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Its hard to tell a commander, "Look, be a good boss, leave your guys be.  They are coming off "XYZ" and they need to focus on individual skills, PME and NCO level training.  Do what you need to let them take care of themselves, their families and their careers.  Develop your company grades and don't worry about big exercises."

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In my experience, it is just the opposite.  We used to train all the fucking time with danger close in support of moving maneuver forces.  I had an FDO in the late 90s whose first 20 or so missions were danger close while only using manual means of computation(computer shit itself in Graf).  

We fired an incredible amount of rounds pre-GWOT.  Post GWOT, that has been cut in half and maybe thirds.  Post war artillery skills are lacking.  

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More sharp classes, so I don't rape the enemy.

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Fuck that. Sergeant's Time is the biggest bullshit fad we ever put in place, and a huge part of the problem we have with training in the Army.

You want to fix training? Go burn every fucking copy of every training manual published since the mid-1980s. Break every fucking tool we use to enable micro-management. Stop idiotic training meetings that try to account for every 15-minute block of every day, six weeks out.

Here's the root problem: Most of what we're doing these days isn't fucking training. It's talking about training. It's "managing" training. It's "planning training". What it isn't is resourcing or actually, y'know, fucking CONDUCTING training.

We did a hell of a lot better back before computers and micromanagement. My semi-literate first squad leader, who couldn't consistently spell his own name on my monthly counseling statements,  had more real power and control over training time for our squad than I did as a highly-trained, more than literate SFC had over my entire fucking platoon some 15 years later. That sonuvabitch got every hour of every day of the week, most of the time, and I'd be lucky if they allowed me an afternoon every third week to do my own thing. He could assess where the troops were at as individuals, and tailor his time to fix their issues. Me? I was the monkey on the fucking chain of seven different bosses that all had collective schizophrenia when it came to prioritizing what was to be done. Usually, I'd take the five or six different "high priority tasks" to the commander and ask him "Hey, which of these do I do? I can't do all of them in the time I have...", and he'd say, bravely "They're all a priority...".

Time was, you had three major entries on the training schedule: Squad Leader's Time, Platoon Leader's Time, and Company Commander's Time. Squad leaders were responsible for individual training, precisely per doctrine. Platoon leaders were responsible for low-level collective training, and company commanders were responsible for higher-level collective training. Want to know why company commanders can't do training worth shit, any more? It's because they never plan or actually conduct it at a collective level any more, until they command a company.

Once upon a time, a PL had to plan, resource, and conduct training for his platoon for an entire week at a time. Got that? PLAN. RESOURCE. CONDUCT. Now, all he does is sit there while the company commander briefs fifty thing that will never fucking happen to the battalion staff. Used to be there were quarterly meetings, and you'd have to show what you were planning to higher. And, a highlight of that meeting would be trying to pull out of your ass why things HADN'T happened, and woe betide those who couldn't come up with a good fucking reason, like the end of the world or the CSM.

Then, the staff and higher leadership would actually LEAVE THEIR FUCKING OFFICES, and come down to inspect, coach, and mentor the junior officers and NCOs out doing the training AS IT WAS HAPPENING. You know the last fucking time I saw a senior leader out inspecting routine training? As in, a Deputy Chief of Staff for a division? It was in the NINETEEN-FUCKING EIGHTIES. You don't see that shit these days, because they're all in their fucking offices answering emails about bullshit, having sloughed off all the training responsibilities on the NCO corps with that bullshit concept of "Sergeant's Time". Fuck me to tears...

Do you know where Sergeant's Time originally came from? It grew out of a complaint made in V Corps, back in the early 1980s. The Corps commander had a sensing session with NCOs, and asked what their biggest complaint was. The NCOs said: "Hey... We're always doing collective training, and never get a chance to do individual skills or collective task skills for the troops, which means we're constantly having to stop training to teach the basics... Could we get one day a week to focus on individual skill stuff out of the SQT and CTT manuals?". Corps commander says "What? Is that a problem? Is this going on? Hmmm...".

