for example, even as a Cav Officer, I wore the 504th PIR DUI instead of the 73d CAV DUI, since the CAV crest could belong to any BCT in the DIV.

The Hodge-podge of regimental affiliations with divisions and separate brigades has been a fact of the Army since the institution of the Combat Arms Regimental System in 1957. The whole idea behind that move was to increase the amount of regimental affiliations that could be active even with the post-World War II drawdown. That way the honors of regiments could be kept active, even if you only had half as many divisions.

The Hodge-podge wasn't fixed with the institution of the US Army Regimental System in 1983, and it wasn't the point of the change to that system either. It did, however, create the emphasis on restoring some amount of historical association. This became so meaningful to the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions that they adopted a host of informal unit designations, most notably referring to their brigades by regimental titles. Commonly used to this day by both of these organizations, these designations were never made official by the Department of the Army as far as I know.

Basically, the purpose of CARS and USARS was to preserve honors in a truncated force structure and retain pride within units for their organizations. Under USARS, the policy even became to regularly reflag, so as to build up the honors of units across the rolls. Pomp and ceremony, in my opinion, is a core element of any military and serves a valuable purpose. "Petronius Arbiter" would appear to disagree.

Have you ever wondered why the Navy and the Marines have managed to stay with practical service and dress uniforms without constant changes? Turning the dress Blue uniform into an all purpose uniform where you just change the tie, or take off the coat, is one of the more mind boggling things we have done to Army uniforms over the years.

I used to think that replacing brown combat boots with black boots was the stupidest thing, followed by dumping a sharp, military looking, summer TW uniform. I am not even going to touch the beret.

Even if they dropped everyone a rank it would not do any good unless they keep guys in spots for more than 18-24 months and do not do early leadership prep and continue the PME for both enlisted and officers in more than just the 'rules and regs'.

Drill and Ceremony instills soldiers to man their Fire Sector and not even think about worrying about their back.

Drill and Ceremony teaches soldiers that every minor detail can have grave consequences.

Drill and Ceremony teaches soldiers to be adults and take care of their crap and therefore take pride in what they own.

Drill and Ceremony teaches soldiers that by listening to your NCO's command and executing with no hesitation will instill success.

Obviously we've seen what 5+ years of NOT teaching Drill and Ceremony does to our forces. The Heritage foundation believes that after this war we'll end up with a Hallow Force due to the fact that we didn't train this generation of soldiers to be soldiers, we trained a generation of men and women to conduct COIN and meet "Warrior Task and Drills" (which apparently was to difficult for the Army so it was reduced from 32 to 15).

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2011/07/Defending-Defense-Warning-Hollow-Force-Ahead

and Odierno commented he'd take a competent Army over a large army.

"Obviously we've seen what 5+ years of NOT teaching Drill and Ceremony does to our forces. "

You can be for or against drill and ceremony, but you can't seriously think the lack of drilling is the reason for the Army's current state. We're at where we're at bc we took quantity over quality. We , as an Army training and deploying for war, made the decision to lower standards(officially and unofficially) on entrance standards into the Army, height/weight, drugs, NJP, etc. You can't think that drilling ranks higher than any of those issues.

Veteran9 couldn't have said it better:

I expect soldiers to be able to shoot, move, communicate and perform TCCC. I expect Squads through Battalions to be able to execute complicated (preferably live-fire) exercises that demonstrate that the unit is not only proficient in its METL , but also able to react to changing situations in a dynamic environment.

You build competent "teams" through realistic, physically and mentally demanding training. You do not build combat-ready units through hours of shining shoes, standing in formation, and trying to teach the manual of arms.

I would rather see our men demonstrate dicipline, judgement, and ability to follow orders by setting into the correct position during STX lane, ambush rehearsal, etc then executing a Right Shoulder Arms mvmt on the parade deck.

The Army won't have to worry about pushing good Soldiers & leaders out of the service in the coming lean times if you go back to our dinosaur ways.

Silentshawn, I think you are way off on that. The one thing see most lacking in Army troops is a consistency in actual combat skills and also, sadly, fitness. Mind you, the regular Navy and AF are even worse but I see a consistency for the most part in fitness in the USMC and for combat skills. One thing they need to do is increase the guys time on the range, time doing live fire exercises, training on ALL infantry small arms, basic tactics and leadership skills. The difference I see between your Infantry and your support is like night and day, I do not see that type of gap in the USMC. The Army needs to have a baseline and they need to improve on what they do for training, not lower already low standards. They need to raise fitness levels as well and not concentrate on what I see them do a lot, looking good over being good. The Soldier is the foundation of the Army, everything else tends to collapse if the foundation is not solid and it is not solid. The Army can do a lot to clean up it's shop, sticking with a lot of close order drill is not one of them. Close Order Drill is something for boot for a few days, not something they need to concentrate on.

