Five Things The United States Military Needs To Stop Doing
5. STOP Naming everything "The _______ Center of Excellence."
Stop naming everything this. Seriously. It's the worst aspect of corporate double-speak gobbledegook emblazoned on the water tower of every military post in the world. Why call it that? If you call something "The Center for Military Medical Excellence," does that mean you had a "Center for Military Medical Mediocrity" that was invariably called "The M3?"
Service members already chronically avoid medical treatment to their own detriment all the time. It's not going to change anything to start naming medical centers after people again, but anything to move the needle, I say.
As though slapping "Of Excellence" on everything will suddenly stop people from having negative opinions? Like having a full-bird colonel remove my wisdom teeth with a rusty pair of pliers while shouting "RELAX! THAT'S AN ORDER!" is going to make me say "Ah, it was the Dental Center for Excellence, so it MUST have been excellent."
At it's core, the "Center of Excellence" phenomenon speaks to something else. . .
4. STOP With The False Motivation
This is probably the hardest thing to figure out, because it's like the Poe's Law of the Military. Poe's Law states "without a clear indication of the author's intent, it is difficult or impossible to tell the difference between an expression of sincere extremism and a parody of extremism."
It's really hard to tell who is genuinely a super-motivated juggernaut of military might and who is just doing a really good impression of Gary Oldman in the 1990s while running down a list of military sayings like "IF AIN'T RAININ WE AIN'T TRAINING!" or shouting random words from that dumbass LDRSHIP* acronym.
Naturally, sounding off all loud and whatnot is a key to motivating leaders who, intern motivate the troops and so on in this feedback loop of "motivation."
The problem is if you have an absurd level of motivation for all things at all times, it loses its shine. You can't have the same level of enthusiasm for waxing the floor on CQ (lame) as you do for training on the .50 cal (AWESOME) because obviously only one of those things is cool.
3. STOP Arbitrarily Changing Things
Why did they change the camo pattern for the Army? Depending on who you ask, there was either a painstakingly meticulous process of testing or it was because some Army flag officers thought Marine Corps looked cooler and wanted to one-up the Devil Dogs by having only ONE camo pattern that would magically work everywhere.
I say magically because magic doesn't exist, and neither does a universal camo pattern.
It took 5 billion to field the new uniforms and it's coordinated accessories of pouches, packs and helmet covers, only to find out it was one of the most ineffective things since the attempt to field Bat-based explosives.
There was absolutely no reason to change the camo to the, as the old three color desert pattern (not the "chocolate chips") worked so well, some units actually still use it for the field and keep their ACUs on hand in case someone who will never go into combat with them shows up and wants to complain.
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| Hide n' seek at Grandma's house is now unfair |
2. STOP With The Willfully Faked Ignorance
It's often said, "don't point to a problem unless you're ready to point a solution," military personnel have wrongfully concluded that finding a problem is the same as creating a problem.
This is like accusing someone who marks a minefield on a map of planting mines.
Fixing the problem could be as simple as "let's ask an expert," or it could involve literally changing military regulations — a blasphemy I know — but stranger things have happened.
"NASA engineers suggested that the field joints should be redesigned to include shims around the O-rings, but they received no response." Because that would have been admitting there was a problem and someone was unsure of the solution.
That O-ring issue was on the Space Shuttle Challenger.
Millions of people watched the Challenger explode on live TV.
1. STOP Taking issues with shit that doesn't affect OR effect military operations
I was in Tikrit, Iraq, when Don't Ask, Don't Tell was repealed, and this one lieutenant colonel went huffing around the office, losing his mind, and pissing and moaning about someone in the rear detachment - in Colorado - who had come out. "I want his name and I want him gone!" like that would do any goddamned thing to help operations where we actually were.
That Lt. Col. was complaining about Staff Sgt. Ian Terry, who came out on Slate.com. This was all a bunch of bullshit grandstanding in the first place, and in the second place, BULLETS. DO. NOT. CARE.
A crusty old sergeant major reminded the good colonel of this fact so bluntly and loudly that he left the office and didn't come back for the rest of the day.
Any damned fool in a dark blue suit with the American flag pin on the lapel can whine about some type of person they don't want serving in uniform because the civilian-military gap is so wide that politicians regard military personnel as their own creepy-ass power fantasy, and now it's even worse with the leadership of 2025.
They fuck up the military all the time with their "I don't want this or that person serving," and they never actually served.
Here's something I personally learned by listening: "working twice as hard for half the respect," if you're any kind of minority in the service and a man, that's the rule for you. If you're a woman, it's at least four times the work.
I got lucky in my service. I had people who had to work harder for the respect I got by default above me and below me in my chain of command. They accepted I didn't understand where they were coming from, but they also understood that I wanted to understand.
A crusty old sergeant major reminded the good colonel of this fact so bluntly and loudly that he left the office and didn't come back for the rest of the day.
Any damned fool in a dark blue suit with the American flag pin on the lapel can whine about some type of person they don't want serving in uniform because the civilian-military gap is so wide that politicians regard military personnel as their own creepy-ass power fantasy, and now it's even worse with the leadership of 2025.
They fuck up the military all the time with their "I don't want this or that person serving," and they never actually served.
Here's something I personally learned by listening: "working twice as hard for half the respect," if you're any kind of minority in the service and a man, that's the rule for you. If you're a woman, it's at least four times the work.
I got lucky in my service. I had people who had to work harder for the respect I got by default above me and below me in my chain of command. They accepted I didn't understand where they were coming from, but they also understood that I wanted to understand.
That I want to understand is why I think I'm not a bad person. That I can understand is why I think I'm smart. That I can see those two things as part of something bigger means I need to work harder to make the world better.
And if making the world better is bad for the military? I have some bad news about the military.
*L.oyalty D.uty R.espect S.elfless-service H.onor I.ntegrity P.ersonal-courage
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