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My soldiers cannot afford to train for war

16 Monday May 2016

Posted by Venya in warfare

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Army, Army National Guard, training, war on terror, warfare

The theory behind the National Guard and the whole “one weekend a month, two weeks in the summer” thing is that you maintain a baseline level of readiness and training such that when invited by Uncle Sam to join The War, you can rapidly train up to the level you need for effective support to the collective effort.

So with only 39 training days per year, you focus on the universal tasks that everyone needs (shoot, move, communicate, don’t sexually harass anyone) and as many of the specialty tasks for your particular job as you can make time for, with the expectation that once Big Army calls, your unit will suddenly have additional money to pay for training days and schools and whatnot.  Once that happens, you will now be balancing your regular job or school, training for your Army deployment, and spending time with your family/friends/dog prior to being absent for some duration of time between nine months and eternity.

This can be somewhat stressful. On the one hand, your job wants you to wrap up some projects before you go and isn’t happy about you being gone for nine months, let alone additional weeks or months beforehand.  Your kids want to spend time with you.  Your spouse wants to spend time with you.  Your dog wants to spend time with you.

On the other hand, you need the training.  It might be in stuff you haven’t done in the decade(s) since your initial entry training.  It might be in something you’ve never done, either because it’s specific to your mission this time, or because it’s new since last you had training, or perhaps because you could never get into the school before (because people deploying have priority).  You may not (probably don’t) know exactly what you will be doing downrange, but you want all of the training you can possibly get before you go, to increase your odds of success when friendly lives may be riding on your competence.

On the gripping hand, you simply may not be able to afford it. Continue reading →

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Army online training is epic fail.

18 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by Venya in humor, linkage, warfare

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Army, Storify, training

I am too lazy to write a real thing, especially since I blew most of my day off on online training for the Army.  Much of it was live-tweeted, the results of which I have organized in chronological order and annotated because I’m cool like that.  Also, I wanted to play with Storify.

So go read it over there.

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Quote

Building the team in peacetime.

16 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by Venya in humor, quote

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Army, ARNG, combat stress, teamwork

The best way to build the team is through stress, fear, common hatred, and shared suffering. In wartime, we have indirect fire for this. In peacetime, we have the unit holiday party.

This was too profound a truth for the Facebook comment in which I’d left it.

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Random reminisces of the military career that wasn’t

12 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by Venya in warfare

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Army, ARNG, Central Washington University, ROTC

Not in my future

I had a brief flirtation with ROTC at Central Washington University in early 1998, lasting a few busy months before the program and I came to a mutual understanding that a military career was not in my future.

This was a good thing, though it didn’t seem like it at the time. I would have been a mediocre (at best) commissioned officer.  The real damaging part was that they were unable or unwilling to simply tell me that my services were not required (and I’d cut off my metal headbanging hair for nothing!), but instead fabricated a pseudo-medical excuse that made me believe I was ineligible for military service at all.  The net result was that I didn’t even try to enlist until after the Iraq invasion, when (I reasoned) I had decent odds of slipping slight medical irregularities past the gatekeepers.

I will hit twelve years time in service with the Army National Guard in a few months; over eleven of those have been on active duty (as opposed to one-weekend-a-month).

I don’t think about ROTC too often; it was a brief prequel episode to my career, a sort of interlude in my college days.  But there were some moments.

Branching out

We had one NCO floating around, not a regular cadre member and his name tragically forgotten, with a sharp British accent and a truly disturbing level of enthusiasm for the United States Army.  “Mr. Nelson,” he would exclaim.  He only exclaims or yells in my memory.  “How shall you branch when you graduate from this institution?”

And Cadet Nelson, a nice kid who didn’t blink twice at my long metal hair before helping me sort out what was what, ventured a reply to the effect that he should like to become an armor officer.

“Armored death boxes!?” this NCO erupted with mixed amazement and disgust.  “Why would you want to die in a burning tank, Nelson?”

I didn’t really know what I wanted to do when/if I graduated, but I suddenly decided that armor was probably not it.

I had Transformers. . . But she had motivation.

I was in long enough to take several military science (ha!) classes.  There were only a few people in class, among them a “non-traditional student” (read: old lady in her late 20s) who was only in the class for what her academic adviser had promised would be an easy A.

In class one week, we learned the basics of rifle marksmanship (theory only) and learned to disassemble and reassemble an M-16 rifle.  [It’s hard to imagine this being allowed on a college campus just 16 years later.]  I had never been exposed to firearms larger than a pump action BB gun before, but I was pretty good at the taking apart and putting together.  We had little competitions after some practice, and I was usually a good 10-15 seconds faster.  Our older female compatriot was frustrated.  “How are you so good at this?”

I shrugged.  “I had Transformers.”

Fast forward to a little shooting range simulator, employing a Super Nintendo with a “rifle” controller and associated special hardware; think Duck Hunt on steroids.  It was alleged to be pretty close to the real thing in terms of accuracy and precision, though I had my doubts even then.  Still, we lined up and gave it a swing.  I met with indifferent success.  Our older female classmate hit 40/40 every time.  “So how are you so good at this?”

“You’re shooting at targets.  I’m shooting at my ex-husband.”

