The weakening of Beast Barracks

Now that is an uninformed statement if I have ever heard one. There is a certain amount of discipline that every soldier (no matter the rank) needs to possess and they don't learn it by asking them nicely. That is what beast and plebe year are for. That is what basic training is for in the enlisted ranks. What is the NC going to do when they are a 2LT and their battalion commander rips them a new one for screwing something up? Tell the LTC they shouldn't speak to them in that manner? Tell the LTC they don't appreciate that leadership style? I would love to be a fly on the wall during that exchange.

Maybe the Army is a lot kinder and gentler since I left 10+ years ago, but I have seen Majors relieved on the spot by Generals. I have seen LTs get chewed out in front of their platoons by CPTs. I have seen CPTs/MAJs get blasted in meetings by brigade commanders over some mix up in slides. I personally had a battalion commander that chewed out all of his company commanders (in front of anyone and everyone) at least once a week. All of these things are very common.

Believe me... the NCs want to learn how to get yelled at and deal with it now in a learning environment rather than once they are in the real Army.

If the message the CBT cadre posted is accurate, that is truly a sad turn of events.

I can't find anything about kinder or gentler in my post. Perhaps you can point it out for me.
When a leader gets a tool taken away he will figure out a way to still get the job done.
 
There are NCs that can't make it 600 meters at an 8 minute pace.

That has to be a typo, no? did you really mean 1600m? I mean -- really, not 600m in 8 min? I gotta be misunderstanding something. :confused: I don't see how they could get their APFT at that pace, let alone didn't they all have to do 1600m (approx) for their CFA?

I'm an old dude (not to be confused with an old grad), but I could push my walker faster'n that... I gotta be having a senior moment. And yeah, I do have a walker.

:frown::confused::frown:
 
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Now that is an uninformed statement if I have ever heard one. There is a certain amount of discipline that every soldier (no matter the rank) needs to possess and they don't learn it by asking them nicely. That is what beast and plebe year are for. That is what basic training is for in the enlisted ranks. What is the NC going to do when they are a 2LT and their battalion commander rips them a new one for screwing something up? Tell the LTC they shouldn't speak to them in that manner? Tell the LTC they don't appreciate that leadership style? I would love to be a fly on the wall during that exchange.

Maybe the Army is a lot kinder and gentler since I left 10+ years ago, but I have seen Majors relieved on the spot by Generals. I have seen LTs get chewed out in front of their platoons by CPTs. I have seen CPTs/MAJs get blasted in meetings by brigade commanders over some mix up in slides. I personally had a battalion commander that chewed out all of his company commanders (in front of anyone and everyone) at least once a week. All of these things are very common.

Believe me... the NCs want to learn how to get yelled at and deal with it now in a learning environment rather than once they are in the real Army.

If the message the CBT cadre posted is accurate, that is truly a sad turn of events.

Ok, I've got to ask, yes I'm sure I will be vilified for it.

You state that Beast and Plebe year is there to teach the discipline that is needed by every officer, that they don't learn this discipline by asking nicely.

What about the cadets that earn their commission through ROTC at civilian colleges, these cadets do not have Beast, they have no plebe year, they are not yelled at (all the time) and have basically freedom to do most anything they want when not participating in ROTC commitments, and yes for the most part...they are asked nicely compared to WP.


As far as the second part of your post, all I can say is that you were witness to a great deal of poor leadership skills, and that is not an uninformed statement.
 
I can't find anything about kinder or gentler in my post. Perhaps you can point it out for me.
When a leader gets a tool taken away he will figure out a way to still get the job done.

Why do you say this CBT cadre is a leader? I would say he is a leader-in-training- just like the rest of the cadets there. Do you think that just by going to West Point you are automatically a leader? By the nature of the cadre's post, it sounds like he is trying to work it out, but the new cadets are falling out and not doing what they are told. It doesn't sound like that it just his/her squad either. The one poster said his son called and said it is "easy." If you want to tell me (30 years of leadership experience) to "figure it out" I could understand that, but not to a 19 year old who is learning.

I will admit that I don't know anything about ROTC. I assume that they have some sort of summer basic training type environment. A good 6 weeks is enough for cadets to learn military discipline. I don't think that you need to have a full year of strict discipline and that WP takes it to the extreme by it being so long, but WP has a unique environment.

I totally agree that all of the leadership examples I gave were examples of poor leadership. No doubt about it. It doesn't matter if it was good or bad leadership; that is what is out there in the Army and they better be ready for it. They don't need to emulate it, just be able to handle it when they are in that situation.
 
As current Beast Cadre (all the new cadets are at a brief so I have a moment...), I'm physically ill watching morning PT. There are NCs that can't make it 600 meters at an 8 minute pace. They just give up. A new cadet cried and went to the hospital for a panic attack because her squad leader made her go back up and get her patrol cap which she forgot even after being reminded three times to bring it. He is possibly going to get punished for his harsh tactics.

The NCs are also catching on that I am EXTREMELY limited in what I can do to punish them so they talk outside all the time, fall out, take big bites, fidget in formation, etc. And why not? There is honestly no punishment I can dole out that isn't considered borderline hazing.

I could go on for pages.

One of the worse chewings I ever got as an officer was not someone yelling at me or some physical task, rather a senior officer in a normal tone of voice pointing out my short comings in a factual manner.

Consider it as a leadership challenge or consider what leadership means to you if you are relying on "punishment" to lead your NCs.

I was a very loud Beast PSG, but I let new cadets take big bites when I was the table commandant.
 
Now that is an uninformed statement if I have ever heard one. There is a certain amount of discipline that every soldier (no matter the rank) needs to possess and they don't learn it by asking them nicely. That is what beast and plebe year are for. That is what basic training is for in the enlisted ranks. What is the NC going to do when they are a 2LT and their battalion commander rips them a new one for screwing something up? Tell the LTC they shouldn't speak to them in that manner? Tell the LTC they don't appreciate that leadership style? I would love to be a fly on the wall during that exchange.

Maybe the Army is a lot kinder and gentler since I left 10+ years ago, but I have seen Majors relieved on the spot by Generals. I have seen LTs get chewed out in front of their platoons by CPTs. I have seen CPTs/MAJs get blasted in meetings by brigade commanders over some mix up in slides. I personally had a battalion commander that chewed out all of his company commanders (in front of anyone and everyone) at least once a week. All of these things are very common.

Believe me... the NCs want to learn how to get yelled at and deal with it now in a learning environment rather than once they are in the real Army.

If the message the CBT cadre posted is accurate, that is truly a sad turn of events.

Knowing what you know now, do you agree with
Majors relieved on the spot by Generals. I have seen LTs get chewed out in front of their platoons by CPTs. I have seen CPTs/MAJs get blasted in meetings by brigade commanders over some mix up in slides. I personally had a battalion commander that chewed out all of his company commanders (in front of anyone and everyone) at least once a week

To me these are exmaples of bad leadership.
 
As I stated above, those are examples of very poor leadership. I never was that type of leader in the Army. If I ever yelled at a soldier in my platoon or my platoon sergeant that way I would have lost all respect. However, in my opinion, beast is not where you learn leadership; it is where NCs learn followership, alot about themselves and pushing them to their limits.

I believe you don't know someones true character until they are pushed to the limit (physically, mentally, emotionally). In my day we had alot of NCs quit beast b/c they couldn't handle the pressure. That is the same pressure they will face in the Army (albeit in a different kind of way). Nobody looked down on those that left; it didn't mean they were a bad person; the military just wasn't for them.
 
Why do you say this CBT cadre is a leader? I would say he is a leader-in-training- just like the rest of the cadets there.

He is a leader-in-training and has been put in a leadership position in a controlled environment in which to learn. He will figure it out and the NC's will as well.
 
Oh lord it's getting deep in here.

Since I haven't been active duty for a long, long time would love to get your input into the conversation since you are AD and in the thick of the real Army right now.
 
