Figure It Out

If you're looking for something interesting to read, I recommend  this.  I realize that when you open the link, it looks like 85 or more pages of thesis-driven literature, but it has lots of pages between spaces, lots of pages that are just endnotes, and lots of graphs and charts, and a couple word collages that break it up quite nicely.  I read the entire thing in about an hour and a half while at work, while being interrupted at ten minute intervals to actually do my job.  


So don't be intimidated.  


As far as the actual content goes, I was surprised by three things:


1) How heavily the promotion and evaluation system weighed on the Army's junior officers.  I'm planning on getting out of the Marines at the end of my contract, and the promotion system was never one of the variables that led to the decision.  


2) That promotion to the rank of captain is a time-in-grade promotion for the Army, rather than a promotion that is evaluated by a promotion board.  To me, if you're going to promote someone to a rank that potentially involves them leading hundreds of people into combat, you should probably sit down, look at their accomplishments, look at their performance evaluations, look at the quality of their subordinates, and get a feel for the unofficial reputation within their occupational specialty to make sure that you're not entrusting the lives of America's soldiers to some window-licker who can't find his way out of a paper bag.  


3) That there is an impression in the Army that there is a single career path for officers in an occupational specialty, and that if that career path is not followed, the officer is in some way tainted.  


To me, this illustrates a fundamental cultural difference between the Army and the Marine Corps.  With regards to the first point, the only time that I've heard anyone discuss deciding between voluntarily staying in and getting out was a major who had not been promoted to lieutenant colonel, who was consequently planning to retire.  But even if he had been selected for lieutenant colonel, he would still have been seriously considering the decision to retire because his major determining factor was his wife's poor health.  


As far as company grade officers go, it seems like the decision to leave is predicated on one of two factors.  Either the Marine Corps isn't a good fit for them as a career for whatever reason, or they were not career designated.  In the former instance, the reasons vary, but they typically have to do with how well an individual's personality and personal ambitions fit into the Marine Corps.  In the latter instance, the Marine Corps has told them that they do not meet the criteria for retention.  In essence, they have been told that they are unwanted.  


The second point, that Army captains are promoted for time in grade rather than on a merit based system, is inexplicable.  The third point is the most interesting to me.  There's a certain extent to which the Marine Corps is not immune to this tendency, but it is largely mitigated by the fact the Marine officers are expected to be generalists who can step into any billet and excel based sheerly on leadership and force of will.  The emphasis is on striking a balance between proficiency and credibility within your occupational specialty on the one hand, and filling demanding billets outside of your occupational specialty to prove that you are well-rounded on the other.  


Typically, the checklist mentality falls mostly into occupational proficiency, and takes the form of formal schools or demanding billets such as operations officer.  But even when given less desirable billets, the advice that is given is "Bloom where you're planted."  


Ultimately, the Marine Corps measures the quality of its officers when they are thrown haphazardly into billets for which they have no technical expertise and are mostly unprepared.  It is at times like these that the unofficial motto of the Marine Corps, "Figure it out," shows its face.  "Figure it out" lurks nefariously behind tasks like "I want a supertracker by Friday, and it better be fucking perfect," with no further explanation.  It is behind the decision to have a helicopter pilot run the logistics of an aircraft group, and behind the fact that no one in the Marine Corps is formally trained on the system used to contract purchases of more than $3,000.  It is the explanation for the fact that I, a supply officer, received six months of training in infantry operations and only three months of training in supply.  


Any jackass can perform a specific set of duties well if they are extensively trained in those duties.  It takes a higher breed of individual to excel at unfamiliar tasks.  Ultimately, if you force an individual to perform at a high level while doing unfamiliar tasks with little or no guidance while under a great deal of stress, repeatedly over several years, you end up creating an individual who can do anything.  It's kind of a terrible experience while it's happening to you, but you end up very generally competent and with a great deal of equanimity.  


This, apparently, is what we call mentorship and career development.  It seems like it works.