{"id":1426,"date":"2014-02-17T15:01:43","date_gmt":"2014-02-17T20:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dansdigitaldive.com\/web\/?p=1426"},"modified":"2014-07-31T13:52:44","modified_gmt":"2014-07-31T17:52:44","slug":"what-are-our-militarys-priorities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dansdigitaldive.com\/web\/archives\/1426","title":{"rendered":"Whats happened to our military’s leadership?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dduck\"<\/a>“Without integrity, leadership cannot flourish and our mission will suffer.” –Gen Ronald Fogleman<\/a>, Retired.<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the past several months, there have been a couple of integrity issues within our military leadership.\u00a0 These integrity and ethical lapses not only highlight our military leadership in a bad light, the guilty parties set a poor example for their junior sailors\/soldiers and airmen.\u00a0 A sampling across the three services…
\n-Air Force: Nuclear officers at an Air Force base in Montana.
\n-Army: Kickback scheme to sign up new recruits.
\n-Navy: Senior enlisted at a nuclear power training facility in Charleston. My personal favorite: the contracting case involving bribes and hookers! Go Navy!<\/p>\n

I think these events have underlying causes, which include:
\n1. As the percentage of the population that has served dwindles, it is fair to say that the values the general population endear towards are not perfectly aligned with military service. Since WWII, where nearly 12% of the American population served in the military, to 2013, when less than .5% serve (No, that is not a typo). The same downward trend<\/a> can be seen in our congressional halls: 1975- 70% of Congress had military experience as compared to 2013, where only 20% have served in the military.<\/p>\n

2. As the military society is slowly being eroded in favor of a more equal society, a shift of attitudes is ensuing. The current trend is that service members have rights, and these have taken on the same importance, or more so, than the mission of the service.\u00a0 Only a few years ago, this was not the case. As was told to me by a crusty ‘ol Chief “Son, we defend democracy; we don’t practice it! So quit your whining!” He then proceeded to help me fall up a ladder, twice. Everything revolved around the mission, whether it be putting lead downrange, or making holes in the water – everyone was focused on accomplishing the mission; come hell or high water.\u00a0 Now I understand all things are relative – I’m sure some crusty old Chief out there who’ll be bitching that I had it easy; and I have no complaints.<\/p>\n

My point here is simply that I think some of our leaders have taken their eyes off the goal; and have started to let personal freedoms (read personal integrity) get in the way of mission accomplishment.\u00a0 A failure in leadership has dire consequences for those under their command.<\/p>\n

***** Fun stuff follows<\/span>: Speaking of relativity, there are some fun dynamics to the service:<\/p>\n

Army: “Aren’t really Marines yet.”<\/p>\n

Marine: “Muscles are required, intelligence not essential” or “My a** rides in Navy equipment.”<\/p>\n

Navy: “Never again volunteer yourself.”\u00a0 The general joke is that the ships come first, then the crew just gets crammed where they fit on board.\u00a0 A buddy of mine and I were discussing back when we first joined, everyone would complain that the Navy cared more about\u00a0 the ships than the people (my rack was in a passageway, and there were two heads for enlisted sailors).\u00a0 Now each ship has designated areas for crew berthing with their own heads; a big step up.<\/p>\n

Air Force: “Chair Force.” The general joke is that the Air Force builds these beautiful bases, runs out of money and goes back to Congress saying “We forgot the runway, we need more money.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Without integrity, leadership cannot flourish and our mission will suffer.” –Gen Ronald Fogleman, Retired. Over the past several months, there have been a couple of integrity issues within our military leadership.\u00a0 These integrity and ethical lapses not only highlight our … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"kt_blocks_editor_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,16],"tags":[50,66,65,56],"class_list":["post-1426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-rants-raves","tag-america","tag-leadership","tag-military","tag-stupid"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2472,"url":"https:\/\/dansdigitaldive.com\/web\/archives\/2472","url_meta":{"origin":1426,"position":0},"title":"Book Review: Managing Stakeholders as Clients","author":"DR D","date":"September 21, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Recently I had the opportunity to read the book: \"Managing Stakeholders as Clients\" by Mario H. 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