# Interesting Leadership-Related Article in The Washington Post



## Marauder06 (Jul 26, 2011)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...l-aid-future/2011/07/22/gIQA57qOZI_story.html



> “After the major Afghan troop deployments end in 2014, how do we keep you and those five or ten years older than you in our Army?” One of Gates’s answers was the need to* attack “the institutional and bureaucratic constipation of Big Army*, and rethink the way it deals with the outstanding young leaders in its lower and middle ranks.”
> What Gates said he feared was, “Men and women in the prime of their professional lives, who may have been responsible for the lives of scores or hundreds of troops, or millions of dollars in assistance, or engaging in reconciling warring tribes . . . they may find themselves in a cube all day reformatting power point slides, preparing quarterly training briefs, or assigned an ever-expanding array of clerical duties. The consequences of this terrify me.”



At least the problem is recognized, whether or not we end up doing something about it is another story.


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## Diamondback 2/2 (Jul 26, 2011)

I expect a massive amount of soldiers to not reenlist after they shut down OIF & OEF, the majority of my generation has stated their only reason for joining the Army was because of 9/11. I doubt very highly that there would be anything the Army could due to avoid this, or retain soldiers who are going to have six figure jobs to look forward too after leaving.

The Army is going to be in turmoil after these deployments stop, the budget gets massively cut and the promotions become no existent. Why would someone hang out to stay E4, E5, or E6 for 10 or 12 years? Why would someone who has spent his whole career deploying want to hang out around the flag pole playing fuck-fuck games? Why would someone want his retirement cut, tricare cut and be part of a unit that doesn’t have money to send him to schools, ect?

Gates is the one who has set the tone for all of this, these little bullshit “I worry about the troops” comments are nothing more than saving face IMHO. They know exactly what they are doing, they know exactly how it will affect the Army and they don’t give to flying fucks about what happens to Joe.


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## Manolito (Jul 26, 2011)

I will only add that when a generation in 1970 took this medicine they were not happy with how it tasted. Carter was president some similarities we tried a leader of change. He stood up the Department of Energy and the Department of Education and spent us into trouble. Then the people woke up and we moved forward within a color race framework that dictated not what was good for the country but how to get ethnic balance. Today we have the largest gap in monetary worth we have ever had with whites leading by three hundred percent. We have harmed the cohesion of the US and harmed the minority races. We treat our Military as a renewable resource.
http://news.yahoo.com/wealth-gap-widens-between-whites-minorities-040224418.html
I am an independant and only ask for a candidate with leadership abilities. It appears to be an unreasonable expectation.
Bill


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