Shortly afterwards, we got Sergeant's Time, which was supposed to be a half-day a week strictly for individual skills, which is doctrinally what NCOs are supposed to be responsible for. It was supposed to be tied into what the PL was doing, in that if he were training road crater missions, Sergeant's Time was supposed to be focusing on stuff like priming charges and tying demo knots. Good sense, right?

Only thing was, that "good idea" grew like a fucking cancer, along with the new training doctrine that came in during the late '80s. By the time I pinned on SSG, Sergeant's Time was about the only fucking training going on during a week, and it had somehow morphed into "You will only train METL tasks...".

Last time I looked, METL tasks are collective ones, by definition. And, gee, Sergeant's Time is supposed to focus on what NCOs do, so why in the fuck am I now doing the Lieutenant's job? Riddle me that, genius-boys--Why are the NCOs doing the training that the officers are supposed to be doing, eh? I've actually done time in units where the LT was totally banned from Sergeant's Time, which was fucking stupid because it was a collective task being trained, and it was the only fucking training happening. And, the higher powers wondered why the junior officers were becoming so fucking inept at training... Gee, Mr. Fuckwit Three-Star, maybe it's because they don't actually do anything like that until they get company command. Used to be the LT had to plan, resource and conduct training in week-long blocks, brief the company commander, and then stand by while the company commander briefed higher, in case there were questions. That was the majority of his job. Now, he doesn't see the nuts and bolts of that shit until he's a commander, and he looks like an idiot because he doesn't know how to make things happen, or conduct training effectively.

There's a reason that TASC is dying on the vine--Nobody uses it anymore. There's a reason most training sucks, these days, and that's because nobody knows how to do it. I had a company commander who gave me my head as a fucking squad leader, and allowed me to set up a company training session. Mostly because I opened my big mouth and told him that his training plan sucked ass, and I could do better by myself without help. By the time I got done, I had tanks, live demo, and a combined arms training session that brought in three different units to conduct a rearward passage of lines scenario with live demo, perfectly mimicking one of our METL tasks. The whole time I'm doing this, the commander and the LTs are all looking at me like I'm doing some kind of fucking wizardry, because they had not the first fucking clue that something like that was even possible. Dear God--Bring in other units? Synergize? BLASPHEMY!!! I had training resources coming in from TASC, I had the other units I went over and schmoozed with, and I got that shit done. Everybody got something out of it, and it was a fucking squad leader setting it up. I used the CO's name in vain, and quite liberally, but I was the guy out doing all the legwork, and making it happen.The fucking battalion commanders of the tankers and the infantry I went over and got involved with were all like "Holy fuck, this is GOOD TRAINING!!", and giving my commander all the credit for the whole thing. It was fucking great--We had tanks moving back, engineers doing live demo, target turnover, tankers setting off demo, lanes being closed, mine systems getting deployed, all that shit.

Wanna know what was fucked up, though? The people I was working for didn't know how to make that shit happen on their own. Why? Because WE DON'T FUCKING TRAIN THEM TO ANYMORE. We don't even remember how to do it right, down at the lowest levels. It's all high-level bullshit, which doesn't teach crap to anyone where it needs to be learnt. A Lieutenant that never gets the chance to learn how to train his platoon is never going to be a Colonel who knows how to effectively train his brigade, because he simply doesn't know how.

Fuck me, we don't even teach people how to train any more. The old BTMS system at least had a program where they came out and did "Train the Trainer" at every level, and taught how to plan, resource, and conduct training for junior NCOs, junior officers, and so forth. Now, it's a short block of time at the WLC courses, and it does nothing to really pass on the knowledge. When I went through BTMS as a Corporal, I had to show up at class with a fully planned and resourced training session, give the class, assess it, and then provide feedback to my commander on how successful I was. If I didn't show up with training aids from TASC, if my class was shit, and if my testing was fucked up, I was a no-go. They don't do that anymore, do they? Wonder why training sucks, and the people doing it don't know what the fuck they're doing?

