Winters had a little monologue in the 2nd episode of BoB about this. He made a promise with god that when WWII was over would settle down and live a quiet life. Since the production crew talked to him before they made the series I am guessing this part of the show is true.
Because the military is a last resort for people or you don't have the means to attend higher education.
The average servicemember is more educated than a peer in the general population. Also less likely to come from a broken home, more likely to come from a middle class family, and overall be in better health.
unironically yes, people say "hurr durr listen to da NCOs!!" You will have plenty of shitbag NCOs and god help you if you get one as a PSG. Hard part is figuring out who the good ones are.
The overlap between people insisting that Officers are useless or not proper soldiers next to NCO’s, and people that never had the qualifications to become an officer, get a degree, or similar, is significant.
>What makes a good officer?
Leadership. That doesn't mean knowing everything or bossing people around. Leadership is delegating responsibility to good men and doing what you can to help them succeed.
The fundamental baseline of good leadership is assessing where people are strong, where they’re weak, and what their motivations and interests are. Then putting the right people in the right spots or teams to maximize the confluence of positive capability, interest, and motivation.
Another hallmark of good leadership is identifying relevant experience among your men for the task at hand, especially if that experience exceeds your own, and approaching them for counsel. Even if your ultimate decision is against their counsel or in another direction entirely. The mere act of bringing together a small ad-hoc team of disparate subordinates does enormous good for their confidence in you, and word of it will permeate through your command.
Not being an arrogant frickwit. Knowing which enlisted/other officers to listen to. Also dont be fat or literally only be thinking about your OER and who you can frick to get a good one..
I can't remember where - it may have been here - but i remember seeing that Winter's being the greatest officer ever was grossly exhaggerated by Ambrose and a handful of other people in Winters circle, mostly due to Band of Brothers, as well as the fact that we only got to really see about 20-30 people of the entire company in depth.
It went on to say a lot of men thought he was actually kind of a pussy. Not terrible, not that it lost them any motivation, but he wasn't what BoB wants you to think he is. Is there any truth to this?
I mean, there were also quite a few men in Easy that didn't think that bad of Sobel even. I know all the men in general credit his training itself to their success, but there were a lot of men in Easy (of course, nowhere near the TV show or any kind of media) that didn't dislike him whatsoever; Sobel also did jump on D-Day and got a few awards in combat - so i'm inclined to believe the Winters thing.
It’s hard to gauge the actual truth considering Ambrose isn’t the best source and everyone is now dead. Many were dead or never kept in contact before Ambrose bothered to write his book and especially before HBO made the series.
Then we have to deal with the bias as of the soldiers interview and the accuracy of their accounts, given the fact it was 40-50+ years since the events took place and memories can fade/alter over time.
For example, everything about Blithe and Liebgott.
Even Buck Compton, who was an important character in the series, was interviewed by Ambrose, and was interviewed for the series itself, was misrepresented for storeytelling purposes. He wasn’t that shaken up from the events he experienced and witnessed, like the injuries of his friends, he was on medical leave for actual health problems and denied the show was accurate to his likeness.
Also Nixon and Compton never got along and Nixon hated him for being a “Jock” among other things. Nixon was great friend with Winters but was never seeking to take part in the book or series so all the privy details are beholden to Winters accounts to Ambrose and the show writers.
https://i.imgur.com/WqjJKHh.jpeg
Doing the right thing
Like killing Japanese children for israelites
Maybe Japan shouldn’t attack European colonial holdings and the Chinese nationalists and instead forced on the USSR to assist Germany if they didn’t want israeli influence in East Asia.
Band of Brothers is definitely a textbook example of survivorship bias (and Ambrose was a really bad historian), but even from his accounts we see his strengths and flaws. Was he some super-human, God-like leader? No. Did he excel in a difficult situation? Yes.
Easy Company wasn't an especially notable unit of ass-kicking badasses, they just their story told.
It’s hard to gauge the actual truth considering Ambrose isn’t the best source and everyone is now dead. Many were dead or never kept in contact before Ambrose bothered to write his book and especially before HBO made the series.
Then we have to deal with the bias as of the soldiers interview and the accuracy of their accounts, given the fact it was 40-50+ years since the events took place and memories can fade/alter over time.
For example, everything about Blithe and Liebgott.
Even Buck Compton, who was an important character in the series, was interviewed by Ambrose, and was interviewed for the series itself, was misrepresented for storeytelling purposes. He wasn’t that shaken up from the events he experienced and witnessed, like the injuries of his friends, he was on medical leave for actual health problems and denied the show was accurate to his likeness.
Also Nixon and Compton never got along and Nixon hated him for being a “Jock” among other things. Nixon was great friend with Winters but was never seeking to take part in the book or series so all the privy details are beholden to Winters accounts to Ambrose and the show writers.
[...]
Maybe Japan shouldn’t attack European colonial holdings and the Chinese nationalists and instead forced on the USSR to assist Germany if they didn’t want israeli influence in East Asia.
Taking nothing personally and shouldering burdens/taking heat for others as necessary. Accountable and trustful delegation. Receptiveness to objections/options and encouraging subordinates to use good judgement while not abiding backbiting. Killer instinct, including a clear idea of acceptable losses measured against tactical/operational/strategic gain/advancement.
Good NCO’s. Failing that, good enemy marksmanship.
Former NCOs usually don’t make it past captain. They struggle in staff roles and usually fizzle out then. The worst S3 I ever knew was a former NCO, kept trying to act like as an NCO when he wasn’t anymore and the unit suffered for it. They do good in platoon/company leadership which is only about 1-6 years.
The more common sense a person has the more likely they are to stay alive for longer. The best idea is if that you aren't learning you are probably dying. I think as long as you have a lot of common sense and aren't a shitty over the top person (Maintain a balanced personality) you'd be fine in a leadership position.
You misunderstood my post or I didn’t articulate it well enough. Good officers are MADE BY good NCO’s. But pursuant to your reply I think the reasons mustangs tend not to go far past company grades is an issue with how we train officers and the culture of senior “leaders”. I think the US military would be improved exponentially by doing three things.
>fire 50% of all flag officers
We have more fricking generals than in WWII for a force 10% the size. It’s absurd.
>require that all officers be enlisted first, then selected
A 22 year old LT is still a 22 year old, just as ignorant and immature as any other. Spending a couple years maturing and learning to be an adult would have nothing but positive benefits imo.
>eliminate up or out, remove broadening assignments as a promotion requirement, adjust the pay structure to reflect skills and performance over merely time in service and grade
This goes for all ranks really. Good privates are good privates. Good captains are good captains. Requiring good soldiers to advance in rank and/or to positions they aren’t necessarily suited for under threat of kicking them out is stupid. Incredibly stupid.
>require that all officers be enlisted first, then selected
There's a reason why no military on the planet does this. Why would someone want to join the military with a college education as a private? The army is already having a recruitment problem just for enlistees, this would cut any incentive for anyone to do ROTC etc. Why not just ride out 3 years and get the GI bill then? A good LT will be mentored by his PSG.
before I used to wonder why platoons were led by 2nd LT and not a SFC since a SFC is perfectly capable of doing the job even more so than a 2nd LT.
then I realized it's just so the 2nd LT can get his feet wet and gain experience in his officer career.
That and to provide an interface with higher echelons of leadership and interpret the intent of said leadership for their unit. The NCO’s role is to directly lead and manage day to day tasks while the officer’s role is to ensure the unit is meeting the intent of said senior echelons/leaders. A simplistic example would be a PSG leading PT daily while the PL establishes a six-12 month fitness training plan.
They don’t need to start off with a college education. Fun fact, you don’t even need a degree to commission. Selecting good soldiers and putting them through an expanded OCS program, service academy, or sending them to do an undergrad the same way we send captains to ACS for graduate programs would work fine and you’d benefit by having a higher quality of leader who doesn’t necessarily require handholding, so they can focus on being an LT and their NCO’s can focus on being NCO’s.
And you are half right but half wrong on no militaries practicing this or a version of it. I’d argue essentially every modern, competent, military does. People enlisting with college degrees is also not nearly as uncommon than you might believe.
Now that I think about it, what's more useful to an officer: four years of a business degree or 3 as a private?
The enlisted xp is more useful every time. Don't waste critical time in an officers' career path on college.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
I’m not sure if you’re agreeing or disagreeing with me. The most important thing anybody learns as an undergrad, frankly, is how to gather then collate and present information. The college requirement for officers originates only about 100 years ago and wasn’t firmly solidified as a policy until the 70’s-80’s. Prior to the all-volunteer force and the military becoming essentially another civil service bureaucracy organizationally hate keeping with degrees wasn’t really a thing. The military cared primarily about leadership ability and individual maturity prior to that.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
Semi agreeing. The college requirement began as a crude IQ filter (for 120-130+) which lost its role when median college grad IQ dropped to 100.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
That’s one way to look at it. Frankly though it’s a method of official gatekeeping. Administrative pedants and bean counters need a way to quantify everything on paper, and that means litmus tests. The existence of the test is more important than its accuracy as it can be used as the basis for an assumption of individual merit. If the statement “college degrees make better leaders” is assumed true than the next logical step is to say “if we want good leaders, they need degrees as a barrier to entry”. GSA does the same thing with civilian grades in the civil service, and the reality being that an education doesn’t necessarily make anyone better at any specific job (generally) is why so much government activity and so many programs are run by contractors.
I had a break in service between enlisting and commissioning into the guard where I was a contractor for a bit under seven years. I’m a DOD civilian at my, erm, civilian job now. I’ve been in this morass for 18 years as of next month and it’s all so convoluted that sometimes I feel smashing my face into a keyboard until I learn how many hits it takes for all the keys to fly off. Everything is so fricked that I can’t even see a practicable solution that wouldn’t take a world war and a full generation of radical change.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Semi agreeing. The college requirement began as a crude IQ filter (for 120-130+) which lost its role when median college grad IQ dropped to 100.
If you're going back beyond a century ago, literacy alone was generally enough to separate officers from enlisted. Most couldn't even read, or just couldn't read well.
[...]
Former NCOs usually don’t make it past captain. They struggle in staff roles and usually fizzle out then. The worst S3 I ever knew was a former NCO, kept trying to act like as an NCO when he wasn’t anymore and the unit suffered for it. They do good in platoon/company leadership which is only about 1-6 years.
>Former NCOs usually don’t make it past captain. They struggle in staff roles and usually fizzle out then.
I hear this and I'm sure it's true at times but I think part of it is a misunderstanding of how promotions work, as well. Most career officers tend to cap out at O-5, and some don't get past O-4. The top of the pyramid gets very steep after O-5, so many competent officers just have to retire at that point because there isn't enough room. Now think about how long it takes to make O-4. That's a decade of extra time AFTER however many years the NCO spent in the enlisted ranks. Instead of looking at an O-4 going up for O-5 ~18 years, that former NCO's time could look more like 25+ years. A promotion board is going to wonder how much time this guy has left before he retires out. Why groom someone to move up the chain when they're likely to leave before they get there?
Germans had a good enlisted to officer program during WW2.
3 weeks ago
Anonymous
They did, and it was virtually identical to their WWI program that had its roots in the army of Frederick the great. Making the jump from being a combat leader, what we’d call company grades, to staff/field grades was trickier. With some exceptions all the major players had very similar programs/processes for promoting effective leaders from enlisted to junior officer ranks when necessary.
At least for the army. Navies are traditionally far more culturally segregated regarding rank.
The military is set up to expand in case of emergency and remove dead weight. We already have a problem with institutional change, letting people stay where they are would just make that worse.
There are a lot of good Officers out there but the Army really needs to raise their standards SPECIFICALLY for Officers. I work with so so many FA Lieutenants and by god 50% of them are just complete and utter garbage. When I was in the Marine Corps as a young Corporal/Sergeant I had so much respect for Officers, I never met one I would consider dumb, some were just a little too motivated, serious koolaid slurpers (a small amount of ironic distance is necessary for success in this line of work IMO) but none were actively bad.
Since I have been in the Army I have lost so so much respect for officers. The Maneuver commanders/officers I talk to are pretty good on average, but everyone else has such a high proportion of complete fricking idiots. My FSO is a drooling moron. Like I am impressed this guy graduated college (Criminal Justice degree lol) on top of just being soft and obsessed with his own comfort. It's disgusting.
The Marine Corps actively tries to thin the herd of potential Officers; the Army seems to just let literally any moron get a commission.
>officer trying to preserve his own comfort instead of suffering so his men don’t have to
Absolutely disgusting and tragic to hear that he’s combat arms to boot
T. Pogue O who desperately needs to drop a packet for something with more purpose
upper division officer ranks is just politics
all about those hearts and minds.. until it's time to realize we're all countrymen at the end of the day and those who didn't die in war can, and just might have to, come back and frag those same officer c**ts who couldn't respect their fellow armed servicemen to begin with
Nips chimped out, raped and murdered across Asia, we decided to not sell them oil until they backed-off, they chimped out even harder and attacked us.
It was the frick-around of times, it was the find-out of times.
the nips relied on trade with the US for its raw resource imports and paid for it with other exports of half/finished goods to the US.
When the US went full protectionist during the great depression that gutted the japanese economy so they went "fricku disu shietu" and started taking over parts of china to get raw resource security, leading to the chino-japanese war. >spazz making shit up
thats the conclusion of two professors at the US naval war collage
Little more complicated than that. The japs had been struggling for parity with western nations for decades and from the 1880’s to the aftermath of WWI were treated poorly and unfairly. In the 20’s they realized that they’d never be treated as peers so they said “frick it, well just fully act like westerners and stop acting permission and accepting unfair mediation”. So they fought the Chinese again, got sanctioned, and kept going with the intent of securing resources that they’d previously relied on the US and Dutch for. The western powers, particularly the US started actively supporting the Chinese and the nips determined that action made them co-belligerents in the conflict. They had also picked a fight with the Russians, or rather the kwantung army did, expecting to win another war against them but lost which closed off the possibility of securing oil in outer Manchuria and eastern Russia so they turned their attention to Indonesia’s oil.
It’s actually interesting how China’s current efforts to break out of the first and second island chains mirrors the imperial Japanese effort to establish a western pacific empire.
>NOOO if the Europeans lose their colonies and investments in South East Asia, they'll never be able to pay back the money they owe to our israeli bankers!!!!
It's all a israeli plot. Your post, my post, the fat shit I'm pushing out, it's all planned by the israelites and everything is going accrding to israelite-aku. Even if Tel Aviv was nuked right now and every nation on earth united to exterminate every last israelite it'd still be part of a israeli plot
>Know when to hold em >Know when to fold em >Know what's possible and what isn't >Having the balls to tell those above you the truth >The ability to compartmentalize >The ability to frick up (get people killed) and not immediately fold under the pressure >Empathy for your men >Respect for your men >Having absolutely zero intention of being a hero >Taking the time to get to know your men so you at least know who is good at what and who should be where >Getting between your men and the political bullshit
A good officer needs a gimmick to stand out of the crowd. Lemay had his cigar. MacArthur wore shades. Patton carried cowboy revolvers. Eisenhower's career didn't really take off until he started wearing a weird jacket to work. No one cared who Matt Ridgway was until he put on the iron breasts.
You know who didn't have a gimmick? Mark Clark.
But if he had taken ONE PHOTO holding a gladius, history would remember him as Clark Romanicus, Liberator of the Eternal City, Son of Mars, and Banisher of Fascisti
His gimmick was rushing Rome for "muh glory" instead of cutting off Kesselring's boys and giving them another Stalingrad. Also gun collecting.
https://www.gunsinternational.com/guns-for-sale-online/rifles/rifles-american-bolt-action/large-groupings-of-firearms-knives-the-property-of-general-mark-w-clark-make-offer-.cfm?gun_id=102405302
Monty had his ultra-autismo preparations, DeGaulle had his grating personality.
>Washington - somehow being impossible to decisively defeat despite constantly losing >Rokossovsky - literally recruited from a gulag >Chuikov - bomb magnet >Zhukov - total disregard for the lives of his men >Manstein - "blame Hitler for everything" >Guderian - "I invented everything" >Goering - obesity >Rommel - literally just not committing war crimes >Dirlewanger - self-explanatory >Paulus - not shooting himself for the Bohemian corporal >Keital - "Lackeital" >Yamamoto - war is actually le bad >Yamashita - dindu nuffin (in his case, it was true) >Grant - alcoholism >Hooker - self-explanatory >Sherman - bipolar disorder >John Buford - mustache >George Thomas - Token Southerner >Farragut - riding his horse on his flagship >J. L. Chamberlain - being a fricking schoolteacher >Lee - gentlemanly demeanor >Stonewall Jackson - literal autism and religious fanaticism >Nathan Bedford Forrest - extremely volatile temper >Braxton Bragg - self-explanatory >John Bell Hood - taking "cost at an arm and a leg" literally >Pickett - CHARGE! >Prigozhin - self-explanatory >Surovikin - edgy 12 y/o playing Halo gamertag-tier nickname >Shoigu - wood >Gerasimov - doesn't even seem to know why he's here >Alexander the Great - gay
>the stupid counter to the stupid idea
NCOs run the tactical level, officers run the operational level, and le general staff manages the strategic with a hefty dose of interference from civilians. >but anon america doesn't have a general staff
we're bringing it back.
