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It used to be that the enlisted ranks weren’t very educated.
Officers had all the smarts and had to keep things organized and on track.
Well, a lot has changed.
Ever since public education has pretty much been
mandated the average intelligence of soldiers has increased.
Also people are volunteers so management is easier
than it would be with conscripts.
So if we have a force filled with mostly intelligent people
why do we keep this old system of officer and enlisted separation?
Tradition.
Stupid military tradition is one of the biggest
hang ups the armed services has.
So why don’t we come up with a solution that maintains good management
structure but utilizes assets more efficiently? The answer is of course,
It can’t happen it’s the military.
Here’s the idea.
Give more responsibility to the enlisted ranks as far as management,
discipline, day to day operations and training.
This would also include a pay raise across the board.
Officers will be scaled down to dealing with administrative tasks,
equipment procurement, organizing large operations, cross service
interactions, the public, politicians and any other crap the
real soldiers don’t care about.
This is sort of how things are now, but I’m suggesting a much bigger
change.
Why can’t an E-8 be a company commander in the Army?
These days to get that E-8 promotion you need a college degree.
Which means you would out qualify an O-3 for the job because of
experience and a degree.
Sorry Captain your services are no longer needed here.
Now, how much money did we just save the tax payers,
even with a 15% pay raise for the enlisted ranks.
And we didn’t weaken the forces at all. Hell we
probably saved some lives by firing the idiot.
The officer ranks will be reduced quite a bit, but that’s
o.k. We will reduce the number of R.O.T.C units possibly
getting rid of the program all together. We solved
the commissioning issue in a previous post
Keeping these two elements separate is stupid and wasteful.
The idea here isn’t to eliminate, but to merge the ranks
into one cohesive entity that understands itself top to bottom.
When I presented this idea to people over the years
it’s amazing how some of the responses are complete
disbelief. These people couldn’t comprehend how
something like this could even be conceptualized.
“A world without officers in total control of my life?
You should be shot for thinking like that.”
Speaking from experience a job is a job. You either
know your place or you are gone. I once worked in a unit that
didn’t wear uniforms, had longer hair and used first names.
That included the O-5 that did wear a uniform, most of the time.
We still did our jobs and bosses were still bosses.
Restructuring the military may hurt some egos initially
but the end result will be a much powerful force.