CommunityEditor
03-09-2009, 09:49 PM
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The Army needs to improve its leadership development, particularly the way it grows senior leaders, the top man at Training and Doctrine Command says.
Gen. Martin Dempsey, who has been at the helm at TRADOC for less than three months, says backlogs in officer education at every level indicate the Army’s Force Generation model is out of alignment with current assignment patterns.
Wartime demands that extend command tour lengths to match with deployment cycles cause 40-month tours in some cases. Captains and majors are being kept longer in S-3 or executive officer positions.
That means fewer officers are passing through command, but the long-term effect may not be fully understood yet, he said.
“We are literally developing fewer officers who then become the pool to compete to become the most senior officers because we’re not passing as many people through command to the extent that command is a key developmental experience,” Dempsey said. “We may come to the decision that’s ok, but I want to come to that decision understanding what is the long-term effect, how does someone become competitive to be the chairman of the joint chiefs.”
Education may end up being delivered differently, Dempsey said, although no decisions have been made about if or when changes would be made. He also questioned how to stream officers through educational courses, like the captains career course, while keeping them close to their families at a time when they’re not deployed.
“We may not necessarily deliver education the way we have in the past, but I don’t know yet. It may not all be in the brick and mortar schoolhouse,” he said, suggesting that it wouldn’t necessarily look the same as it does now “just because we’ve always done it that way.”
The backlog at Basic Officer Leader Course Level II to Level III is so acute that some lieutenants are waiting as long as 137 days for a seat in their officer basic course, which Dempsey equated to 959,000 man hours.
“It’s not a simple matter of closing BOLC II. You could make that case, but if I don’t change the way we deliver the education, all I really do is push the bubble to the right and now the bubble’s at BOLC III,” he said.
Dempsey said he thinks BOLC II, which is in its third year and takes place at Fort Sill, Okla., and Fort Benning, Ga., is valuable for young officers’ growth and not likely to undergo a major change.
“Getting everyone on a level playing field with warrior tasks and battle drills, kind of getting their head into the idea of being an officer who is a soldier first, that’s what BOLC II is designed to do. That’s certainly worth it. I don’t know if it has to be delivered exactly the way they’re delivering it, that’s the question,” he said.
The Army also is recovering from an exodus of captains who, after several deployments to the war zones, were leaving the Army after their initial obligations were satisfied. To stem that loss, bonuses of $35,000 and master’s degree programs were offered to eligible captains in specific branches in late 2007.
Of the 17,500 captains targeted for retention, 12,000 took advantage of the offers and then the program was extended.
Dempsey said some of the new missions that are attractive to soldiers in terms of professional development should be made available, but not at the expense of providing a foundation of soldiering and training that prepare officers for a rounded view of the Army.
He pointed specifically to jobs within the new area of Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmental and Multinational missions, known as JIIM.
“Take JIIM, everybody wants it. But, I still want lieutenants and captains to be able to break things and make violence,” Dempsey said. “It’s about training to master your craft and as you get into other levels of education you get introduced to other things.”
Article: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/02/army_dempsey_022809w/
Gen. Martin Dempsey, who has been at the helm at TRADOC for less than three months, says backlogs in officer education at every level indicate the Army’s Force Generation model is out of alignment with current assignment patterns.
Wartime demands that extend command tour lengths to match with deployment cycles cause 40-month tours in some cases. Captains and majors are being kept longer in S-3 or executive officer positions.
That means fewer officers are passing through command, but the long-term effect may not be fully understood yet, he said.
“We are literally developing fewer officers who then become the pool to compete to become the most senior officers because we’re not passing as many people through command to the extent that command is a key developmental experience,” Dempsey said. “We may come to the decision that’s ok, but I want to come to that decision understanding what is the long-term effect, how does someone become competitive to be the chairman of the joint chiefs.”
Education may end up being delivered differently, Dempsey said, although no decisions have been made about if or when changes would be made. He also questioned how to stream officers through educational courses, like the captains career course, while keeping them close to their families at a time when they’re not deployed.
“We may not necessarily deliver education the way we have in the past, but I don’t know yet. It may not all be in the brick and mortar schoolhouse,” he said, suggesting that it wouldn’t necessarily look the same as it does now “just because we’ve always done it that way.”
The backlog at Basic Officer Leader Course Level II to Level III is so acute that some lieutenants are waiting as long as 137 days for a seat in their officer basic course, which Dempsey equated to 959,000 man hours.
“It’s not a simple matter of closing BOLC II. You could make that case, but if I don’t change the way we deliver the education, all I really do is push the bubble to the right and now the bubble’s at BOLC III,” he said.
Dempsey said he thinks BOLC II, which is in its third year and takes place at Fort Sill, Okla., and Fort Benning, Ga., is valuable for young officers’ growth and not likely to undergo a major change.
“Getting everyone on a level playing field with warrior tasks and battle drills, kind of getting their head into the idea of being an officer who is a soldier first, that’s what BOLC II is designed to do. That’s certainly worth it. I don’t know if it has to be delivered exactly the way they’re delivering it, that’s the question,” he said.
The Army also is recovering from an exodus of captains who, after several deployments to the war zones, were leaving the Army after their initial obligations were satisfied. To stem that loss, bonuses of $35,000 and master’s degree programs were offered to eligible captains in specific branches in late 2007.
Of the 17,500 captains targeted for retention, 12,000 took advantage of the offers and then the program was extended.
Dempsey said some of the new missions that are attractive to soldiers in terms of professional development should be made available, but not at the expense of providing a foundation of soldiering and training that prepare officers for a rounded view of the Army.
He pointed specifically to jobs within the new area of Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmental and Multinational missions, known as JIIM.
“Take JIIM, everybody wants it. But, I still want lieutenants and captains to be able to break things and make violence,” Dempsey said. “It’s about training to master your craft and as you get into other levels of education you get introduced to other things.”
Article: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/02/army_dempsey_022809w/