“Captain Anthony. . .  Captain Anthony. . . Captain Keith Anthony.”

We were supposed to go rappelling the next day.  I was mildly terrified, but I wasn’t about to admit that, so I was just trying not to think about it.  I ran into Cadet Nelson somewhere–the library?–and he matter-of-factly told me that the training was cancelled.  “CPT Anthony shot himself.”  CPT Anthony was my instructor for Leadership.  He was a pretty nice guy, quiet.  We’d just been talking the day before about the books we read for fun.  He didn’t seem to have many local connections or a family around, but I didn’t really know him.

I don’t know why, but I just assumed he had shot himself in the foot or something.  “Really?  That’s rough.”  It didn’t click.  Jim clarified that he’d left a note simply saying “I’m sorry” and had eaten a pistol round, and I realized that the big deal here wasn’t that I was getting out of rappelling.

Fast forward a few days. I was a little too cool, too cynical for military ceremonies, and I wasn’t really part of this crowd, but I was trying to be so they’d pay for my college, so I went.  I think I still had long hair, even.

They called roll, and the other cadre members sounded off.  Then they called it out.

“Captain Anthony.”  A long pause.

“Captain Anthony.”  A longer pause.

“Captain Keith Anthony.”  And it struck home that he really wouldn’t be answering, and I just about lost it for this guy I barely knew and now would never know better.

They had a counselor come talk to us about grieving and we had a series of stand-in instructors for the remainder of the quarter.  I got the impression that everyone was going to pass Leadership whether we did anything or not.  This was a small battalion, perhaps two dozen cadets total and only half a dozen cadre; I think the death really shook people, but he hadn’t seemed to be close to anyone.  I look back now as a senior NCO and wonder what, if anything, could have been done.


I still have some random FMs and documents from that stint fifteen years ago.  When I did eventually enlist, I understood the rank structure and unit structure, could disassemble/reassemble a rifle, and had a few other odds and ends tucked away in my brain.  I was not exactly overawed by ROTC-produced officers–I’d seen the sausage being made, you see–and I had my suspicions about the other ones.  And in the end, it worked out.  I wonder now how much of my motivation since then came from a desire to prove that cadre wrong, to demonstrate that they made a mistake in not giving me a chance, but the reality is that if the potential for military leadership was there in 20-year-old me, it was very well hidden.  I think I make a far better NCO than I ever would have an officer, and I’m cool with that.

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Irony: Nonessentials vs. Essentials in Training

07 Monday Oct 2013

Posted by Venya in humor, quote

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Army, leadership, training

Do essential things first.  There is not enough time for the commander to do everything. Each commander will have to determine wisely what is essential, and assign responsibilities for accomplishment. He should spend the remaining time on near essentials. This is especially true of training. Nonessentials should not take up time required for essentials.

–General Bruce C. Clarke

Ironic because this quote comes to me courtesy of Structured Self-Develoment (SSD) Level 4 Module 1.  This is the second SSD level I have done, having had to complete level 3 in a weekend so I could be put in for Senior Leader Course (previously known as Advanced NCO Course (ANCOC)).

It is safe to say that this is the poorest, most pointless online training I have ever encountered.  It is now a required step between each level of noncomissioned officer education system (NCOES) schools.

It is also symptomatic of a larger issue within the Army. We spend ridiculous amounts of time on ineffectual training foisted off on us by political necessity so the Army can say it is Doing Something about various very real problems (sexual harassment, suicide, alcohol abuse, domestic abuse).  Whether the training actually addresses or helps the problem at which it was aimed is never addressed.

I suspect we spend more time doing online training than any other single training activity.  Think about that.

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Casualties by any other name

24 Friday May 2013

Posted by Venya in warfare

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Tags

Afghanistan, Army, ARNG, combat stress, Iraq, leadership, suicide, violence, war on terror

Laughing Wolf has an absolutely on-target post on military suicide that you ought to read now. I’m quoting more extensively than I normally do because I don’t trust you SOBs to click the link:

Now, to the heart of the problem:  The troops trust DoD and the Army.  They trust them to be PC and to put them dead last.

When the general talked with us, part of that discussion revolved around the fact that whether it was PTS or suicide, that the Army response was to isolate and identify.  Anyone coming forward at that time for either could count on the following things happening:

1.  They would be relieved of all combat and most general duties and training.  They could count on being transferred to non-combat duties and units.  For troops with hearts and souls of warriors, there is no worse fate.  Further, it means that they were leaving their buddies behind and in the lurch.

If you haven’t been there, I tell you in all confidence that you really cannot comprehend what a barrier this is. We fight for our friends. We fight for the ability to continue fighting for our friends.

Continue reading →

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3rd Armor (Spearhead) Division in leather

15 Saturday Dec 2012

Posted by Venya in craft, image

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

3rd Armored Division, Army, leather, Spearhead, tooling

Spearhead 017This is the unit crest of the 3rd Armored (“Spearhead”) Division.  It’s a Christmas present, but for someone I don’t know, so it’s probably safe to post here.

Continue reading →

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‎"Greatness is not achieved by coming at problems with a little scalpel. You have to come at them like a madman with a jackhammer."

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