>six sigma cert
I hate that shit with a passion. What is it even for?
Six Sigma was the most annoying shit I ever got put through in defense contracting. They pushed it hard but only to check a box, so it always ended up with new guys getting railroaded through it so they could say they did a project, then every other piece of actual improvement was done like normal human beings do it. Nobody would willingly subject themselves to a real Six Sigma project and all t he bureaucratic navel gazing that comes with it.
>platoon level
Don’t be a dick, be humble, use your rank as a tool for your people’s sake and not your own, stand up against moronic shit from higher, and don’t even think about your OER because it will write itself if you do well. basic servant leadership. >company leadership and above
same as above but the love of God don’t listen to david goggins jocko podcasts and break your 450 acft score soldiers with 7 day a week crossfit
>focused only on company grade leadership. > no understanding of strategic thinking or leadership (higher echelons)
19 y/o private hands wrote this post guaranteed.
Imagine joining a military force and not being an officer. You are officially and literally accepting to be a bottom subservient meat bag whose entire existence is made to serve a better man without questions until he decides to sacrifice you in the grinder just because. Your entire purpose in life is to obey an other man's orders, without any prospects of becoming that man. Air force servicemen literally scrub the seat where the officer-pilots sit to clean their ass stain from long missions. How do people do it?
The same thing goes for officers. A four-star general's reward for decades of sacrifice and service is to be called in front of congress to be screamed at by congresswoman lateesha from baltimore or wherever the frick and they just have to sit there and take it. "Y...yes ma'am. I'll have to investigate that further..." They have to implement DEI slop from undersecretaries of defense that skipped service to go work at Lockheed. Think about how many generals Trump absolutely mogged. A reality TV guy that never even joined the actual military. If you think you are removed from this as a civilian, you're wrong. The government can and will kick in your door and draft you, and you'd be lucky to get sent to clean fighter jets. Very few in this country are truly free from the yoke of government power.
to be a mythical creature of competency only ever seen when it decides to be, untouchable by enlistedcucks, and too critical to be disturbed by officers, so they just float through life being autisticly competent at their autistic little autist role knowing that no one can or wants to frick them over?
>Thomas Edward Theisman was a Havenite citizen, an officer in the Havenite Navy, and an influential politician.
>The Theisman Coup was the violent overthrow of Oscar Saint-Just, the de-facto dictator of the People's Republic of Haven, by forces led by Admiral Thomas Theisman of the People's Navy on May 10, 1915 PD. It led to the restoration of the orginal democratic constitution and the first free elections in centuries.
>On Haven, the military took control of the People's Tower by breaching its walls with assault shuttles and dropping troops into it. Admiral Theisman stormed Chairman Saint-Just's office with a number of battle-armored marines, and personally executed the dictator by shooting him in the head with his own pulser. (HH9)
tell you hwat, the politicking in Haven was fricking sweet but fricking weber needs to get off his fricking geriatric ass and finish the series before he fricking croaks, if i dont read about the final end of the mesanraelis then i will fricking explode
also cordelia needed rape correction so bad its not even funny holy shit
IF I WERE A BAD OFFICER, I WOULDNT BE SITTING HERE, DISCUSSING IT WITH YOU WOULD I?
i like you anon, no homo
fpbp
>samegayging this obviously
Wow
So obvious, not like two different anons can have the same beat to death overused reaction and like TF2.
fpbp
That was the first thing that came to my mind as well
Nice job, anon
One wayward pinch of arrogance, one errant insult, and KABLOOOIE!
Be white, and good looking.
No, that's how you become a gigolo
Secretary of defense is black THOUGH
op said "good officer"
He runs fast, that's how you get promoted as an officer
Knowing to
>listen to those above you
>listen to those below you
>when to dismiss what they're saying because it's stupid
Why did Winters refuse to go to Korea?
too many koreans
"He'd seen enough of war."
Why didn't you serve homosexual?
Because he was smart, Korea was a shit show
Stakes weren't high enough. At worse, some asshat communists runs Korea. At best, some butthole capitalists runs Korea.
this
my headcanon is that if the south just completely won the war and annexed the norks they would still be a shithole dictatorship today
Only the Marines got to really have fun in Korea.
Winters had a little monologue in the 2nd episode of BoB about this. He made a promise with god that when WWII was over would settle down and live a quiet life. Since the production crew talked to him before they made the series I am guessing this part of the show is true.
The bravest officers are the ones who can look at a situation and flat out tell their superiors "no, it's fricked".
>How to get court martialed
Too cold and no french prostitutes
Something about wanting to visit Hersheypark
Why are enlisted stereotyped as coming from broken families or not knowing their dads?
thats more of a recent thing
Because the military is a last resort for people or you don't have the means to attend higher education.
Because all you need to become an Army officer is a bachelor's degree in women's studies from west bumfrick university and to not be fat
you know the training pipeline for an officer who didn't go to an academy or go through ROTC is around 9 months right
>it took 9 whole months to complete my basic program
Wow, practically an MD
army allows people to get fat as frick, that's never been a requirement
Working class stereotypes
A number of reasons. All are specious.