As I stated above, those are examples of very poor leadership. I never was that type of leader in the Army. If I ever yelled at a soldier in my platoon or my platoon sergeant that way I would have lost all respect. However, in my opinion, beast is not where you learn leadership; it is where NCs learn followership, alot about themselves and pushing them to their limits.

I believe you don't know someones true character until they are pushed to the limit (physically, mentally, emotionally). In my day we had alot of NCs quit beast b/c they couldn't handle the pressure. That is the same pressure they will face in the Army (albeit in a different kind of way). Nobody looked down on those that left; it didn't mean they were a bad person; the military just wasn't for them.

Perhaps, 10 years ago I would have said similiar things. However, now, just older, not necessarily wiser,

- Beast is not a Ranger School. New Cadets might think they are pushed to their limits, but I don't think new cadets are pushed to their limits.

- There is a reason why NC don't become 2LT upon completion of Beast, rather they have 4 years. The Cadet Leadership Delveopment Program is a 4 year program.
 
Since I haven't been active duty for a long, long time would love to get your input into the conversation since you are AD and in the thick of the real Army right now.

Well I am on the road to a different part of the world but I'll weigh in...

I think that the Army and the military in general are reflecting the result of 10 years of slipping standards both within the organizations and society at large.

I feel the young cadre member's frustrations. Unfortunately, the reality is that kids are softer in general. I don't mean that in the "I'm so old and salty" way. I think largely my generation is included in that. Our society has increasingly trended toward a culture of loving and embracing the individual, and doing so at the expense of adherence to the team ethic. It pervades everything. Think about the environment your kids have grown up in. I won't devolve into the cliches about "everyone gets a trophy" because I think they're exaggerated. But I submit that our society, as reflected in the exaggerated self-designed disaffectation of the Gen-X and Gen-Y cultures, has trended rapidly toward an ideal that allows for a "do whatever you want because you're the most important thing on earth." (old folks...how many of your peers in the 70s and 80s thought it was ok to live with their parents after college, as we see in record numbers today?).

The result of those ideals, when coupled with the military emphasis (and the Army is REALLY bad about this) on college money as a recruiting tactic and the increasingly legal requirements for chaptering crappy folks, results in the slow rot of discipline and competency among our ranks.


Riddle me this:

You're at a gas station off post. You see a soldier with his uniform looking terrible. His cover isn't on. He's an embarassment. He's completely ate up. You go over to him and make a stern but professional correction. He looks at you and says "F*** off." You demand to know his unit. He says "I just told you. F*** off."

What now? What do you do? The kid has some non-descript last name on a post of 22,000 soldiers. So tell me, Packer, what's your leadership toolkit have in it for that?

Personally, you know deep down that this guy is in all likelihood a REMF troublemaker. Your natural instinct as a disciplined, fit, type-A warrior is to choke the consciousness out of him. But that's not an option. So what do you do?

That's the problem with basic training. And to another degree, Beast. There is a time-tested value in having drill sergeants scare you to death, to having your room torn apart, and to doing pushups until you collapse from muscle fatigue. Why? Because it breaks the will that says "I'm the most important thing on earth." If basic is supposed to be the tough part--the place where Soldiers realize that they are subservient to the team, but find that the "team" has no bite to back up its bark, well, that's how you end up at our scenario above.

If you want to boil it down to simple math: garbage in, garbage out. We increasingly get garbage in. And as I've said before, it's perpetuated by generals and colonels for whom war-fighting has been supplanted by careerism in the steady climb to their headline jobs (sorry Bullet, but that's how the warfighters of this generation view your generation, and I'm far from the first person to say so, and I doubt I'll be the last).
 
Let me start by saying that I was never in the military and do not pretend to know all of the inner workings. However I do have many family members that have been or that are in the military. I have been following these forums for many months as I have a 17 yr old son that has applied to West Point for the class of 2017 and has already been informed that he is not competitive due to his class ranking and leadership positions during high school.

