U.S. Army personnel of all ranks engage in 'dishonesty and deception'

Another anti US hit piece.

Everyone form up in a circle to do the J that ends in a K.
No fighting like rabid animals, there is room for all.

originally posted by: PizzaAnyday505
a reply to: FireflyStars

The entire US modern culture is based on lies narcism and deprevity

There I said it

And they can't spell very well either....

and I'm not lying....

originally posted by: Shamrock6
a reply to: FireflyStars

Apologies. That was a hit and run post, prior to coffee consumption, and I should have made it clear I was still reading up. My bad.

Lying is pervasive. All ranks, all branches. I think the content of the lie is the more important issue. The intent behind the lie is more important. Whining about a guy telling his butterbar LT that a warehouse got cleaned 100% when it wasn't isn't on par with a guy telling his butterbar "nah, we didn't off any civvies in that house" when they did. And the overwhelming majority of personnel recognize the difference.

This is more than just a military thing, people in any bureaucratic system act this way. It's not right but most humans are pretty bad at their jobs and lying is a method of covering ones own ass. I have lost count of the number of people that aren't even remotely qualified for the job they're doing. One of the stories in the OP mentions officers fudging the numbers to meet expectations. The takeaway here is that said person isn't qualified in the first place but he keeps his job, and those serving under him are put in greater danger as a result of said person not being deserving of their authority. This happens extensively in the private sector too.

It's not even a question of if the emperor is wearing clothes in the US anymore. None of us are.

a reply to: Aazadan

You hit the nail on the head, really. They've made the study available for download, I typed up a nice synopsis and of course my phone ate it.

I'll whip something up but I plan to re-read it. Some incidents that they reported were things like:
Not asking permission to return fire on indirect fire to avoid crossfire (lotta fire in that sentence. Basically they could have shot each other out of laziness)
Reporting items damaged, missing or depleted, including big ticket items, to get duplicates
Not reporting damaged/nonfunctional/incomplete items (Anything from vehicles down to antennae)
Not reporting enemy contact to avoid making storyboards
Not completing required counseling, signing off on forms to indicate soldiers completed counseling when they didn't, these number in the "tens of thousands".
Not checking soldier living conditions because it made them "uncomfortable"


There's literally too much training to complete in the training days that are allotted (296 days worth of training I think, vs 250 days available) so they fudge virtually everything. Everyone knows and everyone accepts it. This means things like sexual harassment training, missile launch training, IED training, etc are just slipping through the cracks. It goes from the top to the bottom, field and staff officers are all aware that everyone else is constantly just "checking the box" and "giving them what they want" (the higher ups). Those two phrases were repeated over and over by officers.

And the researches focused on the Army because they're most familiar with it out of the armed forces, not because the Army burns more turds than the Marines, boys.
I'm sure the USMC has their share of dirty secrets.

They interviewed officers, because officers are expected by the public to be upstanding, honest, reliable, etc.

The Army is wrapped in a massive bundle of red tape and they're losing their integrity because of it, costing the US lots of money and potentially endangering the lives of soldiers. It's not good. In fact it's a lot worse than I expected.

Just like a large business, they're losing touch, there's no accountability, there's no way to track things, they don't keep records, and it makes for a very bad time for those in the bottom tier.

In this case, my signature says it all... "We're up against boneheaded bureaucracy. Complete ossification!"

a reply to: FireflyStars

As a 20 year Navy veteran, I am shocked. I'm raising the bull# flag on this. I did not experience this in the Navy, not like the article is describing. I think it's totally outrageous.

a reply to: FireflyStars

I always say consider the source - I don't take stock in anything Chuck Hagel says. Ridiculous bs.

originally posted by: ChiefD
a reply to: FireflyStars

I always say consider the source - I don't take stock in anything Chuck Hagel says. Ridiculous bs.

It was an Army War College study, I'm not sure how much he really ties in except the picture of Ashton Carter and the blurb in the original article. If you want to read the whole thing it's available for PDF download.

www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil...


Maybe things are better in the Navy? I hope so. Heck, I wish this were inaccurate but it follows the structure of large corporations and their deceit and corruption too closely for me to think it's just BS.