Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
October 24, 2007 By Thom Shanker
FORT SILL, Okla., Oct. 23 — Adm. Mike Mullen invited candor from the Army on Tuesday, and he got it: questions from young captains frustrated by what they described as disciplinary problems in the ranks, shoddy health care for their spouses and children, and depots emptied of combat gear needed for training.
With the conflict in Iraq now nearly a year longer than American involvement in World War II, Admiral Mullen, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was also asked whether senior officers had considered putting a limit on how long any one soldier could be deployed in combat.
“Is there a point where we can say, sir, ‘Enough’?” one captain asked.
“I recognize the sacrifice,” Admiral Mullen responded, adding that the current American military had acquired the most combat experience in the nation’s history, “and I don’t want to lose that” through a lack of re-enlistments. He said the service chiefs had made it a priority to balance combat deployments with time at home.
The visit to the Army’s artillery center here on the red clay flatlands of southwest Oklahoma was Admiral Mullen’s first stop on a tour of three Army installations to meet with troops and underscore his attention to the effect of combat deployments on soldiers and marines.
In a 90-minute session filled with give-and-take, he spoke with more than 100 officers, most of them captains attending a course to help prepare them for higher command. In response to some questions, he asked for e-mail addresses so he could follow up with more complete answers, a pledge that surprised, and pleased, his listeners.
Admiral Mullen told them his priorities were to “reconstitute, reset, revitalize” a military strained by long deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the officers told him repeatedly that their morale remained high.
But they made clear that their families wanted some relief. And the captains themselves wanted assurances that they would have first-class troops to lead and enough quality equipment to train for success.
As part of an effort to expand the ground forces and fulfill deployments, the Army has lowered the bar on some of its standards for new soldiers, and the officers at Fort Sill told Admiral Mullen that the move had caused a new set of problems.
One Iraq veteran said he had witnessed increased disciplinary problems among troops, which he attributed to the enlistment of recruits with lower academic credentials as well as some who have been granted “moral waivers,” a step that allows those with minor criminal records to join up.
This captain, whose name was withheld under ground rules for reporters observing the session, spoke of training all day and then having to spend much of the night on disciplinary action. Of the roughly 100 soldiers in his unit, about a dozen had been caught selling drugs or going absent without leave.
“Making sure we do not break our military is a huge priority for me,” said Admiral Mullen, who vowed to review statistics on discipline so he could gauge any impact of the current recruiting standards.
Most of the officers wore a combat patch representing a past deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. At the rank of captain, they are rapidly approaching a five-year mark that allows them to end their active-duty service, and the decision forces them to weigh continued commitment to the military against commitments to marriage and family.
“All I want to do is start a family, buy a house, have stability,” said one, who expressed readiness to return to Iraq so long as he and his wife had assurance that they could settle at a single military post and not be transferred to a new unit when he returned from combat.
Another officer, an Iraq veteran, said his wife, now pregnant with their second child, complained that the pediatric care she sought from their local military hospital was substandard. As a result, he said, he is now planning to separate from the Army within the year.
The admiral called caring for families of deploying military personnel a “vital issue.” But he also noted that military doctors and nurses sent from bases like Fort Sill to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan were themselves “working overtime.”
One captain told the admiral that because of the focus on Iraq, combat equipment at home for training was “either broken, outdated or improperly maintained.”
Admiral Mullen said he was pressing for money to repair or replace combat gear. “It’s going to take some time to solve that,” he said.
Before continuing on his tour, with stops later Tuesday at Fort Leavenworth and on Wednesday at Fort Riley, both in Kansas, the admiral assured the young officers that he had heard them.
“I don’t offer instantaneous solutions,” he said. “But I know what’s on your mind.”
October 24, 2007 By Thom Shanker
FORT SILL, Okla., Oct. 23 — Adm. Mike Mullen invited candor from the Army on Tuesday, and he got it: questions from young captains frustrated by what they described as disciplinary problems in the ranks, shoddy health care for their spouses and children, and depots emptied of combat gear needed for training.
With the conflict in Iraq now nearly a year longer than American involvement in World War II, Admiral Mullen, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was also asked whether senior officers had considered putting a limit on how long any one soldier could be deployed in combat.
“Is there a point where we can say, sir, ‘Enough’?” one captain asked.
“I recognize the sacrifice,” Admiral Mullen responded, adding that the current American military had acquired the most combat experience in the nation’s history, “and I don’t want to lose that” through a lack of re-enlistments. He said the service chiefs had made it a priority to balance combat deployments with time at home.
The visit to the Army’s artillery center here on the red clay flatlands of southwest Oklahoma was Admiral Mullen’s first stop on a tour of three Army installations to meet with troops and underscore his attention to the effect of combat deployments on soldiers and marines.
In a 90-minute session filled with give-and-take, he spoke with more than 100 officers, most of them captains attending a course to help prepare them for higher command. In response to some questions, he asked for e-mail addresses so he could follow up with more complete answers, a pledge that surprised, and pleased, his listeners.
Admiral Mullen told them his priorities were to “reconstitute, reset, revitalize” a military strained by long deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the officers told him repeatedly that their morale remained high.
But they made clear that their families wanted some relief. And the captains themselves wanted assurances that they would have first-class troops to lead and enough quality equipment to train for success.
As part of an effort to expand the ground forces and fulfill deployments, the Army has lowered the bar on some of its standards for new soldiers, and the officers at Fort Sill told Admiral Mullen that the move had caused a new set of problems.
One Iraq veteran said he had witnessed increased disciplinary problems among troops, which he attributed to the enlistment of recruits with lower academic credentials as well as some who have been granted “moral waivers,” a step that allows those with minor criminal records to join up.
This captain, whose name was withheld under ground rules for reporters observing the session, spoke of training all day and then having to spend much of the night on disciplinary action. Of the roughly 100 soldiers in his unit, about a dozen had been caught selling drugs or going absent without leave.
“Making sure we do not break our military is a huge priority for me,” said Admiral Mullen, who vowed to review statistics on discipline so he could gauge any impact of the current recruiting standards.
Most of the officers wore a combat patch representing a past deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. At the rank of captain, they are rapidly approaching a five-year mark that allows them to end their active-duty service, and the decision forces them to weigh continued commitment to the military against commitments to marriage and family.
“All I want to do is start a family, buy a house, have stability,” said one, who expressed readiness to return to Iraq so long as he and his wife had assurance that they could settle at a single military post and not be transferred to a new unit when he returned from combat.
Another officer, an Iraq veteran, said his wife, now pregnant with their second child, complained that the pediatric care she sought from their local military hospital was substandard. As a result, he said, he is now planning to separate from the Army within the year.
The admiral called caring for families of deploying military personnel a “vital issue.” But he also noted that military doctors and nurses sent from bases like Fort Sill to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan were themselves “working overtime.”
One captain told the admiral that because of the focus on Iraq, combat equipment at home for training was “either broken, outdated or improperly maintained.”
Admiral Mullen said he was pressing for money to repair or replace combat gear. “It’s going to take some time to solve that,” he said.
Before continuing on his tour, with stops later Tuesday at Fort Leavenworth and on Wednesday at Fort Riley, both in Kansas, the admiral assured the young officers that he had heard them.
“I don’t offer instantaneous solutions,” he said. “But I know what’s on your mind.”