The average servicemember is more educated than a peer in the general population. Also less likely to come from a broken home, more likely to come from a middle class family, and overall be in better health.
don't listen to uppity know-it-all enlisted
unironically yes, people say "hurr durr listen to da NCOs!!" You will have plenty of shitbag NCOs and god help you if you get one as a PSG. Hard part is figuring out who the good ones are.
The overlap between people insisting that Officers are useless or not proper soldiers next to NCO’s, and people that never had the qualifications to become an officer, get a degree, or similar, is significant.
>What makes a good officer?
Leadership. That doesn't mean knowing everything or bossing people around. Leadership is delegating responsibility to good men and doing what you can to help them succeed.
The fundamental baseline of good leadership is assessing where people are strong, where they’re weak, and what their motivations and interests are. Then putting the right people in the right spots or teams to maximize the confluence of positive capability, interest, and motivation.
Another hallmark of good leadership is identifying relevant experience among your men for the task at hand, especially if that experience exceeds your own, and approaching them for counsel. Even if your ultimate decision is against their counsel or in another direction entirely. The mere act of bringing together a small ad-hoc team of disparate subordinates does enormous good for their confidence in you, and word of it will permeate through your command.
Not being an arrogant frickwit. Knowing which enlisted/other officers to listen to. Also dont be fat or literally only be thinking about your OER and who you can frick to get a good one..
OERs are all that matter at the end of the day career wise. Doesn’t matter how many people you frick or step on as long as they aren’t above you.
Magdumping at the sound of falling acorns
I can't remember where - it may have been here - but i remember seeing that Winter's being the greatest officer ever was grossly exhaggerated by Ambrose and a handful of other people in Winters circle, mostly due to Band of Brothers, as well as the fact that we only got to really see about 20-30 people of the entire company in depth.
It went on to say a lot of men thought he was actually kind of a pussy. Not terrible, not that it lost them any motivation, but he wasn't what BoB wants you to think he is. Is there any truth to this?
I mean, there were also quite a few men in Easy that didn't think that bad of Sobel even. I know all the men in general credit his training itself to their success, but there were a lot of men in Easy (of course, nowhere near the TV show or any kind of media) that didn't dislike him whatsoever; Sobel also did jump on D-Day and got a few awards in combat - so i'm inclined to believe the Winters thing.
It’s hard to gauge the actual truth considering Ambrose isn’t the best source and everyone is now dead. Many were dead or never kept in contact before Ambrose bothered to write his book and especially before HBO made the series.
Then we have to deal with the bias as of the soldiers interview and the accuracy of their accounts, given the fact it was 40-50+ years since the events took place and memories can fade/alter over time.
For example, everything about Blithe and Liebgott.
Even Buck Compton, who was an important character in the series, was interviewed by Ambrose, and was interviewed for the series itself, was misrepresented for storeytelling purposes. He wasn’t that shaken up from the events he experienced and witnessed, like the injuries of his friends, he was on medical leave for actual health problems and denied the show was accurate to his likeness.
Also Nixon and Compton never got along and Nixon hated him for being a “Jock” among other things. Nixon was great friend with Winters but was never seeking to take part in the book or series so all the privy details are beholden to Winters accounts to Ambrose and the show writers.
Maybe Japan shouldn’t attack European colonial holdings and the Chinese nationalists and instead forced on the USSR to assist Germany if they didn’t want israeli influence in East Asia.
Band of Brothers is definitely a textbook example of survivorship bias (and Ambrose was a really bad historian), but even from his accounts we see his strengths and flaws. Was he some super-human, God-like leader? No. Did he excel in a difficult situation? Yes.
Easy Company wasn't an especially notable unit of ass-kicking badasses, they just their story told.
Buck Compton was inconsistent in his testimony.
the ability to fire 3 rounds a minute in any weather
That's good soldiering!
It really depends on what you're doing
Good NCO’s. Failing that, good enemy marksmanship.
Taking nothing personally and shouldering burdens/taking heat for others as necessary. Accountable and trustful delegation. Receptiveness to objections/options and encouraging subordinates to use good judgement while not abiding backbiting. Killer instinct, including a clear idea of acceptable losses measured against tactical/operational/strategic gain/advancement.
The ability to impregnate three NCO bawds per minute in all weather.
Time as an NCO.
Former NCOs usually don’t make it past captain. They struggle in staff roles and usually fizzle out then. The worst S3 I ever knew was a former NCO, kept trying to act like as an NCO when he wasn’t anymore and the unit suffered for it. They do good in platoon/company leadership which is only about 1-6 years.
I know and I'm sorry for telling lies.
The more common sense a person has the more likely they are to stay alive for longer. The best idea is if that you aren't learning you are probably dying. I think as long as you have a lot of common sense and aren't a shitty over the top person (Maintain a balanced personality) you'd be fine in a leadership position.
You misunderstood my post or I didn’t articulate it well enough. Good officers are MADE BY good NCO’s. But pursuant to your reply I think the reasons mustangs tend not to go far past company grades is an issue with how we train officers and the culture of senior “leaders”. I think the US military would be improved exponentially by doing three things.
>fire 50% of all flag officers
We have more fricking generals than in WWII for a force 10% the size. It’s absurd.
>require that all officers be enlisted first, then selected
A 22 year old LT is still a 22 year old, just as ignorant and immature as any other. Spending a couple years maturing and learning to be an adult would have nothing but positive benefits imo.