Sergeant's Time turned into a crock right after they put it into effect Army-wide, and mostly because the people that couldn't do training used it as an excuse to slough off training onto the NCO corps, without bothering to resource or protect it. I could tell you hundreds of stories about how the assholes running the show around me made promises about time, resources, and protection, only to leave me with a driver and one troop to actually do training with on the day of Sergeant's Time. Everyone else would be tasked doing post support missions, or some other non-training bullshit.

If most of the people in the Army today could go back and look at how things were really done, back in the days before ubiquitous computers, micro-management, and uninvolved higher leadership, they'd shit bricks at how much we did, and how much actual power and control over training the NCOs had. Used to be, they'd leave you the hell alone, and you got looked at once a year during the ARTEP. They'd brief everyone on the emphasis for that year, and you'd work towards it. Fuck up on the ARTEP because your squad couldn't lay a minefield to standard? Get ready for one shitty NCOER, and a truncated career path. Fuck up getting your platoon ready for ARTEP, same-same. There was accountability, but no micro-management. A squad leader could get away with sitting around his tool room and bullshitting about the whores in Germany and Korea, seemingly making the comparisons the focus of everything the squad was doing. Thing was, if he and his guys couldn't perform, he was fucking toast. In my company at Fort Sill, they made an example out of one such character, and they put a non-promotable Sergeant over a promotable Staff Sergeant. The guy thought he was getting a platoon, and they gave him a fire team after the ARTEP where he fucked everything up. Kind of an eye-opener for him, and he pulled his head out of his ass eventually, but that's how it was done back then.

You really, really do not want my opinion on the current state of training in the Army. Suffice it to say, I think it's fucking abysmal.

Quoted:


Ya know, maybe if the females wore their PT belts more that shit wouldn't happen.

Quoted:

Peacetime?
Up to 50% in the Motor-pool keeping your vehicle running.

Quoted:
Just turn leadership over to C.A.P.E and be done with it.  

http://cape.army.mil

Quoted:

All some folks care about is driving the wheels off that rental car and to hell with the long lasting components of that car.

Quoted:


Fuck that. Sergeant's Time is the biggest bullshit fad we ever put in place, and a huge part of the problem we have with training in the Army.

You want to fix training? Go burn every fucking copy of every training manual published since the mid-1980s. Break every fucking tool we use to enable micro-management. Stop idiotic training meetings that try to account for every 15-minute block of every day, six weeks out.

Here's the root problem: Most of what we're doing these days isn't fucking training. It's talking about training. It's "managing" training. It's "planning training". What it isn't is resourcing or actually, y'know, fucking CONDUCTING training.

We did a hell of a lot better back before computers and micromanagement. My semi-literate first squad leader, who couldn't consistently spell his own name on my monthly counseling statements,  had more real power and control over training time for our squad than I did as a highly-trained, more than literate SFC had over my entire fucking platoon some 15 years later. That sonuvabitch got every hour of every day of the week, most of the time, and I'd be lucky if they allowed me an afternoon every third week to do my own thing. He could assess where the troops were at as individuals, and tailor his time to fix their issues. Me? I was the monkey on the fucking chain of seven different bosses that all had collective schizophrenia when it came to prioritizing what was to be done. Usually, I'd take the five or six different "high priority tasks" to the commander and ask him "Hey, which of these do I do? I can't do all of them in the time I have...", and he'd say, bravely "They're all a priority...".

Time was, you had three major entries on the training schedule: Squad Leader's Time, Platoon Leader's Time, and Company Commander's Time. Squad leaders were responsible for individual training, precisely per doctrine. Platoon leaders were responsible for low-level collective training, and company commanders were responsible for higher-level collective training. Want to know why company commanders can't do training worth shit, any more? It's because they never plan or actually conduct it at a collective level any more, until they command a company.

Once upon a time, a PL had to plan, resource, and conduct training for his platoon for an entire week at a time. Got that? PLAN. RESOURCE. CONDUCT. Now, all he does is sit there while the company commander briefs fifty thing that will never fucking happen to the battalion staff. Used to be there were quarterly meetings, and you'd have to show what you were planning to higher. And, a highlight of that meeting would be trying to pull out of your ass why things HADN'T happened, and woe betide those who couldn't come up with a good fucking reason, like the end of the world or the CSM.

