I don't know this guy in particular, but I met plenty of "excess" O6s when I was in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many, if not most of them, were what I call "war tourist" senior field grades; reserve/National Guard/TRADOC-type officers who have never been anywhere, never done anything, but wanted to get that one notch on their belt before they retired and ran for office on the "I'm a war veteran" ticket or whatever. Their background were many, but they had one thing in common: they sucked. All of them. Some sucked less than others, but having them on the team was always a liability. Why? Because for the most part they had the technical ability of a young lieutenant, but the brass of a very senior officer. They don't know shit, except for what they vaguely remember from their active-duty days 20+ years ago. So they want to be "in the fight," but they want something "befitting their rank." You don't want to do slides for the CUA? Well guess what, that's where I think you could do the most good (or the least harm), so that's what you're going to do. You resent it because it's an E6 job not an O6 one? What do you want to do, be in charge of one of the subordinate Task Forces? Yeah, I'll get right on that...
My four tour, as an O4 in Iraq, I was replaced in a sensitive billet by a Reserve O6. We had problems right off the bat. 1) he didn't like replacing an O4, it was "beneath him." 2) what we were trying to do in that job was too technically difficult for him to understand. 3) he was a tabbed SF and I'm not. 4) his parent organization and mine didn't get along particularly well. 5) he didn't know the first thing about what we were trying to do. 6) he was a "1 and done" deployer, I knew I'd be back so I wanted to ensure the long-term success of the mission. He just wanted to survive his time there. So, when I replaced him a couple of months later, I spent the first half of deployment unscrewing all of his screwups, and doing the things he should have been doing but didn't.
What does my war story have to do with the O6 in question? Simply this- if there was a reason he was relegated to mundane, boring, and/or useless tasks, it's probably because that's all he could handle. IMO he showed his true colors in his little rant, and he got what he deserved by getting fired.
:blkeye:
