Two years undergraduate courses in a second language... well that's enough to accomplish just about nothing. Even four years in a normal university may not provide much return.

I'm a graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC), think tri-service USMA but in Canada, and like all alumni bilingual. Not that is comes easy, in order to be "functional" in your second language most students are looking at an hour of French (or English) every weekday for four years, along with an immersion summer in Quebec. All that time in classes no bigger than five or six. In addition to that there's the constant background noise of both official languages that assists in learning.

So even in an institution as conducive to learning a new, and fairly simple, language as RMC, it takes significant resources to do so, for a fairly limited return. More importantly the skills are perishable (as most officers become aware as they scramble to update their language profiles for the promotion boards).

If the U.S. army is interested in developing second language skills in its officers the only real way to do it is some initial classroom training, followed by immersion in the language and culture. Without this you end up with a bunch of people who can conjugate verbs like a master but get lost when confronted with someone actually trying to talk to them.

That said, language training is an excellent idea, it just needs to be resourced properly and nurtured continuously, or it will be very quickly forgotten.

I'm surprised at the notion that an engineering course sequence is no longer required at USMA. I'm looking at their website and see that the 5 course sequence of old is now 3 (The Corps Has!), but total abandonment of that requirement? I just don't see it.

As for language training. In my day it was only one year, so good on them for adding another...but the fact is that training adult learners in language is way behind the power curve. The U.S. is embarrassing in this regard. Kids need to learn two languages from the day they enter school.

[Almost completely aside, saw Inglorious Basterds the other day. The Nazi COL played by Christoph Waltz was fascinating for many reasons, not the least of which was the fact that he was quad-lingual....and so was the actor Waltz. Reportedly, Tarantino was frustrated by his inability to find a fluent speaker in four languages, until he found Austrian Waltz. Waltz won a much deserved Oscar for the role.]

That's their entire time at the Academy. Four years of university language would have really helped me.

While I neither care for _b_'s cynicism nor certainly his (one assumes) mysogeny, I do agree that none of these neat fix-the-Army ideas means squat without a willingness on the part of Army leadership (or, better, higher authority with clout, Congress or Commander in Chief or both) to admit the Army is broken and needs to reform in a fundamental way.

Absent from the conversation now and needed if anything meaningful is to happen:

- Readiness to accept need for effective strategy to deal with large threats from non-state actors (COIN ain't it!)

- Willingness to accommodate and advance special operations as a primary mode of war-fighting

- Resolution of Army organization issues, command structure, etc., none of which have served this century well

- Reconnection with the American people through abandonment of the AVF as be-all/end-all of force creation, though acceptance of the need for a draft, and through radical cutback of the company town to only-as-needed for services and facilities forever unavailable outside the gate

- Replacement of the goal of war from being an enterprise defined by promotion potential to one defined by victory.

The money we spend on the US Army just isn't cost effective for what it's accomplished in the last decade. Screwed up Afghanistan early, letting OBL escape because of profound fat-headedness in command; botched Iraq for years; let Afghanistan victory turn into creeping defeat; and, with essentially unlimited assets, failed to find an effective strategy against small, ragtag bands of irregulars. This is not a pretty picture. Why reform the US Army? Because it has proven that it cannot do its job.

Me, a "mysogenyst"? Astafigrullah, habibi! Certainly, I am no such thing (one assumes.)

Congress and the President are not gonna fix anything in the military. First of all, the staffers who write their speeches have no idea how the military works-it's just a big, noisy, clanking terrifying machine. Second, they have other things to worry about just now, and an event horizon that goes as far as and no further than the next election.

As far as Special Operations is concerned, they are not only NOT the magic bullet, but subject to the exact same kind of Crimestop. Over two OIF deployments which I spent working with ODAs, this is what they did: trained their host nation forces (through terps) to clear rooms and vehicles and shoot 10 meter targets (with moderate success,) went on DA missions (clearing houses and doing helicopter vehicular interdictions,) and drove around doing CA handouts, MEDCAPs and hanging out with sheikhs blowing smoke up each other. None of this stuff impressed me as beyond the capabilities of a well-trained and competently led combat arms platoon, which is exactly how the Marines have been doing it in Helmand. Their leadership, too, was not exactly unconventional in their approach-it was all the same algorithm. The idea that the poor state of our conventional forces can be remedied through SOF is deeply flawed.

I may have found a common bond in views and writing style! Sigh......brings a tear to my eye.
Please continue the grumpy writings and posts, good to see now and then.

You're blinded by your buddy love, didn't you just see Ducky truck out his "destroy the AVF" argument? No response? You let me down. You've always been so reliable.

Oh, I see, you and _B_ swapping spit distracted you? (just kidding, besides that stuff is ok now!)

Well played sir, well played!
Come on though, I don't give you and JPWREL a hard time when the love fest gets going ;)
As for Ducky, man, I can only roll that rock up that hill so many times....sigh...

The US Army has been an abject failure in this decade. Great people. Doubtful leadership. Execrable strategy. Overwhelming resources against — face it — nada; results: nada. Epic failure. In all of Christendom there is not enough perfume to make that pig smell good. Go win something, then argue with critics.

Get the Navy into the fight and compete, and then answer the critics. They fire commanders left and right in what amounts to peacetime/training. God help us if they have to fight a war. It will be like Otto's crack suicide squad.

(J/k I am just trolling)

The US Navy submarine force had the highest casualty rate of all military components in WW-II. 2% of the Navy accounting for 60% of Japanese ship losses. FBM missile submarines completed over 3,000 deterrence patrols in the Cold War. We won them both. Piss off.

Astaghfirullah! Where is the justice in that? Indeed, it is Allah who introduces people in our life according to his will and it is he who takes ...

You people are turning me into a military misanthrope! Look, Mr. Bibi, I am sure that your observations about the work of two ODA's is accurate, but your conclusion is not. Conventional US Army officers and NCO's are not psychologically suited to work in unstructured environments. In fact, they are socialized to operate in the opposite environment.

They have no training program available to assist them in attempting that transition now. At least for Vietnam we had a MATA course which included some language training. US Marines attended the Army MATA course. The Army course graduates went to two different environments: unit advisors or District/Provincial advisors. The latter grouping didn't work as well as the former. The Marines advised the Vietnamese Marines and took on the dangerous task of embedded advisors to local Vietnamese forcres. Substitute heroic for dangerous. AND, the Marines are doing the same thing as embeds with the ANA now.

The draft and compulsory ROTC could produce soldiers suited to an advisory role.

BTW, platoons be bigger than ODA's. For bit of insight on how to configure an advisory team in Afghanistan, see Bing West's book, "The Wrong War." He has seen the optimal configuration in action and also realizes that we will not succeed in making a lasting contribution unless there is a functioning local government in place. At least ISAF has adopted my concept of starting at the bottom instead of starting with the Kabul government. After all, it is what the Afghans are accustomed to.

You are right about who is not going to change the US Army. Neither the Congress nor the Executive has the knowledge, the ability, or the will to effect change. Certainly, there are few lurkers in the general officer ranks waiting to create change - unless you count bad taste in attire and acronyms. It's not impossible as there was the rise of the career Majors at the beginning of the Second World War. BTW, look at the obdurate attitude of our leadership in "adapting" to Iraq and Afghanistan. The 3 star who told SF personnel in Afghanistan to shave and press (and wear) their uniforms should have been relieved for cause, court martialed, and retired as a BG.

Because we are hardware-oriented, SOF gadgets and weaponry will trickle down to the conventional forces, but attitudes and mores will not. And, perhaps they shouldn't. The new brigade separate (BCT) Army needs a new set of attitudes. The Army could look at the Marines and ACR's as a guide.

SOF will continue to fight the WOT and FID while the Army dreams of finding some hostile foreign battalions to meet on a wide-open plain. This will require new vehicles and weapons systems. Meanwhile the Air Force and Navy will try to figure out how to pick a fight with China and survive. But first, they need new hardware and general officer slots.

Of course, if we had national goals and a strategy, the Services might feel duty-bound to prepare to support their political leadership. The Cold War was so much easier - and then the USSR had to go and let us down!

Pass the bayonet sharpening stone, please.

1. I've worked (lived, operated, etc.) with about eight ODAs downrange and about as many again CONUS. It ain't 1967 anymore-they're not living with their partner forces, and usually there's a commute involved in training. There is no more "hey, SSG Beanie, you are combat advising this company"-I've never seen the team guys actually embed into their partner forces. Not saying it doesn't happen, just saying. Of course, the fact that six years into OIF practically none of the team guys I knew spoke Arabic at anything approaching a conversational level says something.
2. The ones I saw didn't need CF to tell them to shave and put on nice uniforms. At the slightest sign of a visit from the company commander and SGM, the team sergeants and team leaders would get spun up about it and start enforcing. The ones who were authorized beards and civies wore contractor wear (5.11 gear, etc.,) and were forced to keep their beards in the authorized length (3/8", I think.) I am not sure what the point of having a beard when you can't travel outside the wire with less than three uparmored vehicles full of guys in uniform is-the locals certainly didn't appear to give a shit-beard or no beard, it's an American trooper. In this context, the only reason they had beards was to set themselves apart from the CF, in other words, the typical pissing contest.
3. As far as fighting the war on terror, SOF is on a series of mule deer hunts and manhood-proving competitions. Last time in Afghanistan, I had an MSR in my sector which had Talib checkpoints every other day-these dudes would show up on motorcycles and stop traffic, check IDs and tax/kill/kidnap as appropriate. The road was a main artery running from Iran to Kabul, with all kinds of traffic running on it daily. The ODA in sector were constantly smacking HVIs, but did nothing about the road, and when we asked them about it, they said "it's probably just gonna get worse in the future." Before I left, the local ANP company showed up and had an hour-long firefight with the five guys manning the snap TCP, which ended when the Talibs ran out of ammo and debarked. But I'm dead certain that that team went home with awards and promotions, and odds are that their TL is gonna publish an article in a trade mag talking about the way he did the great job that he did.
4. Platoons are, in fact, bigger than ODAs.
5. I have read Bing West's book, and liked it. But it only had one sentence in there which was key to understanding why we are losing this war, deserve to lose this war, and will continue losing wars to dudes with flip-flops and AKs. That sentence was when he pointed out that it's a lot easier and more efficient to relocate 5,000 obstinate Safi tribesmen (to, say, a settlement in the Nimruz desert) than to put a battalion of infantry down in their midst and babysit them until our losses get too big. We are governed by ahistorical retards who look at the patterns of every successful conquest ever from Sumeria onwards, do the exact opposite, then congratulate themselves on their humanity and unconventional thinking as wars which should have been over in a year last a decade, at the conclusion of which an entirely different set of ahistorical retards declare victory and run.

My experiences working with/around ODA/ODB and with SF personnel dispatched out to the force, such as those sent as team leaders for Transition Teams has been great. Not only have they been top notch Soldiers but they've critically evaluated operations and they've seen the pitfalls and shortcomings pointed out in the blog and other areas.

I've learned a lot from those SF guys. They're not magic, they're not ninjas, but they're really good.

As for MATA - need to bring it back. RVN is correct in so far as a generalization can go: GPF are not suited for advisory roles and ambiguous assignments. I don't believe you see this until you watch an SF professional or unit that's done that mission multiple times juxtaposed with a GPF BN Cdr/Co Cdr/PL Ldr trying to do the same thing. I watched a small group of SF guys make progress with Iraqis while US GPF commanders were so awful that thumbs went to selector switches and a 4-man stack took place. Luckily it didn't go past that.

As for the beards, saw this hispanic SF guy with civvies and a beard repeatedly mistaken for a fellow Iraqi by Iraqis. Can't be that bad of a get-up.

This is not a comment to bow down at the feet of the SF community. It's meant more to point out how our GPF side is off azimuth.

Going to _B_'s scenario.....I wasn't there obviously, but it seems the right answer there was for the GPF and the SF to work together on that issue. It's not about who did or did not attack the problem of Taliban TCPs or who did or did not go after HVIs. The dissociation of the two units and the lack of "unity of effort" speaks to where our Army is, more than any other factor in that vignette. Often it comes down to tab envy, snobbery, parochialism, and looking to protect one's OER (sharing bullets on an OER doesn't work, everyone wants 100% of the credit even if it leads to 0% of the mission being accomplished).

One thing about the gentlemen's comments: they disagree but they're talking. We will never get out of our current mess unless this dialog is extended up the pay chart to the GO level and the GOs are going to have to shelve their egos and their rank. It's like an AAR: check your rank at the door. Unless and until that happens, Mr. Ricks and his blog will be in business forever as it'll be the only forum for discussion and topics won't go away.

I'm glad you got to work with some silent professionals-there are some out there.