>eliminate up or out, remove broadening assignments as a promotion requirement, adjust the pay structure to reflect skills and performance over merely time in service and grade
This goes for all ranks really. Good privates are good privates. Good captains are good captains. Requiring good soldiers to advance in rank and/or to positions they aren’t necessarily suited for under threat of kicking them out is stupid. Incredibly stupid.
But I’m biased I guess
>t. Prior NCO and current O
>require that all officers be enlisted first, then selected
There's a reason why no military on the planet does this. Why would someone want to join the military with a college education as a private? The army is already having a recruitment problem just for enlistees, this would cut any incentive for anyone to do ROTC etc. Why not just ride out 3 years and get the GI bill then? A good LT will be mentored by his PSG.
before I used to wonder why platoons were led by 2nd LT and not a SFC since a SFC is perfectly capable of doing the job even more so than a 2nd LT.
then I realized it's just so the 2nd LT can get his feet wet and gain experience in his officer career.
That and to provide an interface with higher echelons of leadership and interpret the intent of said leadership for their unit. The NCO’s role is to directly lead and manage day to day tasks while the officer’s role is to ensure the unit is meeting the intent of said senior echelons/leaders. A simplistic example would be a PSG leading PT daily while the PL establishes a six-12 month fitness training plan.
Plan/command intent (situation)>->direction>->execution
Might look familiar as the first three part of an operations order.
They don’t need to start off with a college education. Fun fact, you don’t even need a degree to commission. Selecting good soldiers and putting them through an expanded OCS program, service academy, or sending them to do an undergrad the same way we send captains to ACS for graduate programs would work fine and you’d benefit by having a higher quality of leader who doesn’t necessarily require handholding, so they can focus on being an LT and their NCO’s can focus on being NCO’s.
And you are half right but half wrong on no militaries practicing this or a version of it. I’d argue essentially every modern, competent, military does. People enlisting with college degrees is also not nearly as uncommon than you might believe.
Now that I think about it, what's more useful to an officer: four years of a business degree or 3 as a private?
The enlisted xp is more useful every time. Don't waste critical time in an officers' career path on college.
I’m not sure if you’re agreeing or disagreeing with me. The most important thing anybody learns as an undergrad, frankly, is how to gather then collate and present information. The college requirement for officers originates only about 100 years ago and wasn’t firmly solidified as a policy until the 70’s-80’s. Prior to the all-volunteer force and the military becoming essentially another civil service bureaucracy organizationally hate keeping with degrees wasn’t really a thing. The military cared primarily about leadership ability and individual maturity prior to that.
Semi agreeing. The college requirement began as a crude IQ filter (for 120-130+) which lost its role when median college grad IQ dropped to 100.
That’s one way to look at it. Frankly though it’s a method of official gatekeeping. Administrative pedants and bean counters need a way to quantify everything on paper, and that means litmus tests. The existence of the test is more important than its accuracy as it can be used as the basis for an assumption of individual merit. If the statement “college degrees make better leaders” is assumed true than the next logical step is to say “if we want good leaders, they need degrees as a barrier to entry”. GSA does the same thing with civilian grades in the civil service, and the reality being that an education doesn’t necessarily make anyone better at any specific job (generally) is why so much government activity and so many programs are run by contractors.
I had a break in service between enlisting and commissioning into the guard where I was a contractor for a bit under seven years. I’m a DOD civilian at my, erm, civilian job now. I’ve been in this morass for 18 years as of next month and it’s all so convoluted that sometimes I feel smashing my face into a keyboard until I learn how many hits it takes for all the keys to fly off. Everything is so fricked that I can’t even see a practicable solution that wouldn’t take a world war and a full generation of radical change.
If you're going back beyond a century ago, literacy alone was generally enough to separate officers from enlisted. Most couldn't even read, or just couldn't read well.
>Former NCOs usually don’t make it past captain. They struggle in staff roles and usually fizzle out then.
I hear this and I'm sure it's true at times but I think part of it is a misunderstanding of how promotions work, as well. Most career officers tend to cap out at O-5, and some don't get past O-4. The top of the pyramid gets very steep after O-5, so many competent officers just have to retire at that point because there isn't enough room. Now think about how long it takes to make O-4. That's a decade of extra time AFTER however many years the NCO spent in the enlisted ranks. Instead of looking at an O-4 going up for O-5 ~18 years, that former NCO's time could look more like 25+ years. A promotion board is going to wonder how much time this guy has left before he retires out. Why groom someone to move up the chain when they're likely to leave before they get there?
Germans had a good enlisted to officer program during WW2.
They did, and it was virtually identical to their WWI program that had its roots in the army of Frederick the great. Making the jump from being a combat leader, what we’d call company grades, to staff/field grades was trickier. With some exceptions all the major players had very similar programs/processes for promoting effective leaders from enlisted to junior officer ranks when necessary.
At least for the army. Navies are traditionally far more culturally segregated regarding rank.
The military is set up to expand in case of emergency and remove dead weight. We already have a problem with institutional change, letting people stay where they are would just make that worse.
There are a lot of good Officers out there but the Army really needs to raise their standards SPECIFICALLY for Officers. I work with so so many FA Lieutenants and by god 50% of them are just complete and utter garbage. When I was in the Marine Corps as a young Corporal/Sergeant I had so much respect for Officers, I never met one I would consider dumb, some were just a little too motivated, serious koolaid slurpers (a small amount of ironic distance is necessary for success in this line of work IMO) but none were actively bad.
Since I have been in the Army I have lost so so much respect for officers. The Maneuver commanders/officers I talk to are pretty good on average, but everyone else has such a high proportion of complete fricking idiots. My FSO is a drooling moron. Like I am impressed this guy graduated college (Criminal Justice degree lol) on top of just being soft and obsessed with his own comfort. It's disgusting.