As a side note, I swear, at times they seem to be about building self-esteem for their people. Do you guys have enough pins on your chest for quals? Ribbons for Bootcamp? A shoulder rocker for something you are not even qual'd in?

between Drill and Ceremony and the discipline and function in military then we're at an impasse, though for you all that are stressing TCCC and Tactical skills, answer the question I posed in my first reply:

IF the importance and focus should be getting soldiers ready for combat, then why did the United States Army cut it's Warrior task and Drills from 32 tasks and 12 Battle Drills to 15 tasks and 4 Battle Drills?

Lets see what LTG Herting had to say about the old 32:

1. The former list was too long.
2. It ended up designing an infantry Soldier as opposed to a "basic" Soldier.
3. Some of the tasks were not relevant to the majority of Soldiers.
Soldiers couldn't name the tasks and drills, much less perform all of them, and so were not speaking the truth when they claimed "I am proficient in my Warrior Tasks and Battle Drills" when they recited the Soldier's Creed.
4. Trying to train all the former tasks and drills caused "task paralysis."
5. The former list didn't account for the new generation of Soldiers, the "Millennials."

Hrm......sounds like the sentiments for getting rid of DNC. I guess the Army doesn't know where to draw the line. Like I said earlier, prove to me that the Army is still making and up-keeping soldiers and not just COIN operators.

Your telling me performing DNC shouldn't be a task soldiers should know but yet "Grow professionally and personally/ Build resilience" makes it on the list of 15? Give me a break.

This isn't just for new soldiers, they've revised WLC to make it more "battle centered" and in the process pretty much just destroyed anything it means to be an NCO. How many of you know that WLC no longer evaluates Land Navigation or that the day 1/2 APFT is no longer needed, and failing the one that the Commandant does will not give you a marginal 1059?

http://www.army.mil/article/43694/army-rolls-out-revised-warrior-leader-course-this-fall/

http://www.army.mil/article/37935/revised-warrior-tasks-and-battle-drills-set-framework-for-new-and-seasoned-soldiers-alike/

That is the point, no one want's standards to be dropped, I know I and others on this thread do not want that. The standards are far too low and that the bar needs to be raised. Land Nav is a critical element of being a "grunt", as is marksmanship, TCCC, tactical shooting, small unit tactics, etc....they do not do enough of ANY of that. If it is to hard to get guys to pass muster on a skill, what does the Army do? They throw out the skill, maybe lower the standard or simply make it so canned it is worthless. It is an institutional problem, only a radical and forward looking leader who actually cares about the institution could change it. Instead, I fear you will get ever lower standards. The new APFT is a joke if it goes through, nothing upper body. Live fire? Range Time? Comms? Why spend money on that when they can buy a UAV that doesn't have to be fed or managed? Why spend money on the troops doing actual infantry skills when you can spend money on new armor or artillery? I am also betting women will be allowed into direct combat MOS/NECs soon, I am sure that will keep those standards right up there. We will talk about this ad nauseum on this blog but what do you think the odds are that someone will actually raise standards as far as performance expectations go? What about the odds that someone will actually raise the PFT standards? Prepare leaders to be combat leaders instead of business managers? Don't feel that bad though, Big Navy is the same. It is a failure of leadership at the top, why actually making our military into a group that is well trained, fit and well lead is not a real priority I do not know. Maybe it is not sexy, maybe because in the end we do not have to be really good as long as we are a lot better than the guys we fight. Great quote I heard one time that summed up why maybe there is no big push on this topic-
'When asked why his group was so good' an officer said this "It's not that we are so good it's just that everybody else sucks" (paraphrased a little bit)

Just to clarify - they still teach Land Nav at WLC, and you are required to plot your points, and use your protractor, compass and pace count to reach your checkpoints and objectives when running missions in the field. What they dropped was the specific test on Land Nav. That used to blow half a day of field time, which they now use for running more patrols, reacting to contact, and other warrior tasks and drills.

You still haven't presented a valid argument D&C is more effective at developing leaders and subordinates than basic skills/tactical training. D&C is fine for building immediate obedience to orders in boot camp but once Soldiers/Marines graduate, they need minimal D&C(maybe rehearsals the day prior to a CoC).

A biased view, but many leaders(esp support MOSs) use D&C during SGTs time as training. As ESIII pointed out and I think the Army as whole knows, support MOSs need that SGTs time for field/immediate action/battle drill training more than anyone. The wars in AF and IZ have shown that everyone needs to be able to shoot/move/comm and close with and destroy the enemy.