Regarding my situation, I was not there with the military. The nearest CF were the Marines 100 km away, and they had their hands full with their AO (not that they were doing what they were doing any better.) It would have been easy to clear the road-put a few guys in civilian vehicles with QRF on call, drive down the road a couple of times a day, shoot anyone standing with an AK in the middle of the road. Nobody is doing that, though-mule deer hunts for HVIs are a surer bet-if something goes wrong, you were just doing what your peers to the left and to the right were, and nobody can blame you.

Did the Hispanic guy speak Dari or Pashto? Was he allowed to go outside the wire wearing shalwar kameez and driving a local beater, with no other Americans in the vehicle? If so, I ain't seen nothing like it.

...find some relevancy. And you did that WWII stuff all on your own right? BEAT NAVY.

This may not be profitable, but I'll try to be more clear both about time and place. I'll follow B's numbering.

1. To the best of my knowledge, SF were never embedded as advisor in RVN and, I did not say they were. CF officers and NCO's went to the MATA Course and became ARVN unit advisors, SF personnel did not. In most "A" Team camps we were co-located with Vietnamese SF Teams and CIDG (Civil Irregular Defense Groups) soldiers whom we trained and paid. We all lived together in the same came, but were segregated into separated hooches. The CIDG personnel could be Cambodians or Montagnards or ethnic Vietnamese. SF paid these soldiers to fight. They were loyal to SF and not necessarily the Vietnamese government. Some teams did have a MACV advisory role with the local Popular and Regional Forces - location dependent. In Afghanistan, Bing West lived with an embedded SF Team advising/training ANA troops. They were augmented by US Combat Engineers and US Forward Observers in one big embedded team. I said this was optimal, not modal. You keep referring to Arabic which makes me unsure about your authenticity. Farsi, Dari, and Pashto are the relevant languages. The recent controversy on the Pakistan border involved Afghan troops "working with" an SF unit. The SF unit called-in the IDF.
2. At a point in time shortly after the initial victory of the Northern Alliance, there was an incident in which a CF 3 star criticized the long beards and attire of deployed SF Teams embedded with the different Northern Alliance factions to include the folks who rode horses into battle. This incident was cited as an example of conventional force mind set and ignorance of how you gain acceptance by indigenous forces and how you stay alive when you have a different, distinctive appearance. In no way is this an attempt to comment on current operations. It is illustrative of CF thinking. However, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." Now, this includes shaving.
3. Everybody in the military has a mission often contained in an op order. That mission defines and limits your activities. JSOC has its role and ESIII is here to discuss that to the extent he can. One such mission is in fact a manhunt - dead or alive. It's one of their many missions. SF Teams are not normally part of JSOC operations and have their own diverse missions. SF and Delta are not the same. Missions are not normally posted on billboards outside COPs.
5. The primary lesson I got from "The Wrong War" is that without a viable Afghan government at the local level, nothing we do will last. I agree. That is why I believe that we are wasting our time, blood, and treasure in Afghanistan. We have shifted to "stability operations" far too late in the game. A lot of Afghan officials needed to be given the option of going straight, retiring, or being killed.

In varying degrees of outrage, most contributors to this blog are keenly aware that our leaders have their heads up their asses and are behaving in an irrational manner for inexplicable reasons. However, few if any would suggest that we are "losing" the tactical or killing war. We are succeeding on the battle field with one hand tied behind our backs. But, it just isn't doing any good. In this regard, it resembles the war in Vietnam. In fact, in many ways, Afghanistan is a duplicate of Vietnam.