Being in the business world and in management I have interviewed many people for jobs (from manual labor to technical positions) that have been in the military and not many of them exude the characteristics that you would think they would having served in the military.

Would it be safe to say that a significant portion of the people going to any SA or even ROTC are using the military to get a college education, whereas I know on my son's behalf he is more interested in using college to have a military career. Therefore the dedication to the structure of the military is not as important to them as just be able to meet the standards set before them and serve there required amount of time so they put their college education to use instead of their military education.
 
What now? What do you do? The kid has some non-descript last name on a post of 22,000 soldiers. So tell me, Packer, what's your leadership toolkit have in it for that?
Scout, I totally agree with your post and your thoughts about a "softer" and me type society as a whole. I don't like the changes and I think they are damaging.
All I intended to say was that if you are given a job (any job) but the tools you would normally use to complete this job are taken away you must try and find another method to complete the job. It may not be the best method but you have to work with what you are given.
 
Leadership at Beast

From Titen2010: "...The NCs are also catching on that I am EXTREMELY limited in what I can do to punish them so they talk outside all the time, fall out, take big bites, fidget in formation, etc. And why not? There is honestly no punishment I can dole out that isn't considered borderline hazing. I could go on for pages."

I commiserate but having completed a doctorate in leadership (no kidding), I once asked a professor how one gets those who don't have to follow your directions to do what you want. The answer from the old professor: "Getting those to do what you want them to do even if they don't have to is real leadership!" Maybe it is all part of the plan, e.g. getting the Cadre to use inspirational leadership to inspire the New Cadets. A bit more challenging than yelling and punishing!

I completely agree with this statement from TheKnight: "I don't think anyone would agree that a system that views sustenance as a reward for being competent is a good system. There needs to be balance between enforcing standards and being ridiculous for the sake of being ridiculous." As a New Cadet during my Beast, we were starved. After having taken that "too big of a bite" at the table, I was instructed to "to stop work and think about it" for the rest of the meal. The Cadet in charge of Beast at the time was Vincent Brooks (later First Captain and now Lt. Gen. Brooks). I still have the memo he sent out informing the Cadre that food was not to be used as a tool for the enforcement of discipline. It was to sustain the New Cadets who were involved in a demanding mental and physical environment. I think that to leaders who are truly interested in the welfare of their charges, this should have been obvious.

From billyb: "Maybe the Army is a lot kinder and gentler since I left 10+ years ago, but I have seen Majors relieved on the spot by Generals. I have seen LTs get chewed out in front of their platoons by CPTs. I have seen CPTs/MAJs get blasted in meetings by brigade commanders over some mix up in slides. I personally had a battalion commander that chewed out all of his company commanders (in front of anyone and everyone) at least once a week. All of these things are very common." And usually not very effective in the long run. Read Collin Powell's new book, It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership He relates a time early in his career when he lost his temper and blasted a subordinate. He was told by his commanding officer at the time to never lose his temper in his presence again. It makes for a good sound bite, but fear is not an effective leadership tool. It damages retention, respect, and long-term morale and performance. This doesn't mean Powell advocated democracy in the Army. He made it clear that once he made a decision he expected that decision to be followed. You can't say he was soft on the enemy either (i.e. The so-called Powell Doctrine)!
 
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That's the problem with basic training. And to another degree, Beast. There is a time-tested value in having drill sergeants scare you to death, to having your room torn apart, and to doing pushups until you collapse from muscle fatigue. Why? Because it breaks the will that says "I'm the most important thing on earth."

I love the way you put this. I believe it is especially important that Beast is extremely mentally difficult because there are all these high school hot shots who have been told, for probably their whole life, that they are amazing and can do anything they want to. That is not the attitude an officer should have. My father was a drill instructor and that is exactly what he said the point of Basic Training is. To break you down until you realize that you are nothing, then build you back up as a humble and loyal soldier. Beast, and regular basic for that matter, needs to be more difficult, not less.
 
