Gates: Army must change or lose officers

[Admin]

Gates: Army must change or lose officers (http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/02/army-gates-west-point-speech-022511/)

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a West Point crowd Friday he wants to blow up the Army’s “institutional concrete” and restructure its rigid assignment and promotion system to encourage more mid-level officers to stay in the Army.

[Un4given]

The theme around the career course right now revolves around the garrison Army we're going towards. Now the top civvies are discussing it aloud. We're changing, it's going to be a different Army soon.

[Wes]

I was in for a little over a year pre-9/11. It really will be a different Army. Think about having ALL of the troops at home station. None of this "Half our Post is deployed". Ranges and schools are going to be harder to come by. So are promotions for the newer guys that won't have combat tours to earn awards.

We'll see how this goes. A lot of the post-9/11 guys are going to have problems switching to the full-time garrison life. I can't say I'm a huge fan of it, and I was never on Active Duty pre-GWOT unless you count Basic and AIT.

[kleinmi3]

My question is...why do we HAVE to always be at a range or in the field? I think that when the wars start dying down, we will finally be able to truely RESET our Army instead of this BS 6 month "figure it out, here's a 4 day weekend" period. Also, with this "drawdown" which really isn't a drawdown, it's kicking out the garbage that we've had to accumulate in order to stay afloat for the past 8 years. I can count at least 5-10 percent of most of our companies that have Soldiers that are anything but that. It will definitely be harder for Soldiers withouth deployments to get promoted and those jokers who have been hanging out for the past 9 years and are still slick shouldered need to be put in the game for these last few years so that the combat-hardened folks can take a breather and TRAIN the next generation of Soldiers coming in. Just my .02. I could talk about this for a long time.

[Normandy6644]

I don't know, I'm on the fence right now. I'm finishing up my second deployment, and currently looking at getting out, somewhat because of the optempo, but also because of the broken officer system. I can't stand the impersonal nature of how officers are placed and assigned. But I don't know, this potential transitional period has me interested. I'm still planning on getting out and going to grad school, but I'm leaning towards staying in the reserves in case I want to come back in. Who knows. The next few years should be very interesting for the Army.

[Girex]

bleh... im not going anywhere, but ill believe it when i see it.

The EN branch is already changing this process through this thing called green pages where cdrs can look at your "green page" ie facebook type page and decide who he wants his next cdrs or staff members or whatever to be. It seems pretty one sided at face value but it does add another aspect of assignment choosing.

A lot of people complain about the process but have never written their branch manager a "hey this is me" type email. yeah they get a lot of emails but your more likely to get something that you like if they have something to base the needs vs the wants on.

[GIJared]

I don't know, I'm on the fence right now. I'm finishing up my second deployment, and currently looking at getting out, somewhat because of the optempo, but also because of the broken officer system. I can't stand the impersonal nature of how officers are placed and assigned. But I don't know, this potential transitional period has me interested. I'm still planning on getting out and going to grad school, but I'm leaning towards staying in the reserves in case I want to come back in. Who knows. The next few years should be very interesting for the Army.

This pretty much sums up exactly where I'm at.

[Sassy05]

Well I will let everyone know how green the grass really is or isn't on the other side in a few months. I can tell you even right now, it's scary. Unless you have some in somewhere, most places want to hire people 60-90 days before starting. That makes the job hunt a bit more difficult than everyone thinks. Right now, I have no idea where I'm going next and when I'll be going. Luckily, I'm only responsible for myself. I can see things being quite a bit more intimidating with a spouse and children.