The Social Structure debate

kowloon

So this argument comes up time and time again and I’m interested in hearing what you all have to say on the matter.

Is the Officers and Enlisted structure of the military a dinosaur of the past?
Or is the distinction between them necessary for good leadership?

Should Officers/Cadets be recruited only from the ranks, straight out of college with a civilian degree or trained from school leaving separately in military colleges?

Does the privilege that accompanies being an officer create an undue amount of contempt from enlisted personnel?

Should technical and leadership classes/paths be valued more equally?

I’m stirring the excrement a bit here, but it’s always good to hear the opinions.

OS119

most modern Armies are moving towards a situation where having a degree is required before commissioning - the reason is not the degree per se, rather the (hoped for) additional maturity gained by living away from home for a few years, reconciling budget with expenditure, the self-discipline required to write a 4,000 word essay when you could be in the SU trapping off with a half-cut hotty, and the exposure to people from a much wider social and ethnic mix than its likely you would have been exposed to at high school.

increasingly Armies want to move away from having its leaders arrive on a conveyor belt from institution to institution, they are looking for people who make their own positive decisions, rather than those who just 'arrive' at a destination through cultural inertia.

the down side of looking for people with a wide experience of life before they join is that - by and large - the only people who can afford to have that experience and education by the age of 22 are the children of middle class homes.

whether there is a big 'snob' element - rather than just an objective need for well-educated and confident candidates - within the officer selection process within the Irish Military is something that only one within that oreganisation could tell you.

Hard Larry

I can only speak from experience in the Irish Army...but we photocopied everything straight from the Brits so I'd say its rampant there too.

Obviously there are a few damn good Officers, they know who they are and if they don't then the lads do.

Once upon a time there was a need for a Social class system and a divide between the Enlisted Ranks and Officer Ranks and that mentality should have been eradicated after the debacle that was WW1. To have that mentality nowadays is very poor for morale...especially for Junior Officers. You can spend all your youth in College and then end up Overseas and not have a bloody clue whats happening or what you should be doing. The best training ground the Irish have is Overseas so although we need educated young men and women the gap between them becoming soldiers and then actually soldiering is too great.

There is still a 1950s Stiff Upper Lip mentality alive and well in the Irish Officer Corps and its one of our draw backs. Senior Officers only hang around in their posts for 2-3 years to get 'a box ticked' for promotion prospects. (this time may include trips overseas so the unit he/she is attached to for 2 years may only see him/her for 6 months) Thats no way to lead a Unit of enlisted troops whare more than likely in that Unit for the long haul.

You could probably make a safe bet on who the next COS will be...and the one after that, and the one after that. TBH its a boys club where the next Generals are being groomed for promotion already...this is the same though in most Corporations and in Politics so its not a new phenomenom.

Only recently has the Officer Candidate selection come back to the enlisted ranks...but IMO there are way too many hurdles to be jumped and boxes to be ticked by the enlisted ranks (this is a prime example of the 'us and them' scenario). The best selection ground for Officers should be the Enlisted Ranks where people are doing the job day in and day out.

Why make an NCO who probably has more Operational Experience than his interview board jump through so many hoops to get selected to undergo a course for promotion to the officer corps and then on the other side of the coin recruit some snot nose pup who did well in a school exam (which I have harse opinions of too) and send him to college for 4 years then expect him to command a platoon of troops in some cesspool.

i.e. Life Experience of Troops > Good Leaving Cert Results

I've no problem with seperate messes and dining halls and Officers been treated with respect for their rank when in barracks...but when Overseas it should be expected that they eat, **** and stand on the road with the rest of the troops and lead by example.

I don't have any opinions on how to change it (except to stop overlooking the troops capabilities and treating all the NCO ranks as subordinates instead of someone who actualy knows what they're talking about) but its a flawed system that needs a serious overhaul...but thats more than likely never going to happen in our life time.

As a footnote the flawed system is only fueled by the willingness of some NCOs to go with the flow and not rock the boat. Carrying out decisions and orders from superiors that are laughable.

testicle

It's easier to send people off to their death if you are not their friend, or they are of a lower social status than yourself.