Would it be safe to say that a significant portion of the people going to any SA or even ROTC are using the military to get a college education, whereas I know on my son's behalf he is more interested in using college to have a military career. Therefore the dedication to the structure of the military is not as important to them as just be able to meet the standards set before them and serve there required amount of time so they put their college education to use instead of their military education.

I think you are right in some cases, maybe even more true in ROTC. One thing to consider though is that most of the cadets in Army ROTC are not on scholarship, they enroll without any tuition assistance at all.
 
I know zero about the military, but DS is USMA Class of 2016, currently in CBT. I can tell you that one of the reasons he chose USMA was specifically for the intense and grueling aspects of the CBT and plebe year experience. The squared-away discipline appealed to him immensely -- we had not JROTC at his high school and he felt cheated by that. He was one of the NCs who did not call home last weekend (called his girlfriend and spent only 4 or 5 minutes with her -- she conveyed details to us). He had a lot to say to her -- i.e., the food is good and the heat is miserable, but regarding the rigor of CBT, he told her that he felt the enforcement is not consistent from company-to-company and platoon-to-platoon. Some NCs are allowed to stray, while others are not. He told her his squad leader is very strict, loud but firm, and clear on what the expectations are and, when warranted, why. DS is happy about that. but he voiced concern that some of the NCs, when they scramble to their plebe year companies, will not be as tightly trained as the cadets in his own suqad/platoon, and he worries about being frustrated by that.

He also said, interestingly, that it was clear to him and others that some percentage of the NCs had pre-studied their Knowledge (versions available on the web), which DS had refused to even consider doing, since he felt that learning it from scratch during the chaos of CBT was part of the brain rewiring process..... he said he had overheard some squad leaders talking among themselves about being pretty angry about those NCs who had front-loaded on that. Didn't hear anything about NCs sucking wind during runs or PT.

So just one data point from a parent hearing it second-hand from a teenage girl who was likely distracted to a great extent during the call. Take it for what it's worth.
 
to be fair, all that have posted that it is a leadership challenge for the cadre are correct. that is the commander's intent. Challenge us to find new ways. And that's what I'm tryingtodo. The intent was clearly to use more creative and/or inspirational means than simple PT to correct issues. I am trying. My original post was meant as a "whoa, it took me by surprise how weak and generally insubordinate these NCs are", NOT a "I can't use PT, this stinks. I hate USMA". Sorry if my writing was unclear.
 
As a WP grad and veteran of many years in the Army I am sad that we have allowed Beast to become much easier than in the past. My son (an Army officer's son in the Class of 2015) was VERY surprised at how easy it was in Beast and during Plebe year. I had told him so many tails about the difficulty of Beast and Plebe year over the years - I had no idea that Plebe year had changed so significantly. He was mentally and physically ready for a more traditional Beast.

I have been to WP several times this past year - A-Day, R-Day, Plebe-Parent weekend, 2 football games etc. I am still very impressed with WP and think it is the best school in the nation. However, we clearly have eased the standards and the enforcements of those standards. In my opinion, the vast majority of the grads are the same high quality as in the past. However, there are some graduates who clearly would not have lasted if we enforced the standards we announce.

Now for the non-politically correct part:
I have no problem with women at West Point. However, I think that their presence has been one of the reasons for many of these changes. The "old" purpose of WP was to develop combat leaders. The mission today is very different. This difference makes a profound difference in approach and outlook. My son and his roommates said that upperclassmen had to be very careful that they did not upset a female Cadet or be hard on them or they would get in big trouble. Upperclassmen knew that the female Plebe Cadets were somewhat "protected" so many upperclassmen just ignored them. There is a post above by a current upperclassman in Beast that is an example of this. I believe that the vast majority of women at WP deserve to be there and are fully qualified in every way. In fact my son's Squad leader this year was female and he said she was great in every way. However, if you don't think their presence changes things (kinder and softer) you have probably never been in the Army.
We need to have full equality of treatment - not just "on paper" but in reality.

Bottom line- our current leaders have already set high standards for all Cadets - now they need to strongly enforce them and immediately separate Cadets that do not meet those standards (with reasonable second chances).
 
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