How do Generals get to be Generals?

Discussion in 'Warfare / Military' started by Dropship, May 17, 2017.

  1. Dropship

    Dropship Well-Known Member

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    I refer mostly to the US and Brit armies.
    Suppose somebody decides to make the Army his career for life and joins up at an early age and goes through military college, but doesn't have a good grasp of understanding tactics and strategy. Will he nevertheless automatically rise through the ranks over the years and end up as a General simply on account of his years of service?
    Don't they have to pass exams or anything? Likewise do Air Force Generals and Navy Admirals have to pass tests?
    My question is prompted by these two books I recently bought, and as I turn the pages I find myself shaking my head in disbelief at the sheer lack of commonsense shown by some brass, they couldn't run a lemonade stand let alone a battle!
    PS- are there any servicemen or vets in PF who have first-hand experience of bad officers and brass of all ranks?

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2017
  2. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    From 2009 to 2017 in the U.S. military, one became a general of flag officer based upon race, gender, sexual preference or being a "yes man" when it comes to using the military for social engineering.

    If you were a warrior you were likely to be purged from the Officers Corps like how Gen. "Mad Dog" James Mattis was purged by the Obama White House.
     
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  3. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    Yes, by all means, continue to show utter contempt for soldiers who aren't White males. It really helps to make you look not in any way like a racist fossil.
     
  4. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    In the US military, the crucible is the Command and General Staff College.
     
  5. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You had to play the race card didn't you ?
     
  6. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    Which one of us brought up race first?
     
  7. perdidochas

    perdidochas Well-Known Member

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    Combination of their skills, their political prowess, who they know, and how good they are at brown-nosing.

    Tests aren't for officers who are actually in the service--they are used to qualify them for the service.
     
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  8. Dropship

    Dropship Well-Known Member

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    Just to digress, I wonder if the pol-correct service chiefs promote blacks purely to fulfill a "black officer quota" even if some are krap soldiers?
     
    Last edited: May 17, 2017
  9. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Most generals and admirals were groomed to become flag officer.

    The decision starts when an officer is a company grade officer. (O-1, O-2, O-3)

    Take Gen. Cowen Powell for an example. As a company grade officer it was decided that Powell would never be a field grade officer commanding an infantry battalion but would be groomed for a staff position with in the Army. His military career was decided while he was a Capt. (O-3) Powell went on becoming the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a damn good one.

    It's generals and admirals who look at field grade officers (Major, Lt. Col. and full bird Colonels) who should be promoted and when it comes from being promoted from Col. (O-6) to O-7 a list is drawn up that is submitted to the military branch Secretary who approves or denies and submits the list to the Sec. of Defense who approves or denies and then submits a list to Congress and the CnC (POTUS) who makes the final decision who will become a general or admiral.

    A lot of politics involved.
     
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  10. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    Generals have to prove themselves in both command and studies.
     
  11. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    President Obama did when he created the Obama Moron Officers Corps in 2009. Obama lowered the academic standers for officer candidates who were minorities but white officers candidates were still required to meet the high standers that have been in place.

    Obama first targeted the U.S. Navy.

    In 1970 the word came down for the Navy and Marine Corps that 10 % of the enlisted promotions have to go to blacks even if they weren't qualified.

    During the Clinton administration you had enlisted NCO's, SNCO's and officers complaining that females who weren't qualified and ready for promotion were being promoted in the name of diversity. (social engineering)

     
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  12. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Who decided that the U.S. military should be in the social engineering business and not the war fighting business ?

    Who decided that the U.S. military should look like the face of America ?

    There's no room for individualism in the military.

    It's not about diversity but uniformity.

    During the pre-social engineering of the military everyone in the Army and Marine Corps were of one color, green.
     
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  13. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    You mean white. Because as we all have seen "social engineering" started in your mind when Truman made whites serve with "coloreds".
     
  14. Dropship

    Dropship Well-Known Member

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    Yeah what pathetic traitors Obama and his Demo chums were!
    Wait I feel some humour coming on!-

    Sub sonar operator- "Ma'am, I'm picking up a vessels engine sounds on passive sonar, shall I switch to active sonar to pinpoint its position?"
    Woman sub captain- "DON'T YOU DARE! You know that wretched pinging gives me a headache!"
     
