An overhaul of massive proportions.

May 9, 2010 by James

(sighs) This is going to be a long one, and since its an ever evolving system it will be an ever changing post. Being an insider to government systems and the way things work around the military is exhausting and incredibly hard to interpret. The military is flooded with new rules and regulations and such issued down from the highest command and interpreted to everyone even the lowest private, but it takes so long to get there. The military has the chain of command and if you violate that you get punished but you get punished via your chain of command, so several links in the chain are doing several different things. Violating the chain of command can be the simplest of things, like an improper salute here a grin there and there is a paper for every little improper thing. Did I mention that everything in the Military is done by paper? From initial in processing to your last day, everything you have ever done is all logged via paper and then some is put into a computer. Say if you get an Article 15 that stays at your unit until your discharge or 2 years after you leave that post. If you requisition new boots that goes into a form on paper. This paper overload is what causes this so called modern army to be very very slow. Its not like in the movies where you call the General and say I need 15 new rifles, thats a violation in the chain of command, so you have to go to your Sgt, your Sgt goes to the 1Sgt, the 1Sgt goes to the CPT and so on all the way up to the person who deals with weapons/munitions issuance and then back down the same way. Would it not be much faster to just go to the guy who deals with what you want? Yes, it would make the “modern” army move at light speed compared to the snail it is now. To do this however the army needs to get rid of about 50 things.

• The army needs to completely move over to all E forums, that would save time and money, and would allow for faster dissemination of information. The army already has all basic forum files online, why cant they throw them into a database and segregate by MOS, so if you work in supply you just click the supply forums and fill them out and forward to the proper authority. Having a paper copy of everything is insane, and if you lose that copy, you have no proof of delivery or vital info such as SSN’s and or weapon serial numbers.
• Article 15′s need to be eliminated for pointless things such as “disorderly conduct( unless in extreme circumstances) why because this cause more of a backlog, because paperwork has to go all the way up the chain and even to jag, just jamming the system. An angry soldier with a pay and rank reduction for something as simple as not being at parade rest is unjust.
• Discharges, alot of IET soldiers don’t make it through IET itself, and we keep them around to punish them supposedly and thats partially true, but the discharge process is so slow it takes months to get a kid out who has only put in less than 180 days of service. For soldiers who are IET, everything should just be computer filed, a drop down menu and a few clicks later and they are done, since most get a CHP 11 and are not considered vets why waste all the time doing paperwork on them, hand them the DD-214 and be done. For soldiers who have put in time more than 180 days the process should be again all computer done and the proper forms filled out by the soldier and faxed along to the proper party’s, should take no more than a week at best.
• Stop spending money on pointless things, the army has had so many uniforms in the past 15 years its hard to keep up, choose a pattern and stop clogging the system and the soldiers with useless stuff.
• Why do we waste time on uniform appearance and proper wear while in theater? It should be based on user comfort, if you want your boots un-bloused so you do your duty better do it, if your ACU pants have gone to shit should you be allowed to mix a multicam bottom with an ACU top, sure. If you want a different vest that fits you better why not, as long as you can still do your job the same or better go for it, why have everyone the same, when not every loadout works for every joe.

• Drill Sgt’s need to be Morally Straight and Mentally sound, they are like pit bulls off of a chain. They go through training on how to deal with new recruits but not on how to deal with there issues. Many are freshly home from a deployment and take all there stress out on a new recruit, and that to the recruit is unfair and frankly puts undue stress on the new guy. The recruits are there to learn how to do whatever job it is, not become an expert on the signs of PTSD.

These are few of many, like I said it needs a complete system overhaul, not just technology wise buy personnel wise. The army is ever evolving but they are leaving one massive paper trail and they never shred a damn thing, or cut things out. I will be adding more as time goes on.