1. I refer to Arabic because that is what they speak in Iraq, where I worked closely with SF. I am unsure if the guys in Afghanistan, whom I observed from the outside, know Pashto, Dari or Farsi (which are the same language-the speakers use the names interchangeably) well enough to hold an adult conversation-the guys in Iraq didn't. If SF dedicated half the effort to learning and sustaining languages at a useful level that they do to self-promotion as snake eaters able to go native at the drop of a hat, the situation would have been different.
2. The beard incident was hyped due to politics. The beards were important because of what they symbolized to the US Army (SOF and CF,) not the Afghans, who don't really give a shit. A kafir, mehmon or dust amriki is what he is, beard or no beard. As Tim Lynch at FRI says, "when you can't do the important, the unimportant becomes important," and this kind of childish silliness is why I left the Army's warm embrace.
3. Without getting too much into the guts of this thing, targets are not sorted (usually) by Tier I vs. Tier II/III-a lot of the time, it's whoever is positioned to hit a guy at a given time. Of course, the Tier I guys do tend to cherry pick, but I've seen a bunch of their guys get hit by Tier III and vice versa (lots of silly bitching there-I did not care whether a bad guy got hit by our guys or someone else, but that's not the typical view.
5. There was a viable Afghan government at the local level, capable of enforcing its will at the farthest reaches of the country-it was called the Taliban. Any government we put into place will be, by definition, our bitches, and will not be considered legit by the population or by itself. You know, I had a guy working for me who'd been a technical civil servant for Mullah Omar. He said that Omar talked like a hillbilly, slept on the floor while he ran the whole country, but a piece of paper with his signature worked ANYWHERE. Karzai's signature plays exclusively within the boundaries of Kabul. Anyway, for a more incisive explanation of how to win in Afghanistan, I recommend the Baburname, by Babur (the Thackston translation isn't bad,) who actually did it Babur conquered Afghanistan without JDAMs, SATCOM, MRAPs, ACOGs or any of that, by the way, with the forces he was able to salvage from his defeat in Samarkand. How many of our senior leaders in Afghanistan or CENTCOM know who Babur is or would give a shit if they did?
6. The manner in which our leaders are behaving is completely explicable, but only if you understand the true nature of our government, which is nothing like its formal nature. I will say that we are absolutely losing the tactical war-we control that which lies within our line of site-occasionally. The Talibs control everything else. Kill counts are irrelevant. What is relevant, as Bernard Fall pointed out, is who administers the population. That's who's winning the counterinsurgency. Guess what, dude? It ain't us.

Afghanistan is Vietnam repeated as farce, the Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead to Vietnam's Hamlet.

Just so that others appreciate that there is a difference in the above languages, I refer you to: http://www.cal.org/co/afghan/alang.html. Since all are spoken in Iran, I assume that the people can understand one another speaking the different languages - which all have Persian origins.

You can toss around Tier I and Tier II all you want, but the average "A" Team doesn't do what JSOC does. I am sure that there are good teams and not so good teams, but what is relevant is that they are not focused on the things that either JSOC or CF units do. BTW, the defense of a linear target, your road, is one of the most difficult tasks you can ask of any military unit; especially when the enemy is small guerrilla forces who hit and run or set up "toll booths." An "A" Team with supporting local forces is ill-equipped for such a task and any unit would find itself tied down to such a task. The same is true for power lines, borders, and pipelines.

Lastly, the story about a Puerto Rican SF in mufti occurred in Iraq and he probably did speak Arabic. In the early days of OIF, there were a decent number of men like that in Baghdad and they worked in cooperation with CIA personnel - sometimes providing security as the SAS did for MI-6. The SAS tried to get by with their men in mufti on surveillance only missions. Without the local language, it did not work out well.

Farsi, Dari and Tajik (not Pashto) are all dialects of the same language, mutually comprehensible, much like Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian. There are some differences, but not much more than between Scots and American English. I don't really care what some website says, I speak them.

Defending a road from guys doing snap checkpoints is not that hard-Q cars worked fine for the Rhodesians when they were fighting their wars. If the bad guys think that any Corolla coming up the highway could have guys come out and light them up, guess what? They'll think twice before setting up a TCP. At the very least, they'll transition to more solid TCPs with cover, at which point they become very obvious and vulnerable to air. But the risk assessment for putting dudes in unarmored civilian vehicles would never go through, at least not since 2004/5.

Glad to hear there were SF Puerto Ricans speaking fluent Arabic running around the streets of Baghdad at some point-I've never seen them, but I'm sure at some point it happened-it's a big war.

I am an Army 2LT, recently commissioned through ROTC. During my four years, I learned Arabic (about a 3) and Farsi (about a 4). I studied abroad in the Middle East and Central Asia. Because of my ROTC training, I studied at intensive summer language programs for both Arabic and Farsi. The Army paid for my Farsi education in Tajikistan.

That being said, mandating (or throwing money at) language education is just another part of the "hand wave." Soldiers have to be extremely motivated to learn strategic languages. Frankly, studying Arabic or Farsi in the US without an overseas immersion is a waste of time because you will not learn to speak. (There are some good stateside programs, like Middleburry or DLI, but the cost of these programs is often the same or more than a semester abroad.)