You'll develop leaders(officers & NCOs) and junior enlisted faster by executing hard realistic training than you will drilling on the parade field(and it is an "either/or" decision). You want to have your NCOs(soft skill and combat) develop and lead? Go do STX lanes or land nav; something that requires basic knowledge of doctrine, technical and tactical proficiency w/ personal and sm unit level equipment(not used in D&C), employment of judgement & experience for the application of the doctrine(not used in D&C), physical fitness(not used in D&C), problem solving skills(not used in D&C), and you'll end up with a more better trained, more technically and tactically proficient Soldiers, NCOs, officers, and unit as a whole. You could even progress to individual, tm, and maybe SQD LFXs to further develop and evaluate the Soldiers in your unit.

I might buy that argument if the WLC FTX wasn't shortened from 96 to 36 hours.

You haven't given any proof that dropping DNC to focus on combat centric training has made the Army any better. as Eric points out, standards keep dropping.

"The purpose of drill is to enable a commander or noncommissioned officer to move his unit from one place to another in an orderly manner; to aid in disciplinary training by instilling habits of precision and response to the leader's orders; and to provide for the development of all soldiers in the practice of commanding troops."

We've been doing your way for the last 5+ years, and look where it's gotten us. 1 in 3 to 4 have PTSD, Child neglect deaths in the Military have skyrocketed, in addition to suicide. It's not about doing facing movements and 15 inch steps. It's about teaching logical processing while on the move. It's about teaching Young NCOs there's certain things that have to happen in a specific order.

Nowhere have I argued to get rid of NTC, STX lanes or CLS to do DNC. Nor am I saying that we need soldiers out every day doing 3 hours of left and right turns. DNC is just one tool out of many to keep discipline on high. I think everyone is also tired of seeing crap like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlKopZnxFTU&feature=related

or this :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5Qh9V6XzBg&feature=related

SO maybe, just maybe, if we took more stock into it we'd be better off. If we were just focused on war-fighting it'd be a lot more effective and cost efficient if we just hired out to Triple canopy and Xe to fight our wars for us (the State Department figured this out at least).

...well, I'm not saying it's the RIGHT mix of field vs. classroom time - just clarifying that Land Nav isn't an untaught or unused skill there, it's just not individually tested as a separate event. But if you screw it up, you do lose points, miss your objective, and often times fail the mission and have to retrain/repeat.

Oh, and my experience was that our field week began on a Saturday - we had breakfast at 0600, drew weapons, loaded trucks and went to the field site; warrior tasks and drills all day, MRE lunch, and back for dinner chow at 1730 (finishing up some class work after chow). Same schedule Sunday, and then Monday we left after chow, occupied the site, did training into the night, pulled guard shifts overnight, more training all day Tuesday into the night, guard shifts, then Wednesday was recovery ops and a 6-mile ruck back to post.

Is that 96 hours in the field? Negative. Is it the right mix of field time? Hell if I know. But the FTX itself was about 52 hours, and total field time total field time is about double the 36 hours that's in the news stories.

If you think the only variable that has changed over the last 10 years of war is the replacement of D&C time with more battle focused training time than its not worthing continuing this debate. The following variables have a much larger effect:

1) Officially lowering entrance standards
2) Officially raising the command level it takes to separate a Soldier from the Army
3) Reenlisting anyone with a pulse
4) Promoting any officer with a pulse
5) Unofficially relaxing PT and height and weight standards
6) Deploying at or below 1:1 deployment/home station ratio

Some of these changes were neccessary to keep up with deployment manning requirements but regardless they are all the causes for our current situation.

SILENTSHWAN, the main point I am trying to make is not to argue the past policies and procedures but define our(Army's) path forward. We have the chance to change the Army as we know it.

We don't have to go back to the days pre-GWOT dinosaur days of wasting time on the parade field, conducting the same mundane training against the Russian Advance Guard, Main body, etc, starching uniforms, split shining boots, etc. Lets take the 10%(50k) troop reduction as an opportunity to ditch the bottom 10% by raising and enforcing standards(APFT, height & weight, drugs, poor & toxic leadership). Lets focus our training on tasks that train multiple elements of soldiering at a time( STX, LFX, PT, tactical decision exercises, etc) D&C is good at reinforcing mindless obedience to orders(ie good @ boot camp to indoctrinate civilians into the Army), takes no imagination or judgement or critical thinking, is not physically demanding. Everyone on today's battle field needs to be able to think critically and make judgements; gone are the times of mindlessly bounding forward and killing everything. We need to train junior leaders and Soldiers to think critically on their feet instead of threatening them and treating them like children(30 min safety briefs, cmd ROE threats that make Soldier more afraid of killing the enemy than being shot themselves, etc).

