A Military Leadership Void. There is a real leadership void in today’s Army. The Army has core values, senior “leaders” can’t seem to find them
I was asked recently for advice on how to deal with a persistent conflict between two people, both working in the political arena. The advice I gave was to avoid the emotional and personal side of it and measure all actions against a set standard. In this case the set standard was a series of statements in a political platform document, and the U.S. Constitution. This allows for impartial discussion measured against principles and standards only.
The U.S. Army requires adherence to a set of principles and standards called the Army Values, known by the acronym LDRSHIP. It stands for Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless-Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage. This performance standard applies to all serving in the Army, without regard to rank. I crafted hundreds of performance evaluations over my years of service and measuring Soldiers of all ranks against this common standard was critical. The oath of office demands service to the people through the principle of defending the constitution alone. Similarly, the point of defining the Army’s core values was to ensure those serve know they are to adhere to certain principles of conduct regardless of the cost.
Unfortunately, the Army’s senior “leaders”[1] do not measure up to their own grade sheet, and their subordinates can see it.
Loyalty – bear true faith and allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, the Army, your unit and other Soldiers.
Rather than display this kind of loyalty, the Army’s current “leadership” pursues patriots who serve and displays loyalty only to the pursuit of a woke agenda, illegal vax mandates, and self-preservation for the sake of career and paycheck. Worst case is they are willingly pursuing these measures to help destroy our Army’s readiness from the inside.
Duty – fulfill your obligations.
Their obligations are defined by their oath to the U.S. Constitution and to the people who have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness under that contract. Today’s senior “leaders” are again failing to do their duty by destroying the Army’s readiness to fight and win.
Respect – Treat people as they should be treated.
Each day I work with those still in uniform as their chain of command pursues them with a relentlessness normally reserved for enemies of the United States. There is no respect for those serving who do not blindly or willingly accept the administration’s destructive agenda.
Selfless Service – Put the welfare of the nation, the Army, and your subordinates before your own.
There seems to be a trend in that each of the Army values are ignored and replace by other priorities. These “leaders” are supposed to exemplify these values in daily life and leadership but ignore them instead. By attacking patriots from inside the ranks, these “leaders” display no concern for the welfare of this Constitutional Republic, the Army, or the subordinates and the families who become the casualties of a domestic battlefield.
Honor – Live up to all the Army values.
By now it’s clear to all of us who’ve served, and many still serving that such “leaders” lack honor. Veterans and retirees like me and many others fight each day to expose those who wear the rank but can’t and won’t lead.
Integrity – Do what’s right, legally and morally.
In watching the Congressional testimony of senior ranking officers after America’s surrender in Afghanistan, it’s clear they chose to serve the gods of self and administration preservation. The easier lie was accepted over the harder truth and Americans know it. Those serving now, and those who might consider serving saw it too. Many serving still uphold the Army Values like Hercules holds up the world, under significant weight, as those highest-ranking officers press down on them in hopes they’ll break and submit.
Personal Courage – Face fear, danger or adversity (physical or moral).
Having spent years in combat there’s no way to truly describe the physical courage it takes to go on combat missions not knowing if you’ll survive. I’ve escaped death on many occasions and have buried too many friends unable to escape that fate. Some of today’s senior ranking officers displayed physical courage in combat but worked their way to positions where moral courage is required. Moral courage is the harder of the two to display. Someone might wonder if I’m unjustly criticizing others for that which I may never have had the opportunity to display. I sacrificed a career to a single decision made while training an Aviation Task Force at the army’s National Training Center in January 2018. I would do it again as I am convinced it saved lives.
As a retired senior army officer, I’m contacted daily by those still serving who are keeping as low a profile as possible in hopes that the American people will provide the civilian oversight needed to fix this problem. Many have already paid the price for standing up for what is right, and I fear that’s what these senior officers want, to cull the ranks of patriots.
Lt Col (ret), US Army, Darin Gaub is a Co-founder of Restore Liberty, an international military strategist and foreign policy analyst, an executive leadership coach, and serves on the boards of multiple volunteer national and state level organizations. The views presented are those of the author and do not represent the views of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, or its components.
I put “leaders” in quotes because I reserve the term leaders for those worthy of that title. Today’s senior ranking officers all too often are only “senior ranking” not leaders.
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Obama purged the Military of any Leader who wasn’t a “Yes Man”…thats why that Assclown Milley is in charge
Absolutely. obama was unqualified as a “natural born citizen” and the wisdom of the makers of the Constitution is manifested in that requirement . As is the perfidy of the Democrat National Committee in glossing over the maggot’s disqualification. Our criminal government continues apace.