When I was a cadet, ROTC tried to place incentives on learning strategic languages by making CULP 5% of the OML and paying CLIP-B language bonuses. These are good rewards but not adequate incentives for a cadet to 1) take a harder/larger course load, 2) commit to working on language several hours per week outside of the class, and 3) spend a summer in non-European country.

I agree that Americans should learn more foreign languages, but mandating it for soldiers will produce mediocre speakers at best. The better alternative is to find self-motivated cadets and soldiers and give them the resources (the Army just got rid of free Rosetta Stone, btw) and latitude to develop their language skills.

"Females are a difficult issue. Had a male Soldier once that was threatening others, had been arrested then released for murder (guilty of assault, charges not pursued for murder). That guy was very bad for the unit, and certainly was as equally damaging as any "female drama" could have been."

That is one case Charles, I see the interactions on a daily basis here and overseas and the drama that goes with it because you are in fact mixing the genders in an austere environment, at prime ages and isolation. The gender dose make a difference.

"There are females that can function in combat. Put them out there. It's about standards, and some males don't meet them. But the presence of male genitalia doesn't mean we keep them and purge the female - take the best person. We can make it work and benefit us."-

No, we can't. The PTs test are already gender normed and the future test has no upper body strength. The Navy did test with damage control in an attempt to hold them to the same standards as men, even after 6 months of weight training none of the women passed getting a wounded man up the ladder. What did the Navy do? They changed the standard, i.e; lowered it and it is now a 4 man carry. Hand to hand still happens all the time when you clear a room, the ladies are at a wee bit of a disadvantage again there. Women have about half the physical strength that men do, half the VO2 max and if you would like I will be happy to post the numerous test the military has conducted as have others. What does the military do? The just lower standards and make quotas. Then we can on about the recent studies with PTSD and females being more prone to it and that it is looking more and more like it is genetic. Don't drink the kool aid brother, throw a full kit on them, hump them for 10k in Afghanistan and then think about them having to fire and maneuver and possibly drag your ass out and then compare it to what a man can do in that situation.

"Illegitimate spawn....well, I don't think we can deny that it happens. But it happens with males as well. They become a father when they didn't intend to, so they enlist, get health care, etc. Not much of a difference. It's part of the military that will not be eradicated and in the end it's not hurting our readiness in my opinion. For every female that ducks out of a deployment due to pregnancy there's some jackass male soldier that gets bumped because he decided to drive his motorcycle 100mph over some mountain pass and wrecked his bike and broke a bunch of bones. Idiots are everywhere and euthanasia is not legal, so we just need to deal with it and try to do better"-

Yup they are, here is the difference, the guy will still deploy and the number via the Center for Naval Analysis already put the whole concept of "we lose more guys to injuries argument" to rest. Also, no guys are getting someone pregnant just to get out of a deployment. I will be happy to post the numbers on this again too.

I am sorry, we need females for certain jobs but they are not interchangeable with men and I do not understand this argument that we just have to hold them to standards when EVERYONE knows we will never do this and have never done it in the past. They hold quotas open for them in the Academies, they get higher rankings even though they meet lower physical standards that are rolled into their class rank. They worked ok with some Female Engagement Teams but what did the military do? Hey, 1 team was great, now I want a 1 million! It's all a joke and we know it but like B said, no one want's to speak openly about it. We talk about fat and out of shape soldiers, look at your average female and tell me the problem is not even worse in that group. Come on Charles, call it what it is, political window dressing to appease folks, they are in due to "goals" and not much else.

I'm not saying that most are maliciously corrupt. It's like the 1970's Soviet Union-most of the functionaries weren't psychotic. It was just that there were certain things it was better not to say or even think. If you did, obviously the machine was not gonna turn around just for you. The best that would happen would be that you'd get ignored. Usually, though, if you pointed out a problem, that made YOU the problem. Much safer to focus on raising the level of Marxist consciousness-I mean, safety.

I'm not talking about outright psychotic males-not a valid comparison. I'm just saying that Joe Dirtbag is infinitely less problematic than Jane Hosebag. For one, he's not gonna turn into a deployment/barracks queen. For another, his buddies will straighten him out most of the time. Joe Dirtbag has no power over his superiors-he doesn't have the ability to implicitly threaten them with a sexual harassment complaint. Joe Dirtbag is not protected by The Sisterhood. When Joe Dirtbag wipes out on his motorcycle, that is its own punishment, and he's not gonna do it again (in large part because he has no more motorcycle.) His peers are gonna call him a dumbass, his superiors are gonna torture him with safety training, he's gonna miss out on promotions, etc. When Jane Hosebag squeezes out another little angel, everybody tells her "awww, it's so cute!" and she gets time off work and PT, with no loss of promotion, and pretty soon it's time to do it all over again.