  15. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Well I can't speak for the Brits but the US Army does use affirmative action in it's officer promotions

    "Guidelines for Army promotion boards are to select minority members equivalent to the percentage in the promotion pool. This means that the Army promotion process is based not on the number of minority members in the Army, but on the number of minority members in the pool of potential promotees to the next higher rank."

    I can't really say that I've noticed any difference in white/minority officers, but on the other hand, when I served most of the officers were overwhelmingly white.
     
  16. ArmySoldier

    ArmySoldier Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    No, any officer can't just stay in long enough to be a General.
     
  17. ArmySoldier

    ArmySoldier Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Experience with bad officers? HAHA yes. I watched a 2LT force an E8 to salute him. I've had our platoon leader get us lost in land nav many times. Our unit movement officer left my name off the medical list one time.

    I just assume anyone under O3 is an inexperienced kid :)
     
  18. yiostheoy

    yiostheoy Well-Known Member

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    The British during WW1 set the worlds records for ineptitude among their generals.

    The main problem was that these inept boys came from the gentry class and had no practical knowledge of anything.

    The British class structure infected their military as well and so there was no way to weed out ineptitude nor to promote talent.

    In a nutshell this summarizes the British problem.

    The USA has almost the opposite situation where most generals are just ordinary Southern boys of average intelligence who get Academy appointments and they are not plagued by British ineptitude.

    In the USA when a particularly inept person gets promoted to top brass -- such as Westmoreland in Viet Nam -- it is normally due to favorable politics for them -- such as between Westy and LBJ.

    LBJ made a very bad choice selecting the brown-nosing Westy for his MACV boss.
     
    Last edited: May 18, 2017
  19. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    Doesn't the U.S. Congress have to approve all promotions to general and admiral and promotions from one level of general or admiral to another.

    Mostly this is done in a single annual vote IIRC that often involves the names of hundreds of officers all at once.
     
  20. Strasser

    Strasser Banned

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    The old 'Good Ole Boy' system certainly had its issues, but it also worked amazingly well and almost instantaneously, a necessity when the attacks on us in 1942 started the train rolling. Patton was one of those 'good ole boys', and he was responsible for leap-frogging Ike to the top front of the line, even over himself, for one; there are many others, many who go battlefield promotions because some 'good ole boy' carried water for them, so be careful what you ask for; a lot of 'merit promotions' lead to many being promoted beyond their competence levels all the time, and still do. Racial and sexual quotas multiply the inefficiency by several factors. The good ole boy' never stopped the Brits from having a legion of excellent officers for centuries on end. Most only hear about the public failures, and think it applies to every single officer.
     
    Last edited: May 25, 2017
  21. Strasser

    Strasser Banned

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    And a snivel here: AA is not the same as a quota system, which is why the real Liberals fought quotas tooth and nail, and won, only to see Nixon impose them just weeks after his inauguration. People still calling AA a 'quota system' are incorrect.
     
    Last edited: May 25, 2017
  22. Imnotreallyhere

    Imnotreallyhere Well-Known Member Donor

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    It looks like a quota system to me. Calling quotas 'targeted goals' doesn't change what they are.
     
  23. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    There are more admirals in the U.S. Navy than there are ships. :icon_jawdrop:

    It's been pretty standard on how many officer billets there are for a company, battalion, regiment, brigade or division for the past 100 years and it's still about the same.

    The problem is in this one yuuge building called the Pentagon that is really top heavy with generals and flag officers.

    On December 7th, 1941 the commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence was a Navy Commander ( 0-5 ) Today it's a flag officer billet, a Rear Admiral ( 0-8 ) that fills that billet.

    And back in 1941 the U.S. Navy was almost three times larger then todays Navy, 790 ships on Dec. of 41 were as today our Navy it's at it's smallest size since 1916 with just 275 ships.
     
  24. Questerr

    Questerr Banned

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    Yet those 275 ships could easily wipe the floor with the 790 ships in Dec 41.
     
  25. APACHERAT

    APACHERAT Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Today less than 1/2 of the 275 ships are capable of putting to sea and being able to fight.

    Think about it, back in 2008 only 17% of the U.S. Navy ships on any given day couldn't put to sea and fight.

    CnC Trump inherited Obama's PC Navy.
     

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