The Chu Hoi in the Pentagon are not incompetent. They are not stupid. They are intentionally destroying the U.S. Army and other branches. The officer corps is a complete disgrace and do not deserve to lead. Obama purged many fine officers and now we are left with his communist dregs. The kind that take aircraft carriers offline because a few crew members got the sniffles and instead of going to MOPP Level 4 they for all practical purposes abandoned ship. The Red Chinese must of pissed their pants laughing.
With respect, sir, I would not insult the Chieu Hoi defectors who fought at our side in Nam by applying their name to these utter Walking Garbage today.
The US armed force have been heading down this path for decades. They promote the weak minded but political boot lickers.
Well said concur.
I’d like to hear your story about your career-killing decision. Not to judge, but encourage. Other than the example of Afghanistan’s bug out, I’d like to hear more specific examples of what is happening. I was a contractor serving the Army up until March 2013. So, I’ve been out of the loop or word-of-mouth chain with active soldiers for some time.
If the Rs can get past the cheating in 2024, I’d like to help anyone – with the staff work – who has influence with Cong Green or Walsh or Mike Pompeo, etc high enough in the food chain to plan and execute a real inquisition of the Woke in the ranks and do an about face to focus the Army on the Next War. Hard stop.
It is easy to point the finger at Obama-but he was just a continuation of presidents who always seemed to make decisions to undermine our military. It started with Carter and the Vietnam Peace Dividend, where congress decimated the Army with all the RIFs-particularly in aviation where commissioned became warrant, and warrants often reverted to enlisted and non-flight status if they had enough years in to protect a career: I was a newb but protecting a career became a thing in our aviation battalion. The Army was dying to get pilots within a few short years of those ill-considered cuts. It took nearly 8 years for the Army as an institution to clear out the junk and rot associated with Vietnam and to get on pace with the concept of voluntary service (no draft.) I also believe the Army made a huge mistake by de-emphasizing the Woman’s Army Corp….
The Soviet peace dividend and Clinton’s VSSI and SSB-voluntary early retirement for those over 15 but less than 20 and willing to take the bonus or early retirement-where military were forced to think of themselves-to look out for number one-all ranks, but mostly the officer corps-and I would submit it really crystalized the idea of being mindful of your career. I was just bobbing along, doing service and not very mindful of taking care of me, but approaching 18 years and reading the tea leaves made the decision easy. And the Army as an institution reacted-its a numbers game in the final analysis-77 of 78 of us who were over 15, less than 20 were passed over for Major in the fall 1993 and the selection rate for promotion was unheard of-something like 62%: and the Army sent each of us a letter advising us of the benefits of the VSSI/SSB, as well as the pending reconsideration of the Army/military policy of “selective continuation to retirement” for those over 18, but less than 20. Now they never did invoke or repeal it, but many of us were smaht-not like they said-and saw the writing on the wall. I was out within 6 months and in hindsight it was a very good thing-I would have stayed in much, much longer, and hadn’t given the post-military idea much if any thought at all. Now it did later get worse and I would point to Shinsecki-who was a great soldier-but I thought the marketing campaign of an Army of 1 and doing away with the beret were ill-thought out marketing campaigns that undercut esprit de corps for no good reason or benefit and really started or accelerated the cave to woke mindsets and political goodness. I served with a lot of very good females over the years-my wife was in when I met her-but the idea of pretending like there is no difference between soldiers and opening jobs that made no sense was all political, all the time and has become mainstreamed.
So we should not be surprised to see woke leaders trying to impress and outwoke other woke leaders in the tailoring of the force that has everything to do with making the bosses happy, while seemingly totally disregarding leadership and combat readiness. It is the definition of a sycophant-and when I look over folks like Milley and Austin-it is no surprise that they have had a deleterious affect on readiness and their actions are causing a backlash in parental support for military service, that is resulting in recruiting shortfalls.
These things don’t fix themselves-and we need civilian leadership to get involved-and expunge the military of any leader who lacks an understanding and appreciation of the constitution and their oath of office: many seeme very confused over their duty and job as military leaders. And it starts at the top-I would start by firing Austin and Milley, retiring the hack at NSA and maybe lop off a few hundred GOs across the service who seem to have forgotten their basic obligations as leaders- who value wokism and sycophantism over service. Is there anyone out there who has seen soldiers-in helicopters-wearing masks who doesn’t think-what are these idjiots doing????? (or is that just me???)