The View From Outside the Trenches

For years, I have thought the Govt. should explore the possibility of privateers (of a sort) to take on some of the roles that the Navy doesn't really want to take on; such as anti-piracy operations. This would allow those that are tired of the "ticket punching" to strike out on their own, yet still continue doing what they love. Give me something about 80 feet long with big engines and a little firepower, turn me loose in the Malacca Straits, and let the pirates beware. And I promise to do it for less than Uncle Sam would spend.

Well, I'd feel better about this whole discussion if my first look at it didn't have such a glaring myth, that of the Viet Nam fraggings. Those were actually quite rare and mostly confined to rear areas and were racially motivated.
The killing of Officers in combat units was even rarer and happened for the same reason they've happened since the stone axe was the state of the art weapon, troops saving their lives by getting rid of a dangerous incompetant. It was rarer in Viet Nam than in previous conflicts simply because Officers higher up the chain of command had a better idea of what was going on in the platoons and companies due to better communications, helos that let them SEE what went on, as well as the old standby, listening to the NCOs. We didn't HAVE to blow away an incompetant, a word with a Master Gunnery Sergeant would suffice, our next patrol we'd have one of the top NCOs from Regiment alongside and if our LT didn't measure up he was gone.
My understanding of Army units leads me to believe the same thing happened there. Even draftees understand that you don't get to blow people away just because we don't like them, it's a last resort.
There is always the problem of warriors messing up the smooth operation of the military, there is a reason that Chesty Puller never made Commandant.

This is a brillant article that highlights both the problems of force structure and planning and the cultures that prevent new methods of planning and operations from suceeding. How many special operations types will ever wear stars? Why is it that the bean counters value numbers of ships, tanks, etc more highly than the numer of operational units and the effectiveness of each unit? You can bet that the AC-130s aren't high on the government's inventory. Just as the Bradley isn't the best for urban guerilla warfare whu didn't we buy or adopt units using the South African Ratel APCs designed for precisely this type of combat?

Peter,

You're certainly right that shooting your own commander was neither invented in Vietnam nor common there or anywhere, and dissatisfaction with officers didn't end with Vietnam (hardly!).

But would you say I was wrong if I said that the average training of privates and lieutenants has improved dramatically from the Army of 1967 to the Army of 2005? Or if I said that the Red Flag program and the like has made a difference in pilot skill?

I don't know how one does a scientific comparison of battlefield performance between a Marine lieutenant in Vietnam forty years ago and a Marine lieutenant in Iraq today. I do know that while morale in the general sense was a thankfully rare issue, lack of skill among the junior enlisted and commissioned ranks was a consistent complaint in both individual reports and institutional analyses from Vietnam (and Korea, and probably World War II), yet today that particular complaint seems much rarer.

Would you say that's just a mistaken impression, and the privates and lieutenants now have much the same level of skill and training as back then?

Or, when it comes to a loss of trust between leaders and subordinates, would you say that better training doesn't really make a difference in sustaining that trust?

I've always felt that the superior performance of the Marines during the general retreat before the Chinese in Korea in 1950-51 ("retreating, hell! We're just attacking in a different direction!") had a great deal to do with a Corps tradition of emphasizing both esprit de corps and small-unit skill. If you want to tell me I'm a fool to claim that the other services have been learning in recent years to imitate those Marine strengths better, you can.

But I think the evidence says there's been a real improvement in the junior enlisted and in the lieutenants, too -- and I would argue, though I admit with weaker evidence, that this is true for the USMC as well as for the Army.

All militaries have always been "Command driven, authoritarian" regimes. It is a necessity imposed by the government that runs the military. I doubt few would be happy with the idea of "Big Johns Bragade Combat Team Inc", at what point would "Big Johns" decide that taking over country X would be more profitable than defending country X. The tinfoil hats already believe that war is instigated for the benefit of the "military industrial complex".

I would suggest that keeping our troops and officers exposed to the "free market" thru things like substantially reducing reliance on "base services" likes base housing,commisaries and the such would go a long way towards keeping "group think" from setting in.

I think a similar arguement can be made about Congress. Term limits would be the equivilant of"fragging".

Daniel, I would go further than saying that the training and skill levels of junior Offices and NCOs, as well as PFCs have improved dramatically since my day.
There is a coffee shop near the County Courthouse that is also near the recruiter's offices, I go there every week or so to keep up with the departmental gossip since I retired. As well as the still serving Deputies and the old farts like me I talk to the recruiters some. As late as 2003 young men who would have qualified for OCS in my day were put on waiting lists instead of being enlisted as Privates.
Enlistees today are smarter, better educated and healthier than than 1964, much less 1969, this can't help but make a difference. Better Privates grow into better NCOs. I can only assume that the training for young Officers is equally improved. Of course, even without better training the better NCOs will grow better JOs.
My familiarity with Army units in that war was limited to a short stint when the Army took over the AO around Chu Lai, I had the honor of working with an Infantry unit, helping them in learning the ground. My impression was the racial unrest was quite a bit higher which led to much of the distrust you speak of, perhaps to a greater extent than the less highly trained JOs and JNCOs. After all, it doesn't take very long for the cream to rise to the top in combat. Poor JOs and JNCOs didn't last long in any unit I served in or with. Those who didn't measure up got transferred to the 341st Messkit Repair Platoon in Barstow, Arizona or some such outfit.
My objection was based simply on the impression that the original post left that fragging was common. It was simply too easy to get rid of those who turned out to be incompetants or those who slipped through the cracks in training only to discover that, in combat, were hysterics or poltroons.