In a speech given this weekend somewhere near the Castle, Secretary Gates continued his DoD Transformation and Forward Look World Tour... there has been goodness, laced with a lot of "d-uh" in his pitch to various and sundry. But I liked this little bit from this write up in the Washington Post:
I could go on to wonder (as have many others) why we have a lot more General Officers (and associated staffs) burning up a small mountain of coal daily tweaking Powerpoint® presentations all while managing (because that's what 98% of them do, manage, not lead) a military force that is a little over one eighth the size of our World War II armed forces, but I won't. Congress is to blame, too. After all, what Senator who was *earned* that title wants to be briefed by a mere Colonel, eh, ma'am?
Instead, I'll just take this statement: “Can you believe it takes five four-star headquarters to get a decision on a guy and a dog up to me?”
And say - "Gee, Mr. Secretary, I can't believe that a decision on a guy and a dog has to get to you."
If you're making those kinds of decisions, that's just another reason the Services have put that many Generals in the loop.
Gates rattled off examples of costly bureaucracy inside the military, as well. A simple request for a dog-handling team in Afghanistan must be reviewed and assessed at multiple high-level headquarters before it can be deployed to the war zone. “Can you believe it takes five four-star headquarters to get a decision on a guy and a dog up to me?” Gates said to reporters Friday.
I could go on to wonder (as have many others) why we have a lot more General Officers (and associated staffs) burning up a small mountain of coal daily tweaking Powerpoint® presentations all while managing (because that's what 98% of them do, manage, not lead) a military force that is a little over one eighth the size of our World War II armed forces, but I won't. Congress is to blame, too. After all, what Senator who was *earned* that title wants to be briefed by a mere Colonel, eh, ma'am?
Instead, I'll just take this statement: “Can you believe it takes five four-star headquarters to get a decision on a guy and a dog up to me?”
And say - "Gee, Mr. Secretary, I can't believe that a decision on a guy and a dog has to get to you."
If you're making those kinds of decisions, that's just another reason the Services have put that many Generals in the loop.
When I first got involved in printing, I was working for the Navy as a civilian GS-5. One day, I brought a problem to my boss, a GS-13, and he gave me the gift of one of his 10-second training courses.
"Is this," he asked. "a GS-5 problem or a GS-13 problem?" "Remember," he continued, "your job is to take work off my desk, not put it on." Lesson learned.