The dynamic is incomparable for females. You don't fight with your genitalia, you fight with your neuromuscular system, your endocrine system, etc. These differ vastly between gender. Yes, there are females that can function in combat (anecdotally.) They're called exceptions, and every useful generalization has them. Are there enough to inconvenience everyone else with the Crimestop required to get them there?

Our society was built on patriarchy, the idea that a man would provide for his children and their mother, even if it meant laying down his life. So was every other society that ever accomplished anything worthwhile. Every society I know built on the idea that it's normal for women to get impregnated by whoever then provide for their fatherless kids has lived in grass huts. If you don't mind the Army being a microcosm of the latter, well, single mothers are not a big deal.

Or maybe I'm wrong-the point is, none of these issues are advisable to honestly discuss in public-it's career sepukku. So, how's an Army of guys too afraid to open their mouths going to reform itself in a meaningful way? Answer: it isn't.

"It's becoming like Mao's cultural revolution. Everybody knows it's a system built on a thousand little lies, but everybody's waiting for someone that's high ranking who's not a complete moral coward to come out and say so"-John Hillen.

Great quote, was aimed at females in the military but it is really applicable to a lot of the problems we see in the military culture at large. Yeah, I used it before but it is on point, plus this is way quicker and I have to go on the road shortly! ;)

The Female Engagement Teams, by the way, are a stupid idea through and through. First, in rural Afghan society women have no social status or power in the public domain. Therefore, what is the point of talking to them? I mean, assuming we're there to win the war, not for social charity. Second, let's assume that they are full of useful intel re: Taliban. This is because the Taliban are their family members. Family loyalty is a predominant Afghan value. Do you think that because some female soldier talked to them for 30 minutes through a terp about "girl stuff," they're going to drop a dime on their father/husband/son/cousin? Would YOUR wife do that if Baitullah Mehsood's daughter chit-chatted with her for half an hour? And if they do decide to be a source, what are the logistics? An Afghan male has freedom of maneuver-he can sneak out to your COP and talk to your HUMINT collector (who's certainly not gonna be out lounging in the local chaikhana.) What's a female gonna do, ask her husband to escort her to her meet?

But let's say that it IS essential to have females out there talking to Afghan females, engaging them and whatnot. Guess what? We BEEN HAD those. They're called "Civil Affairs." We had a CAT-A led by a female captain attached to us in Iraq in 2007. I lived with a Marine CA team with a female captain and E-5 in Afghanistan a few months ago. So, what's up with the FET? Well, the second they took a KIA to an IED, everybody started screaming about how this proves women can and should be in combat units. I think they're a proxy for a stupid political idea to be shoved down the military's throat, and as usual, the leadership is in a competition to see who can open wider.

The female who got hit with the IED was in what is called a "Cultural Support Team" or CST, a leftover 'gift' from Admiral Olson who is thankfully retired now. The Civil Affairs Teams are great but there are not enough of them, now FET is being water downed too. The one thing they did provide was the ability to provide medical care to females that guys in SOF and CA cannot treat unless they have a woman with them. That little bit does help, a hearts and minds thing, the intel part is a joke. It was a great idea that has of course been ruined and driving down a street getting blown up does not prove one should be in combat in the classical infantry sense.

I won't dispute anything ESIII or _B_ say about the females, to a point. My point is this: we have males that can't handle it, but I rarely if ever see anyone advocating their dismissal outright as they do the females.

So, let's determine suitable standards and enforce them: male or female, you gotta meet the standards.

Yes, I understand the goals/quotas/PC nature of the argument. Let's put all that to rest by determining the standard to go out there in austere environments and fight. Then let's hold people to them.

As for mixing genders in austere environments...honestly I don't have an answer for that. I would "hope" that people know better but I also realize that hope is not a method, or an answer. However, the mixing of genders causes problems no matter where you are. In my experiences, the mixing is worse in less austere environments: more places to hide, more places to meet, less discipline overall, less serious stuff like combat to keep you focused. Again, I don't have the magic answer but I say we construct the standard and those who can fight, those willing to fight, will be out there on the line.

