New Officers’ Careers, Peace Is No Dividend

Someone missed the mark in their tone. The view that not having a war is bad because your career experience will be impacted reflects some terribly screwed up careerism.

I get what some are trying to say, but they didn't communicate very effectively. Most people don't want to train for twenty years and never do a real mission. Yet, in the military, doing the mission generally means a lot of bad things are happening.
 
raimius said:
Someone missed the mark in their tone. The view that not having a war is bad because your career experience will be impacted reflects some terribly screwed up careerism.

I get what some are trying to say, but they didn't communicate very effectively. Most people don't want to train for twenty years and never do a real mission. Yet, in the military, doing the mission generally means a lot of bad things are happening.
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+1, No worries though, their NCOs at their first assignment will get them straight pretty quickly!
 
from the article,

Cadet Yu, who will graduate this spring, is going into military intelligence in South Korea, where he hopes to get experience helping to manage the long-running conflict between North and South Korea. He will work at Camp Red Cloud near the demilitarized zone, or, as he put it, “as close as you can get to the DMZ.”
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Nothing against Cadet Yu as there is a good chance the quote is out of context or misquoted, but Camp Red Cloud is far away from the DMZ. There are still active installations closer to the DMZ than the Camp Red Cloud.
 
That, and you can take a day trip to the DMZ in your flip flops. Let's not pretend that proximity to the DMZ means anything. If he wanted to be a chest-thumper, MI is a poor choice.
 
Frustrating

I know the cadets quoted in this article, and IMHO their views are misrepresented.

I've talked with them about the "peacetime Army," and the views I heard them express in conversation were nuanced, thoughtful, and frankly not the ones portrayed in the NYT piece. It is incredibly frustrating to see my classmates being described as "wistfully" pining for the good ol' days of OEF/OIF because it would help their careers.

Also, the following quote seemed odd: "Among the young lieutenants who were commissioned in time for deployments to Afghanistan, there is a sense that the combat service patches they now wear on their sleeves will set them apart from their classmates who, because of fate and timing, are starting their careers with little chance for a command assignment in a conflict zone."

It seems to imply that slick sleeve YG2014 just starting "their careers" will be competing against YG2013 and YG2012 for command positions, which from my understanding is largely not the norm. Please correct me if I am wrong.
 
lotrjedi13 said:
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It seems to imply that slick sleeve YG2014 just starting "their careers" will be competing against YG2013 and YG2012 for command positions, which from my understanding is largely not the norm. Please correct me if I am wrong.
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For Captain promotion, YG2014 would be competing against Year Group 2013 officers who were passed over for promotion.

For Major promotion, YG2014 would be competing below the zone against Year Group 2013 officers who are in their Primary Zone.

Command positions are usually a waiting game once you graduate the Branch Career Course. Depends on your Brigade Commander (or equivalent level Commander) though.
 
All I can offer in terms of a reality check is that what matters is not how it will affect their careers. What matters is that they won't be planning their 10-yr reunion with thoughts of how to best honor their 14 dead classmates.

That is a good dividend. Promotion be damned.
 
scoutpilot said:
All I can offer in terms of a reality check is that what matters is not how it will affect their careers. What matters is that they won't be planning their 10-yr reunion with thoughts of how to best honor their 14 dead classmates.

That is a good dividend. Promotion be damned.
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Damn Straight!
 
You should check out some of the comments...pretty harsh

Way to go NYT
 
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