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- He talked about the fact that our Army is changing and the need for us to continue to change:
- Modernization must happen rapidly without getting bogged down by the procurement process
- Information technology is a reality, how do we take better advantage of it
- We have to be able to leverage virtual technology to get after training - just as we look for a blend of education, training, and experience in our leader development strategy we must also look at the right blend of live, virtual, constructive and gaming training enablers in our training development strategy. CAC-T is currently developing this training development strategy and looking at what the training environment will look like in 2015.
- He recognized the significant challenges we'll still face in the ability of our government, as a whole, to be there with our forces when we are committed abroad.
- We must have "multi-purpose forces"....used this term instead of general purpose forces.
- Although it is important to recognize that we can't train on everything and we can't allow ourselves to get caught in the linear thought process of the "training matrix," we still must not lose sight of the reality that our forces need to be capable of operating across the spectrum of conflict.
- During the Q&A, GEN Chiarelli talked briefly about our struggle with increasing suicide rates. There have already been 66 suicides in 2009.
The numbers, however, have been on a downward trend since January (only
14 in March and 7 in April) and we know that our efforts as a team have already had a positive effect on the lives of those who are struggling
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Interesting, I mean, disappointing as I read on for any specific direction of future army leadership. Direction means EAST or WEST, N or S, and you don't want to miss it. Nope, nothing specific like that, not even a hint of it. On a second read, only thing I can gather is that this keynote speaker left it up to the subordinates to interpret his generality and in terms of execution, to improvise and supplement. Does the army really expect individual interpretation or ingenuity on the battle field? Was he trying to be funny?
ReplyDeleteI do know this much. If we teachers were to listen to a keynote speaker on the DIRECTION of future change of education, then walk away with NO DIRECTION spelled out, we would react with instant grumble and disrespect. And I guarantee that keynote speaker would no longer speak to us again.
Apparently you military folks are more civil than we civilians...
Isaac wrote this and said it was ok to share:
ReplyDelete> - Modernization must happen rapidly without getting bogged down by the> procurement process>DON'T UNDERSTAND> - Information technology is a reality, how do we take better advantage of it>SEEMS OBVIOUS, IS THIS ANY DIFF IN MILITARY THAN CIV WORLD?> - We have to be able to leverage virtual technology to get after training -> just as we look for a blend of education, training, and experience in our> leader development strategy we must also look at the right blend of live,> virtual, constructive and gaming training enablers in our training> development strategy. CAC-T is currently developing this training> development strategy and looking at what the training environment will look> like in 2015.>MAKES SENSE> - He recognized the significant challenges we'll still face in the ability> of our government, as a whole, to be there with our forces when we are> committed abroad.>POLITICAL COMMITMENT OR FINANCIAL COMMITMENT OR SPIRITUAL COMMITMENT? WHAT DOES "BE THERE" MEAN AND WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES?> - We must have "multi-purpose forces"....used this term instead of general> purpose forces.>ISN'T THIS WHY MCKIERNAN WAS REPLACED BY MCCHRYSTAL?> - Although it is important to recognize that we can't train on everything> and we can't allow ourselves to get caught in the linear thought process of> the "training matrix," we still must not lose sight of the reality that our> forces need to be capable of operating across the spectrum of conflict.>WHAT IS THE TRAINING MATRIX AND WHY IS A FOCUS ON TRAINING A PROBLEM OR OBSTACLE?> - During the Q&A, GEN Chiarelli talked briefly about our struggle with> increasing suicide rates. There have already been 66 suicides in 2009.>THAT'S CRAZY. DOESN'T THAT OUTPACE THE COMBAT CASUALTIES IN 2009?> The numbers, however, have been on a downward trend since January (only>> 14 in March and 7 in April) and we know that our efforts as a team have> already had a positive effect on the lives of those who are struggling>DISTURBED SOLDIER THAT SHOT 5 FRIENDLY SOLDIERS WAS A BIG STORY IN THE MEDIA OVER HERE
Interesting reactions from you both - thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteNewcomer -- I understand where you're coming from. I, too, always want a prescriptive answer. But, at a conference of this level (it was not a technical session of best practices)_, I suspect the purpose was more of a keynote speech. Sometimes at these things, you get major policy announcements such as the Marshall Plan or the coining of the term "Iron Curtain."
I read some direction here:
1. Embrace technology -- I see more signs towards the camp of letting soldiers blog vs. being afraid of it and clamping down on everything, or what they tried a couple years back with making the company commander approve every single soldier post. I read recently that a miniscule % of security breaches were caused by soldier lapses, but were mostly incidents at the Dept of Defense.
2.Multi-purpose means we have specialists as resources available to get the mission done instead of a team of generalists that try to handle everything. I have seen an irreversible trend (for the better) of the Army farming out speciality jobs to civilian and govt experts instead of doing it all themselves. Case in point is that a mass grave was discovered recently in our sector. In the past, we might have had someone whose job was to deal with this and who would rarely if ever actually do that job and be handing out basketballs somewehere else. Instead now, there is probably an expert who covers Iraq and flies from place to place. We are a team now of either experts or certain well-placed managers who know enough to coordinate the experts. That's our role and the Gen was reiterating that point.
3. Modernization without getting caught up in procurement process. This means, we must find a way to quickly test, develop, then field good equipment without letting that process (especially endless rounds of meetings and negotiations) slow things down and become inflexible.
I do think his comment about continuing to be able to fight across the spectrum of operations as being unrealistic and a wave in the sky. There are only so many days in a year, so many hours in a day. You can't expect soldiers to be peacekeepers, policemen, forensic experts, negotiators, civil affairs nationbuilders, and stone-eyed killers. It just doesn't work. Now, you can deal with this by having experts and task organizing so that you have all the pieces in a big task force, but the more you do that the more problems you have controlling and maintaining that. So, the challenge is making priorities and deciding what can be deemphasized to win the war at hand, but keeping the core warfighting fresh somewhere in the force so when the time is right, we haven't lost the ability to train those skills.