Learning From Veterans: National Security Insights from Afghanistan and Iraq
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Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. • (202) 253-1289 • contact@LearningFromVeterans.com • www.LearningFromVeterans.com
Reforming the Ranks
National Journal, August 8, 2001
by Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
The Pentagon welcomes Information-Age technology into its weapons. But it is saddled
with an outmoded Industrial-Age scheme for managing the careers and promotions of its
officers and troops.
In a three-ring circus, sometimes the most interesting act is the sideshow. As
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tries to tame the lions in the center ring that is his
strategic review, Congress and the press have devoted most of their attention to high-
priced, high-profile, high-technology weapons and to the sheer size of the military force.
Although the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who will actually wield those
weapons and fill out those ranks do take first place on most priority lists in the defense
community, discussion of personnel issues often amounts to little more than the slogan,
"Give them more money," and then moves on.
But combat troops are not a commodity. The military's problems in recruiting
people, retaining them, and making the best use of their talents will not be solved by
better pay and benefits alone, as welcome as the extra money may be. The future
"transformed" military force that Rumsfeld envisions will not be manned by the same
kind of people as those in uniform today, nor can that future force be managed the same
way it is today. "The people element is probably the most critical," said Rep. Mac
Thornberry, a reform-minded Texas Republican on the House Armed Services
Committee. "That means we have to have better pay and benefits-but it means a lot more
than that." That's why Thornberry and other thoughtful observers took note when
Rumsfeld himself recently called into question two half-century-old mainstays of the
military personnel system: the policy of moving individuals rapidly between jobs in often
unrelated fields; and the "up-or-out" rule, enshrined in federal law, that essentially fires
anyone not promoted at a certain pace. Both practices, said Rumsfeld, may cost the
military its most talented people.
Fixing these problems may seem to be a simple question of efficient human
resource management. But it is not. The policies that move people up or out and from job
to job within the military affect every aspect of the force, including the morale of spouses
and children who have to pick up and move cross-country every couple of years; the
teamwork and cohesion of military units; and the ability of commanders to field
sophisticated new weapons quickly and well. In many ways, the most crucial question for
the Pentagon is not how many troops to field, or how to equip them, but what kinds of
people these troops should be. For historical experience shows that neither greater
numbers nor better weapons necessarily win wars. It is the most skilled, most motivated
troops who prevail.
Consider an obscure patch of Iraqi desert best known by the military map notation
73 Easting. On February 26, 1991, three units of the U.S. Army's Second Armored
Cavalry Regiment–numbering just several hundred men–suddenly encountered amid the
dust and smoke a dug-in brigade of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard–some several
thousand men. Within hours, the vastly outnumbered Americans had shattered the Iraqi
brigade. U.S. casualties came to only one dead and four wounded.