The Marine Corps actively tries to thin the herd of potential Officers; the Army seems to just let literally any moron get a commission.
Raise the standards.
>officer trying to preserve his own comfort instead of suffering so his men don’t have to
Absolutely disgusting and tragic to hear that he’s combat arms to boot
T. Pogue O who desperately needs to drop a packet for something with more purpose
The marines literally require you to be a moron as a condition of joining.
>Former NCOs aren't good at being useless
Sounds about right.
upper division officer ranks is just politics
all about those hearts and minds.. until it's time to realize we're all countrymen at the end of the day and those who didn't die in war can, and just might have to, come back and frag those same officer c**ts who couldn't respect their fellow armed servicemen to begin with
Doing the right thing
Like killing Japanese children for israelites
Nips chimped out, raped and murdered across Asia, we decided to not sell them oil until they backed-off, they chimped out even harder and attacked us.
It was the frick-around of times, it was the find-out of times.
Looking at China now, how can you suggest that Imperial Japan was in the wrong?
They're very much to blame for crippling Chiang's forces and doing essentially nothing to kill off Mao.
Are you being stupid on purpose
>how can you suggest that Imperial Japan was in the wrong?
Well, for starters they tried to eat George HW Bush.
If only they had succeeded.
China's the way it is precisely BECAUSE of what Japan did to them.
the nips relied on trade with the US for its raw resource imports and paid for it with other exports of half/finished goods to the US.
When the US went full protectionist during the great depression that gutted the japanese economy so they went "fricku disu shietu" and started taking over parts of china to get raw resource security, leading to the chino-japanese war.
>spazz making shit up
thats the conclusion of two professors at the US naval war collage
Little more complicated than that. The japs had been struggling for parity with western nations for decades and from the 1880’s to the aftermath of WWI were treated poorly and unfairly. In the 20’s they realized that they’d never be treated as peers so they said “frick it, well just fully act like westerners and stop acting permission and accepting unfair mediation”. So they fought the Chinese again, got sanctioned, and kept going with the intent of securing resources that they’d previously relied on the US and Dutch for. The western powers, particularly the US started actively supporting the Chinese and the nips determined that action made them co-belligerents in the conflict. They had also picked a fight with the Russians, or rather the kwantung army did, expecting to win another war against them but lost which closed off the possibility of securing oil in outer Manchuria and eastern Russia so they turned their attention to Indonesia’s oil.
It’s actually interesting how China’s current efforts to break out of the first and second island chains mirrors the imperial Japanese effort to establish a western pacific empire.
>NOOO if the Europeans lose their colonies and investments in South East Asia, they'll never be able to pay back the money they owe to our israeli bankers!!!!
Wait... I thought decolonization was a israeli plot?
I don't know who's israeliteing who anymore.
It's all a israeli plot. Your post, my post, the fat shit I'm pushing out, it's all planned by the israelites and everything is going accrding to israelite-aku. Even if Tel Aviv was nuked right now and every nation on earth united to exterminate every last israelite it'd still be part of a israeli plot
Vae victis, slant-eyes.
A good officer is made by a good office.
What makes a good dad? That.
>Know when to hold em
>Know when to fold em
>Know what's possible and what isn't
>Having the balls to tell those above you the truth
>The ability to compartmentalize
>The ability to frick up (get people killed) and not immediately fold under the pressure
>Empathy for your men
>Respect for your men
>Having absolutely zero intention of being a hero
>Taking the time to get to know your men so you at least know who is good at what and who should be where
>Getting between your men and the political bullshit
a good officer knows that achieving political goals are more important than military goals.
A good officer needs a gimmick to stand out of the crowd. Lemay had his cigar. MacArthur wore shades. Patton carried cowboy revolvers. Eisenhower's career didn't really take off until he started wearing a weird jacket to work. No one cared who Matt Ridgway was until he put on the iron breasts.
You know who didn't have a gimmick? Mark Clark.
But if he had taken ONE PHOTO holding a gladius, history would remember him as Clark Romanicus, Liberator of the Eternal City, Son of Mars, and Banisher of Fascisti
His gimmick was rushing Rome for "muh glory" instead of cutting off Kesselring's boys and giving them another Stalingrad. Also gun collecting.
https://www.gunsinternational.com/guns-for-sale-online/rifles/rifles-american-bolt-action/large-groupings-of-firearms-knives-the-property-of-general-mark-w-clark-make-offer-.cfm?gun_id=102405302
Monty had his ultra-autismo preparations, DeGaulle had his grating personality.
>Washington - somehow being impossible to decisively defeat despite constantly losing
>Rokossovsky - literally recruited from a gulag
>Chuikov - bomb magnet
>Zhukov - total disregard for the lives of his men
>Manstein - "blame Hitler for everything"
>Guderian - "I invented everything"
>Goering - obesity
>Rommel - literally just not committing war crimes
>Dirlewanger - self-explanatory
>Paulus - not shooting himself for the Bohemian corporal
>Keital - "Lackeital"
>Yamamoto - war is actually le bad
>Yamashita - dindu nuffin (in his case, it was true)
>Grant - alcoholism
>Hooker - self-explanatory
>Sherman - bipolar disorder
>John Buford - mustache
>George Thomas - Token Southerner
>Farragut - riding his horse on his flagship
>J. L. Chamberlain - being a fricking schoolteacher
>Lee - gentlemanly demeanor
>Stonewall Jackson - literal autism and religious fanaticism
>Nathan Bedford Forrest - extremely volatile temper
>Braxton Bragg - self-explanatory
>John Bell Hood - taking "cost at an arm and a leg" literally
>Pickett - CHARGE!