OS119

testicle wrote:

It's easier to send people off to their death if you are not their friend, or they are of a lower social status than yourself.

but that logic utterly falls down when you consider that Senior officers don't give soldiers orders, they give Junior Officers orders.

Junior Officers then, with their soldiers, carry out those orders.

ergo, if this conspiracy theory is true, then infact its friends and social 'classmates' who send each other off to die - given that Junior officers have a vastly higher casualty rate than their '1 in 30' numbers should provide.
so instead of this concept of Senior officers from D4 sending half-educated young men from Tallaught off to die its actually - should this idea of a close-knit circle of officers from very similar backgrounds be true - officers from D4 sending the younger brothers of their university friends, from D4, off to die.

and to be frank, its been so long (87 years) since an Irish 'military establishment' sent large numbers of young men off to die that its somewhat unlikely to be an attitude that has been handed down - particularly in the 'casualty averse' environment that pervades most Irish deployments.

kowloon

Is there anyone of the opinion that perhaps the lack of strong class divides is making the officers too friendly with enlisted and this is getting in the way of good decision making?

Hard Larry

kowloon wrote:

Is there anyone of the opinion that perhaps the lack of strong class divides is making the officers too friendly with enlisted and this is getting in the way of good decision making?

Even with the current strong class divide there is a lack of good decision making

kowloon

I would have expected more of an argument

Hard Larry

Its not an argument its the truth

kowloon

I started the same thing up before on an American forum and all hell broke loose, made for an amusing read.
Too much Apathy here for angry posting

Maskhadov

people with an eduaction should not be in the army as a rule. The top brass should be the only people with intelligence

cushtac

Maskhadov wrote:

people with an eduaction should not be in the army as a rule. The top brass should be the only people with intelligence

Intelligence and education are different things.

Manic Moran

kowloon wrote:

I started the same thing up before on an American forum and all hell broke loose, made for an amusing read.

Got a link to that one?

There are five sources of commissioning here in the US.
OCS
ROTC
Academy
Direct from Ranks.
Direct from Outside.

ROTC, Academy, and DOC (direct outside comission) are more inclined to keep the separation between officers and enlisted. Academy (eg West Point) graduates are notorious for it, though there are, of course, exceptions. DOCs, usually doctors, laywers and so on, are an unusual case where a separation or otherwise isn't really an issue.

OCS and Direct from Ranks are another issue. Indeed, it can be argued that there is too little separation from these two: There is NCO Business and there is Officer Business. Oftentimes, officers who used to be NCOs are unable to restrain themselves and keep an NCO mentality or point of view, thus being perhaps counter-productive and interfering with the duties of their NCOs. Officers should give direction and guidance, NCOs act upon that guidance and resent when an officer gets involved in the weeds.

This separation would be particularly important in the world of disciplinary action: Being sent to see the Officer should be something which should not be an issue between friends, particularly if it's something akin to a US Article 15 (Captain's Mast equivalent) where the company grade officer completely on his own could be reducing the troop in rank, fining, imprisoning, or whatever. A separation also reduces the possibility of accusations of favouritism in such cases. "Why did PFC Smith end up with just extra duty, but I ended up being demoted to PV2? It's because he's a drinking buddy with the Captain."

Generally speaking, the smaller the unit, the less of a separation there is. In a tank, I've got three enlisted with me, two of which are other ranks. I have them dispense with the formalities in the tank, as we are so closely integrated and do a lot of social chatting on the intercom. On the other hand, if in charge of a full infantry company, there is going to be very little social interaction between the CO and the squad members.

The last item is the 'creature comforts.' At the most extreme end, the concept of aides/batmen. There is a risk that it is being seen simply as upper-classery, but in actuality, any officer I've seen who has an aide is usually so busy that the aide is required to deal with a lot of the mundane stuff. I also don't think it's a bad thing to have some extra creature comforts like a larger room, or a comfier chair: The "Loneliness of command" is a real problem, and anything which can help make life a little easier for the officer can't be that bad a thing.

NTM