Not trying to play "dit for tit", as Dwight would say.....about the sisterhood and all that, we have problems with males too, like with Masons. Who in the military hasn't seen that good ole boy network at work, in the field, in the motorpool, supply room, etc?

I'm all for them. I've seen them get information that I couldn't get. I've watched many times as females steered away from me only to be happy to talk with some GI female.

Are my experiences so different from everyone else's? I'm not bothered by the females. Those that suck are treated like the males that suck: I ignore them and push them to the side as much as possible.

I haven't-my units tended to have a notable lack of Masons. Hmmm...I wonder why.

I've seen it in Armor units, CABs, FSCs/BSBs....combat arms and non-combat arms.

I'd also like to see the uniform stuff....a huge pet peeve of mine. Like, pockets.....why are they there if they are off limits? Insanity!!!

ACUs....worst ever!!!

Beret...horrible idea!!!

Can someone please post humiliating pictures of the idiots out there pressing their ACUs?

And to tie it all together, how about we discuss those CSMs that dictate their Soldiers show up to a formation with only clear lenses in, then step in front of the formation with dark lenses? ARGH!!!! Jack-assery!!!!

My Favorite military photo of myself is the one I have in Korea where I'm wearing ACUs with a BDU vest that has DCU attachments..................with the 249 with collapsible stock, assault barrel and 145 scope.

What the hell, over.

Fordham University Army ROTC covers all of New York City and some of the surrounding suburbs, including SUNY schools and every college in New York City. I got my commission there last May. They recruit heavily from CUNY and almost half of the battalion is composed of SUNY or CUNY students. Remember GEN Colin Powell? GEN Jack Keane? New York City Army ROTC.

The battalion does outstanding outreach and recruits heavily from all the schools in the area, despite being located solely at Fordham's two NYC campuses. Cadet Command was doing a lot of research last year into possibly expanding the program in the coming years because of the increasing demand for cadet slots in the area.

Everyone always forgets Fordham...

I think the Army already has quite enough officers with BS degrees from colleges where literacy is optional. I've witnessed the greatest mentoring session ever, where a captain was advising an SSG trying to become an officer on the best college path-it ran to "go to an online college, and make sure it's the biggest diploma mill you can find, because they will give you credit for everything and not make you actually learn anything, and you can get your piece of paper ASAP." And what "perspectives the officer corps needs" are you talking about? Is this some kind of racial code?

CPG,

No one is forgetting Fordham. Fordham ROTC is one program serving most of NYC and Westchester - a significant piece of real estate with dozens of colleges and 8 millions of people. Throw in St. John's and you have TWO ROTC units serving a population larger than Virginia. Virginia has 11 Army ROTC hosts. Alabama with less than 5 million people has 10 hosts. South Dakota with less than a million people has 3. I could go on.

No matter how hard the Fordham cadre tries, it lacks the sufficient resources to properly showcase ROTC in our nation's largest city and media market. Think about this. We have a single LTC and his staff placed with the impossible task of recruiting, training and evaluating Army officer potential in the nation's largest media market. Meanwhile this LTC's peers at places like North Georgia, Columbus State or Norfolk State, are able to focus almost exclusively on the individual campuses they are assigned to. It's a matter of scale buddy. How many man-days have Fordham cadre spent on the City College campus over the past three years? NYU (the size of Ohio State, BTW)? Do you get where I'm going with this? No one can tell me the Army is throwing comparable resources, time and energy on ROTC outreach in NYC as it does elsewhere.

I'll say it again, CUNY would be our nation's third largest public university system if NYC were its own state. Think about that scale for a minute. Our third largest state university system warrants no ROTC presence of any kind and gets subordinated to outer borough Catholic colleges on the periphery of the subway. This. Makes. No Sense.

If the Army is ever going to get serious about developing the skills and abilities in its 2LT cohort that our guest commenter discusses, it has to start seriously reengaging our cities and places like CUNY. CUNY is not some sideshow - it is bigger than the freaking University of Texas System! While Fordham may have had some modest success in recruiting cadets from CUNY, this success has been in spite of manpower and resource challenges.

CUNY at least deserves the ROTC resources the Army showers on military junior colleges like Wentworth, Valley Forge and NMMI.