Then, the staff and higher leadership would actually LEAVE THEIR FUCKING OFFICES, and come down to inspect, coach, and mentor the junior officers and NCOs out doing the training AS IT WAS HAPPENING. You know the last fucking time I saw a senior leader out inspecting routine training? As in, a Deputy Chief of Staff for a division? It was in the NINETEEN-FUCKING EIGHTIES. You don't see that shit these days, because they're all in their fucking offices answering emails about bullshit, having sloughed off all the training responsibilities on the NCO corps with that bullshit concept of "Sergeant's Time". Fuck me to tears...

Do you know where Sergeant's Time originally came from? It grew out of a complaint made in V Corps, back in the early 1980s. The Corps commander had a sensing session with NCOs, and asked what their biggest complaint was. The NCOs said: "Hey... We're always doing collective training, and never get a chance to do individual skills or collective task skills for the troops, which means we're constantly having to stop training to teach the basics... Could we get one day a week to focus on individual skill stuff out of the SQT and CTT manuals?". Corps commander says "What? Is that a problem? Is this going on? Hmmm...".

Shortly afterwards, we got Sergeant's Time, which was supposed to be a half-day a week strictly for individual skills, which is doctrinally what NCOs are supposed to be responsible for. It was supposed to be tied into what the PL was doing, in that if he were training road crater missions, Sergeant's Time was supposed to be focusing on stuff like priming charges and tying demo knots. Good sense, right?

Only thing was, that "good idea" grew like a fucking cancer, along with the new training doctrine that came in during the late '80s. By the time I pinned on SSG, Sergeant's Time was about the only fucking training going on during a week, and it had somehow morphed into "You will only train METL tasks...".

Last time I looked, METL tasks are collective ones, by definition. And, gee, Sergeant's Time is supposed to focus on what NCOs do, so why in the fuck am I now doing the Lieutenant's job? Riddle me that, genius-boys--Why are the NCOs doing the training that the officers are supposed to be doing, eh? I've actually done time in units where the LT was totally banned from Sergeant's Time, which was fucking stupid because it was a collective task being trained, and it was the only fucking training happening. And, the higher powers wondered why the junior officers were becoming so fucking inept at training... Gee, Mr. Fuckwit Three-Star, maybe it's because they don't actually do anything like that until they get company command. Used to be the LT had to plan, resource and conduct training in week-long blocks, brief the company commander, and then stand by while the company commander briefed higher, in case there were questions. That was the majority of his job. Now, he doesn't see the nuts and bolts of that shit until he's a commander, and he looks like an idiot because he doesn't know how to make things happen, or conduct training effectively.

There's a reason that TASC is dying on the vine--Nobody uses it anymore. There's a reason most training sucks, these days, and that's because nobody knows how to do it. I had a company commander who gave me my head as a fucking squad leader, and allowed me to set up a company training session. Mostly because I opened my big mouth and told him that his training plan sucked ass, and I could do better by myself without help. By the time I got done, I had tanks, live demo, and a combined arms training session that brought in three different units to conduct a rearward passage of lines scenario with live demo, perfectly mimicking one of our METL tasks. The whole time I'm doing this, the commander and the LTs are all looking at me like I'm doing some kind of fucking wizardry, because they had not the first fucking clue that something like that was even possible. Dear God--Bring in other units? Synergize? BLASPHEMY!!! I had training resources coming in from TASC, I had the other units I went over and schmoozed with, and I got that shit done. Everybody got something out of it, and it was a fucking squad leader setting it up. I used the CO's name in vain, and quite liberally, but I was the guy out doing all the legwork, and making it happen.The fucking battalion commanders of the tankers and the infantry I went over and got involved with were all like "Holy fuck, this is GOOD TRAINING!!", and giving my commander all the credit for the whole thing. It was fucking great--We had tanks moving back, engineers doing live demo, target turnover, tankers setting off demo, lanes being closed, mine systems getting deployed, all that shit.

