# If you were in charge...



## goon175 (Aug 17, 2012)

If you were in charge of providing this reccomendation, what changes would you suggest?

http://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=698941



> Section 952:
> 
> The Secretary of Defense is required no later than March 12, 2012,
> 
> ...


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## AWP (Aug 17, 2012)

To the command structure?

Kill USASFC and fold its responsibilities under USASOC.


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## goon175 (Aug 17, 2012)

Everything I can think of isn't a very good idea, I have no good reccomendation on the question posed. I'm curious to what others on here would propose. If you killed USASFC, what would happen? Would each group commander report straight to USASOC?


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## AWP (Aug 17, 2012)

goon175 said:


> If you killed USASFC, what would happen? Would each group commander report straight to USASOC?


 
I remember the scene from Office Space where the guy stutters and stammers about being good with people and taking the drawings from the engineers to the customers. "What is it that you do around here, Bob?"

"What is it that you do around here, USASFC?"

A decade ago many of us couldn't really answer that question and I doubt much has changed. Even our AGR guys who knew a thing or two about keeping people who didn't do anything and were part of the problem could see that USASFC was an extra layer of bureaucracy to fight. Maybe some things have changed, but it struck me as a place for 18A's and 18Z's to ROAD their last few years.


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## x SF med (Aug 17, 2012)

Have you shot for being a weenie and allowing some other Ranger use your name and only change one number.  To borrow a descriptor from Pardus....  cunt.


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## Grimfury160 (Aug 17, 2012)

I say cut out USASFC, USASOC should be the go to for all unit reporting.


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## goon175 (Aug 17, 2012)

> Have you shot for being a weenie and allowing some other Ranger use your name and only change one number. To borrow a descriptor from Pardus.... cunt.


 
He's my younger brother. I let him have the lesser of the 3 battalions...haha


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## Ravage (Aug 18, 2012)

Why is SF Command such a bad thing?


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## Cyberchp (Aug 18, 2012)

goon175 said:


> Everything I can think of isn't a very good idea, I have no good reccomendation on the question posed. I'm curious to what others on here would propose. If you killed USASFC, what would happen? Would each group commander report straight to USASOC?


I don't think having the group commander report directly is going to help.  There is still quite a few boxes 
(from this wiki).  Which reminds me why we called it the puzzle palace.


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## Marauder06 (Aug 18, 2012)

The first thing I'd want to know is, what's wrong with the current system?  I served in three different SOF units and worked with just about all of them, and I'm not sure organizationally what I would say needs to be changed; at the macro level, I think things were already moving in the right direction.   A big problem I saw forward was the lack of a unified effort between theater and national SOF.  This has since been largely mitigated, but I'm not sure  what else needs to be done, other than institutionalizing the process so we don't have to re-invent it next time.

SF would be foolish to disband USASFC.  Without that resourcing headquarters, who is going to be their advocate in the big manpower and funding battles that are looming?  At the command and senior NCO levels, there are some highly competent individuals (although I'm afraid that below that, a lot of what Freefalling said is true) who can ensure the long-term viability and legitimacy of SF.  Which is fortunate, because a lot of people (MARSOC and the SEALS most conspicuously) who are gunning for core SF missions.  If SF wants to remain viable, it needs a resourcing headquarters to fight for it.

But, in response to the original question, if I were in charge ALL personnel on assignment to ANY SOF organization in the US military would have to go through a screening, assessment, selection, and training program appropriate to their specialty and billet prior to reporting to the unit.


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## AWP (Aug 18, 2012)

Maybe a decade of conflict has allowed USASFC to get its act together and maybe at the Guard level none of us could figure out why it exists, but pre-9/11 even the BN and GP level staffs couldn't articulate what USASFC did for us. Some "bright" staff officer there came up with "cascading" as a means of equipping (particularly comm equipment) the Guard Groups during the Clinton years. Cascading never happened and the equipment we were supposed to have, equipment our AD counterparts thought we'd received, sat in a warehouse.

At the Guard level USASFC was out of touch with us and our needs and we couldn't tell you what they did for us....maybe part of that is because we were Guard and being under the Reserves would fix that, but that's another thread and discussion we've had around here.


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## Marauder06 (Aug 18, 2012)

The other thing too, is, "reorganizing" seldom translates into "reduction," especially when it comes to SOF.  If anything, I would predict additions, not deletions, to the bureaucratic overhead.


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## Grimfury160 (Aug 20, 2012)

And why did the Marines have their own SOC? I can concur with the above statements, testing and evaluations are necessary for SOF candidates to include security clearance applicability. I think proper implementation has taken place in assesments but a more in depth screening process should be employed. What needs to happen is obviously due to some kinks in the chain but we also need to be reminded of the budgeting for the next couple of years. Not only will the US Military be affected by this but our major industries supporting them. Contracting will be on a decrease as more specifically trained MOS individuals will increase, it looks as though positives and negatives.

USATODAY highlights some of the trends and forecast for FY2013.
The cuts are expected to be hardest on industries and regions of the nation that rely on the Army and the Marines, said Chris Lafakis, an economist at Moody's Analytics*. That's because the military is also working on a strategic repositioning that will reallocate resources to the Navy and Air Force and shift some emphasis from Europe and the Middle East to forging closer military ties with Asia*.


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## surgicalcric (Aug 20, 2012)

Freefalling said:


> ...At the Guard level USASFC NGB was out of touch with us and our needs and we couldn't tell you what they did for us....maybe part of that is because we were Guard SF and being under the Reserves would fix that...


 
Looks very familiar to a discussion I had with a SF LTC in NGB about their (NGB) lack of understanding in the needs of and differences between conventional NG units and NG SF.  But thats a conversation we have had here as well...


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## AWP (Aug 20, 2012)

surgicalcric said:


> Looks very familiar to a discussion I had with a SF LTC in NGB about their (NGB) lack of understanding in the needs of and differences between conventional NG units and NG SF. But thats a conversation we have had here as well...


 
And maybe that's the source of the disconnect we saw. By the time something filters down through NGB it is lost.

Like money and school slots for starters...but that is another thread indeed.


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