I appreciate the response as well as your service.
I will admit that I served in a different army, retiring in 2003. The GWOT and resulting multiple deployments were a different set of factors affecting the force than I experienced. I will simply say that even in the Cold War army I knew very, very few officers, or senior NCOs for that matter, who worked country club hours. I did work for an abusive alcoholic O6 once. That behavior eventually caught up with him as it would anyone showing up at 0900 anywhere I served. Personally, over three decades, other than an ROTC assignment - where I spent a lot of time earning an MA - I never had jobs where that would have been possible without a career ending OER.
Lots of those jobs were in line commands, but others included staff positions, and even diplomatic assignments. The vast majority were essentially 24/7. For instance, as an O6 in CENTCOM, I was launched to Kuwait or Quatar on a few hours' notice numerous times to put out inter-service issues with host governments.
I might add, being in a command track, those jobs changed rather quickly. When our daughter was seventeen, we were ordered to DC. This was her fourteenth move and third high school. The only leave we ever experienced was in route to the next job - if there was time. That is not a complaint, but I simply note that pace was not in the least unusual for officers that were on track for eventual consideration for GO.
Milley is an interesting case. Up to assuming the chairmanship, he had a superb career and was well respected by superiors, peers, and subordinates. He did what he had to do, other than retire, to support the defense related initiatives of his presidents. I think he was genuinely appalled by the actions of Trump and his personal loyalists between 5 November and 6 January 2019/20. I think reasonable and informed people can honestly debate the wisdom of Trump's actions. For instance, I firmly believe calling for demonstrations on 6 January was the most willful and incendiary act of personal hubris ever committed by a president in the history of the republic
I think Milley really lost his way during the Biden administration. Yes, he was required by the constitution to defer to civilian leadership. But he was also tasked with defending the institution which he has been chosen to lead. In that role, he failed miserably.
Finally, if a battalion, brigade, or even division commander wants to gather his officers and NCOs together to offer direction then fine. I think it was ridiculous to waste the valuable time of those GO's and NCO's to haul them halfway across the planet in many cases, to a single place to be lectured for 45 minutes by a tatted up National Guard major and former talking head with bad hair. That said, I am glad that he intends to fix height and weight standards and fitness. I wish I had more faith he has a clue about the other 90% of his job.
Look forward to sharing a beer sometime.
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) in a corporation of a hundred thousand. I learned to absolutely loathe the annual corporate offsites. We were simply too big and with too broad a product line and customer base, even though it was nearly all DOD, to benefit much from that "collegial" atmosphere. I found it much more effective to travel to my four different business groups once a quarter to offer a state of the company message to those smaller teams than haul them all together.
