Musings, leadership tidbits and quotes posted by a retired Navy Captain (really just a high performing 2nd Class Petty Officer) who hung up his uniform a bit too early. He still wears his Navy service on his sleeve. He needs to get over that. "ADVANCE WARNING - NO ORIGINAL THOUGHT!" A "self-appointed" lead EVANGELIST for the "cryptologic community". Keeping CRYPTOLOGY alive-one day and Sailor at a time. 2015 is 80th Anniversary of the Naval Security Group.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Warriors versus Scholars
“The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.”
Thucydides
House Armed Services Committee Report on Professional Military Education is HERE.
Concur with Thucydides. Heroic, truthful scholarship is necessary, but in scarce supply. Almost daily, I read white papers by some Ph., or retired Colonel (or even worse, a retired Colonel Ph.d) pimpin' contracts for the defense industry, passing off marketing as genuine scholarship. Military officers, too lazy, stupid, or pressed for time to think for themselves, then circulate these around (who hasn't done this?) as received wisdom from Mt. Olympus. This process is encouraged and enabled by senior military officers who privatize thinking and award contracts to retired senior military officer consultants. Fools and cowards, aye.
Thats the unintended consequence of outsourcing all of our support functions. As the Adm's sit in the gilded palaces making policy, they never seem to understand the impact those decisions have. I am a 20 yr LDO and I m the ESO for my ship. I ran cos an interesting study that showed out of all he services the least educated (possesing Masters and above degree's)was the US Navy. The Navy places a great focus on getting educated but expects you to accomplish it on your own. Where as the other servies embrace it and encourage it as part of the developmental training pipeline. At least in my opinion.
The different military services, their respective (PME’s) and matters of training and assignment outlined through this extensive study made the military services and their PME’s look fairly good, but of course, a few changes should be made according to this study. I did not read the whole article but I did scan it, read the conclusions and searched for key words that should have come up somewhere in these two hundred pages. The word enemy only appeared once, kill never appeared, missile never appeared, strategic weapons never appeared. I must be wrong but I thought the purpose of the military was to kill the enemy as necessary.
As far as attending A PME, as an enlisted individual I applied for the Navy Enlisted Scientific Education Program (NESEP) but was disqualified because my birthday fell in the first part of the year. You figure it out. The program no doubt was a pet project of Congress.
Still searching for actual quote citation, none of the quotation websites cite book or section. Kudos to cryppies from an IS whoo greatly appreciated their help man-hunting unpleasant people in Anbar last year.
Concur with Thucydides. Heroic, truthful scholarship is necessary, but in scarce supply. Almost daily, I read white papers by some Ph., or retired Colonel (or even worse, a retired Colonel Ph.d) pimpin' contracts for the defense industry, passing off marketing as genuine scholarship. Military officers, too lazy, stupid, or pressed for time to think for themselves, then circulate these around (who hasn't done this?) as received wisdom from Mt. Olympus. This process is encouraged and enabled by senior military officers who privatize thinking and award contracts to retired senior military officer consultants. Fools and cowards, aye.
ReplyDeleteThats the unintended consequence of outsourcing all of our support functions. As the Adm's sit in the gilded palaces making policy, they never seem to understand the impact those decisions have.
ReplyDeleteI am a 20 yr LDO and I m the ESO for my ship. I ran cos an interesting study that showed out of all he services the least educated (possesing Masters and above degree's)was the US Navy. The Navy places a great focus on getting educated but expects you to accomplish it on your own. Where as the other servies embrace it and encourage it as part of the developmental training pipeline.
At least in my opinion.
Captain Lambert,
ReplyDeleteThe different military services, their respective (PME’s) and matters of training and assignment outlined through this extensive study made the military services and their PME’s look fairly good, but of course, a few changes should be made according to this study. I did not read the whole article but I did scan it, read the conclusions and searched for key words that should have come up somewhere in these two hundred pages. The word enemy only appeared once, kill never appeared, missile never appeared, strategic weapons never appeared. I must be wrong but I thought the purpose of the military was to kill the enemy as necessary.
As far as attending A PME, as an enlisted individual I applied for the Navy Enlisted Scientific Education Program (NESEP) but was disqualified because my birthday fell in the first part of the year. You figure it out. The program no doubt was a pet project of Congress.
Very Respectfully,
Navyman834
Still searching for actual quote citation, none of the quotation websites cite book or section. Kudos to cryppies from an IS whoo greatly appreciated their help man-hunting unpleasant people in Anbar last year.
ReplyDelete