Wanna know what was fucked up, though? The people I was working for didn't know how to make that shit happen on their own. Why? Because WE DON'T FUCKING TRAIN THEM TO ANYMORE. We don't even remember how to do it right, down at the lowest levels. It's all high-level bullshit, which doesn't teach crap to anyone where it needs to be learnt. A Lieutenant that never gets the chance to learn how to train his platoon is never going to be a Colonel who knows how to effectively train his brigade, because he simply doesn't know how.

Fuck me, we don't even teach people how to train any more. The old BTMS system at least had a program where they came out and did "Train the Trainer" at every level, and taught how to plan, resource, and conduct training for junior NCOs, junior officers, and so forth. Now, it's a short block of time at the WLC courses, and it does nothing to really pass on the knowledge. When I went through BTMS as a Corporal, I had to show up at class with a fully planned and resourced training session, give the class, assess it, and then provide feedback to my commander on how successful I was. If I didn't show up with training aids from TASC, if my class was shit, and if my testing was fucked up, I was a no-go. They don't do that anymore, do they? Wonder why training sucks, and the people doing it don't know what the fuck they're doing?

Sergeant's Time turned into a crock right after they put it into effect Army-wide, and mostly because the people that couldn't do training used it as an excuse to slough off training onto the NCO corps, without bothering to resource or protect it. I could tell you hundreds of stories about how the assholes running the show around me made promises about time, resources, and protection, only to leave me with a driver and one troop to actually do training with on the day of Sergeant's Time. Everyone else would be tasked doing post support missions, or some other non-training bullshit.

If most of the people in the Army today could go back and look at how things were really done, back in the days before ubiquitous computers, micro-management, and uninvolved higher leadership, they'd shit bricks at how much we did, and how much actual power and control over training the NCOs had. Used to be, they'd leave you the hell alone, and you got looked at once a year during the ARTEP. They'd brief everyone on the emphasis for that year, and you'd work towards it. Fuck up on the ARTEP because your squad couldn't lay a minefield to standard? Get ready for one shitty NCOER, and a truncated career path. Fuck up getting your platoon ready for ARTEP, same-same. There was accountability, but no micro-management. A squad leader could get away with sitting around his tool room and bullshitting about the whores in Germany and Korea, seemingly making the comparisons the focus of everything the squad was doing. Thing was, if he and his guys couldn't perform, he was fucking toast. In my company at Fort Sill, they made an example out of one such character, and they put a non-promotable Sergeant over a promotable Staff Sergeant. The guy thought he was getting a platoon, and they gave him a fire team after the ARTEP where he fucked everything up. Kind of an eye-opener for him, and he pulled his head out of his ass eventually, but that's how it was done back then.

You really, really do not want my opinion on the current state of training in the Army. Suffice it to say, I think it's fucking abysmal.

Quoted:


There are reasons they set the Retention Control Points where they do. If some of us stayed on the job much past them, we'd probably have a hell of a lot more "workplace violence" in the military. I think I was pretty damn close, about the time I retired. All it would have taken would have been a few more times where the bosses screwed up long-set training events I'd been responsible for, and I might have gone into the Consideration of Others training session that replaced my thoroughly planned, resourced, and prepared training only after having first visited the staff offices with a couple of Claymore mines.

Few things in life are more enraging than having some jackass tell you that something is high-priority for training, then allowing you to prepare for it, following that by jerking the rug out from underneath you the day of. I actually kinda got to the point of not bothering to prepare training, because I knew that the laws of the Universe and US Army would only allow that training to actually take place if I was unprepared for it, and had to pull it out of my ass at the last minute. Seriously--I don't know how, or why, but whenever I took them seriously and actually treated the event like it would happen, and thoroughly prepared myself, it never seemed to actually take place. Somewhere in my still-unpacked household goods, there's a box full of three-ring binders with prepped training events I was never able to use. Blow it off, as one of the fifty other things they always talked about happening, and which never did? Sure as shit, the day of, I'd be standing up in front of that class winging it.

Sad thing was, the stuff I pulled out at the last minute was often better than the stuff other guys spent weeks on.

Quoted:


More sharp classes, so I don't rape the enemy.