>Prigozhin - self-explanatory
>Surovikin - edgy 12 y/o playing Halo gamertag-tier nickname
>Shoigu - wood
>Gerasimov - doesn't even seem to know why he's here
>Alexander the Great - gay
Officers aren't needed. Outdated classist concept. NCOs and E4s can run the military and no college education is required.
That’s right, we’ll put. Now go back to your TikTok’s while the adults run the organization.
Joes run the army like day laborers and contractors run construction projects.
>the stupid counter to the stupid idea
NCOs run the tactical level, officers run the operational level, and le general staff manages the strategic with a hefty dose of interference from civilians.
>but anon america doesn't have a general staff
we're bringing it back.
we don't need a staff, its just political bootlicking bs that's not needed.
The “general staff” in the US is the joint chiefs of staff.
>t. Salty E4 who thinks the promotion from E3 was an achievement he EARNED
Specialists are just privates with 2-3 years time in service.
officers learn nothing but DEI and SHARP powerpoints. They are useless
t. spends the entire workday vaping at the smoke pit
Digits confirm
If you spent half the time working as you do shamming you’d know better.
A willingness to follow orders without hesitation. Even if that order is calling in air and artillery on you own men.
Prior enlisted
Homosexuality
Blackness
Gender (non-cis-white-male)
>no JJDIDTIEBUCKLE yet
don't get a big ego about how "dumb" the enlisted are
college twinks are not Gods in the flesh, believe it or not
An MBA and six sigma cert. Two failed GWOT wars.
>some day...
C'mere grandkids.. let pappy tell you about ole 2 Failed Wars...
>six sigma cert
I hate that shit with a passion. What is it even for?
Resume padding for when they want a seat at a defense company board.
Six Sigma was the most annoying shit I ever got put through in defense contracting. They pushed it hard but only to check a box, so it always ended up with new guys getting railroaded through it so they could say they did a project, then every other piece of actual improvement was done like normal human beings do it. Nobody would willingly subject themselves to a real Six Sigma project and all t he bureaucratic navel gazing that comes with it.
a good office
a tombstone
>platoon level
Don’t be a dick, be humble, use your rank as a tool for your people’s sake and not your own, stand up against moronic shit from higher, and don’t even think about your OER because it will write itself if you do well. basic servant leadership.
>company leadership and above
same as above but the love of God don’t listen to david goggins jocko podcasts and break your 450 acft score soldiers with 7 day a week crossfit
>focused only on company grade leadership.
> no understanding of strategic thinking or leadership (higher echelons)
19 y/o private hands wrote this post guaranteed.
>I AM NOT A SIR, I WORK FOR A LIVING YOU MORON
>You salute the man, not the rank.
What an butthole.
You overthrow the government
You lead by example
Calling in danger close fire missions
>what makes a good officer?
Being able to eat Debra Winger’s sweaty muff.
why is tom cruise kissing that guy? is he gay?
Imagine joining a military force and not being an officer. You are officially and literally accepting to be a bottom subservient meat bag whose entire existence is made to serve a better man without questions until he decides to sacrifice you in the grinder just because. Your entire purpose in life is to obey an other man's orders, without any prospects of becoming that man. Air force servicemen literally scrub the seat where the officer-pilots sit to clean their ass stain from long missions. How do people do it?
>Air force servicemen literally scrub the seat where the officer-pilots sit to clean their ass stain from long missions
I have to do that at work already, only one toilet for a dozen men and at least two of them have permanent swamp ass.
The same thing goes for officers. A four-star general's reward for decades of sacrifice and service is to be called in front of congress to be screamed at by congresswoman lateesha from baltimore or wherever the frick and they just have to sit there and take it. "Y...yes ma'am. I'll have to investigate that further..." They have to implement DEI slop from undersecretaries of defense that skipped service to go work at Lockheed. Think about how many generals Trump absolutely mogged. A reality TV guy that never even joined the actual military. If you think you are removed from this as a civilian, you're wrong. The government can and will kick in your door and draft you, and you'd be lucky to get sent to clean fighter jets. Very few in this country are truly free from the yoke of government power.
>sacrifice
Nobody makes flag without being a political creature. The should all fricking hang. Al of them. Just for safety sake.
Isnt warrant officer ranks what this is for?
to be a mythical creature of competency only ever seen when it decides to be, untouchable by enlistedcucks, and too critical to be disturbed by officers, so they just float through life being autisticly competent at their autistic little autist role knowing that no one can or wants to frick them over?
having good parents like don & patty helps
my greatest regret in life is refusing the offer for room and board
i will never recover from this regret
>What makes a good officer?
apolitical, will tell civilian authority theres a problem with their plan
>Thomas Edward Theisman was a Havenite citizen, an officer in the Havenite Navy, and an influential politician.
>The Theisman Coup was the violent overthrow of Oscar Saint-Just, the de-facto dictator of the People's Republic of Haven, by forces led by Admiral Thomas Theisman of the People's Navy on May 10, 1915 PD. It led to the restoration of the orginal democratic constitution and the first free elections in centuries.
>On Haven, the military took control of the People's Tower by breaching its walls with assault shuttles and dropping troops into it. Admiral Theisman stormed Chairman Saint-Just's office with a number of battle-armored marines, and personally executed the dictator by shooting him in the head with his own pulser. (HH9)
tell you hwat, the politicking in Haven was fricking sweet but fricking weber needs to get off his fricking geriatric ass and finish the series before he fricking croaks, if i dont read about the final end of the mesanraelis then i will fricking explode
also cordelia needed rape correction so bad its not even funny holy shit