I think I kind of messed this one up. The original intent was to impress the need for more D&C in institutional training to develop discipline in Soldiers and to provided a venue for NCOs to develop. I love that Pavlov's dog thing. No inference was intended to take multitudes of training time away from combat preparation and substitute D&C. But, it would be nice that when troops move from point A to point B, they do so in a professional military manner. Can't remember the last time I saw a formation that wasn't, "rout step."

Some minor corrections:

USMC Regiments do not have a headquarters battalion, just a headquarters company. Division's do have a headquarters battalion.

On the west coast, the three battalions of Fourth Marine Regiment are assigned to 1st, 5th, and 7th Marines. 4th Marines is based in Okinawa and commands whatever battalions rotate through on the Unit Deployment Program.

On the east coast, the three battalions of Ninth Marines were reactivated over the past few years but their regimental headquarters was not. 1/9, 2/9, and 3/9 report to the three regimental headquarters based at Camp Lejeune.

In both combat and CONUS battalions regularly report to regiments besides their lineal parent. Battalions are deploying for 7 months and regimental headquarters for 12 and mix and match organizations in theater are the rule, not the exception. When a regimental headquarters is deployed, any of their battalions in CONUS usually report to which headquarters remains on post.

The USMC regimental system is close to our organizational reality, but maintains some of the same fictions as the army system for the same reasons of history and pride.

I stand corrected. I should also add that in addition to the circumstances of 9th Marines and 4th Marines, 10th Marines has four battalions (three direct support and one general support; had five battalions in the 80's). Likewise 11th Marines has four battalions while 12th Marines has only two, one of which is attached to 3rd Marines in Hawaii.

"Yes, the Brits just heaved out another amalgamation of infantry regiments as they trim their force and cut costs but they did so while trying to maintain the customs and traditions of the regiments."

This is exactly the reason why the US Army has done what its done. The US Army and the British Army have run into equal resistance as they try and find creative ways to maintain unit lineage and honors as their forces are scaled dramatically down. The British, the Australians, and the USMC benefit from the fact that they have all been dramatically smaller than the US Army for some time now. But if you think people have been 100% happy with the way these things have played out in these other services, you should just look at the response to the last rejiggering of the Scottish regiments in the BA.

"No 5th Bn., 35th Infantry next door to 4th Bn., 27th Infantry or some weird BS like that, when these regiments don't even exist. They're just battalions that used to be part of some long-ago organic regiment. Stupid."

I think what we're seeing is that between the US Army's 3 systems in the last 60 years, the system that existed until 1957, then CARS, and then USARS, are not really clearly understood by people. Combat arms regiments do not draw lineage and honors from and are not in any way related to battalions of their parent regiments as they existed prior to 1957. They draw lineage and honors from the individual companies of those regiments. This is specifically to "Give the lads continuity, tradition, customs, history, esprit de corps," as honors were usually awarded to individual companies, in many cases without a similar award being given to the battalion.

Therefore, with some companies within regiments being infinitely more storied than others, the system is designed to give all personnel a greater sense of pride in their unit history, instead of some units being more storied than others. CMH keeps a complex chart of units for each branch and this allows them to recommend what unit designation should be used when a unit of that type is activated. This is to make sure that storied units are always active in some fashion. It also means that you probably won't see certain units on the active rolls ever again. That is unless you start needing 20 armored divisions again. What is seen as obtuse and complex to some people, the US Army views as ways of keeping its traditions alive and well despite being dramatically smaller than it was 60 years ago.

The British link worked, the other two did not.

I feel the same way--that, counterintuitively, the quality of a blog may be best measured not by the quality of the author's posts, but in the commentary and especially the exchanges between commenters.

In some ways, the original posts are just the kickoff, putting the ball into play.

Best,
Tom

If you want to knitpick,

By "downgrade" I mean:

His Team leader convinced our PSG to recommend him for a BSM instead of an ARCOM. To our surprise the 638 came back the next day with a recommend for downgrade on her block. Instead of sending up that 638 to BN our CO came by to publicly dress down our PSG in the fusion SCIF break room and then coerce him to re-do it as an ARCOM rather than trying to argue why it should be downgraded to our Battalion Commander. THEN when we had our end of tour ceremony we find out that our PSG and Warrant are the only two in the company to get ARCOMs instead of BSMs.

See how much easier it is to just say she downgraded them?

That's my point: Your company commander does not have the authority to downgrade a 638 for any award, either on paper or by making a spectacle in front of everyone about it. She can only recommend the downgrade. That's the point at which you should have gone around her to your battalion commander with this situation if you thought the soldier in question truly deserved the award. Lesson learned.