About the Author Major Donald E. Vandergriff, USA, an armor officer, teaches military science at Georgetown University Army ROTC. Vandergriff began his military career with the United States Marine Corps, and has had extensive experience in the field with the Army. After he transferred from the Marine Corps to the Army National Guard, he initially served as a cavalry platoon leader in the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment (TNARNG). Upon entering active duty, he served in the Republic of Korea as a tank platoon, tank company executive officer and scout platoon leader for almost two years; at the National Training Center (serving both as an observer controller and in the OPFOR); and in the Middle East and Germany. He has his undergraduate degree in education from the University of Tennessee, a graduate degree in military history from American Military University, and began his PhD studies in military history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Major Vandergriff has lectured extensively on military effectiveness and cultural impacts in the United States and Europe. He has also been the subject of several articles that deal with military effectiveness and military transformation, including features in the Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker Magazine, The National Journal, Government Executive Magazine, The Washington Monthly, Army Times, Stars and Stripes, Norfolk News-Gazette and Pittsburg Star. He currently lives in Woodbridge, Virginia with his wife Lorraine, and their three dogs and one cat. Vandergriff has always been athletically competitive, playing Rugby at the University of Tennessee 1982-1984, at Fort Irwin 1987-1990, in Germany 1993-4, and in Northern Virginia 1996-97. Vandergriff also participated in Iron Man competitions from 1987-1990, and was an avid snow skier. His current hobbies include Tennessee college football, military wargaming, mountain biking, hiking and his dogs. Donald Vandergriff: Archive Discussion Forum Have an opinion on this commentary? Sound off. Get Breaking Military News Alerts Related Links Army Community Center Military Career Center

September 21, 2004

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In the first article in this series, “An Army Built on Trust", I summarized the appearances of some good ideas to solidify the U.S. Army officer corps and better prepare it to combat 4th Generational Warfare opponents.

In summary: Dr. Leonard Wong of the U.S. Army War College has addressed the need to change the service culture in order to accept our wartime junior leaders who are used to operating with some autonomy and have become adaptive to their environments as they return from battle. In line with this insight, the Army eliminated the need to rank order officers on the backside of the officer evaluation report (OER) called the “senior rater profile.”

Also, the Rand Corp. has proposed small but meaningful changes moving the Army away from the outdated and damaging “up-or-out” promotion system to an “up-or-stay” or “perform-or-out” promotion system (which I will address in more detail in the final series article).

While I see all these points as good, my fear is that the Army will implement them in isolation, without regard to their second- and third-order effects. This is, I believe, because the Army as an institution has not yet evolved to the point where it can accept and embrace these well-thought-out innovations in response to the evolution of warfare that we have seen since 9/11.

A true “perform or out” promotion system works with less reliance on an OER system that in the past has pitted officer against officer, particularly if the accession gateway into the profession is tougher. Members of the profession share a common bond early through their challenging trial.

That is what has to happen today with our officer accession process. It must evolve with the changing face of war to provide the Army with future leaders who can adapt and effectively respond to such change. We must define our profession the same as the classical professions, such as medicine, law and engineering.

We must not be afraid to admit that the profession of arms should hold the same status. The lives of our sons and daughters and the future of the nation put a paramount of importance on the development of leaders of character, the leaders that will ensure our nation survives in the 21st Century.

Defenders of the status quo will say that our profession already merits such respect from the public. I don’t deny that. The public’s support is where it needs to be, but the public also places trust that our institution will continue to successfully evolve. The enemies we now face are the most dangerous that our nation is ever going to confront, which demands the most from leaders at all levels. We cannot rest on our laurels, especially in the face of an enemy who has proven his capability to evolve – recall the growing lethality and effectiveness of al Qaeda against American targets.

So why does the Army remain adamant at retaining policies, laws, methods of education and training that focus on a generation of war that is now obsolete?

To answer that, we must look at how other professions evolve and regenerate themselves. How much preparedness goes into other professions? When does this process begin in one’s cycle of life? In the past it was assumed that officer candidates could assimilate the most basic tasks prior to commissioning. Then, they could “learn on the job” as they progressed. Furthermore, the up or out system was created so officers were continually under pressure to perform—they always had to be tested in order to remain competitive in the profession.

This of course contrasted the necessary autonomy that true professionalism guarantees! The autonomy that officers need to think about war, to experiment, to take risks in order to become more decisive, to practice moral courage in the face of adversity. In the past, up or out was created to eliminate “dead wood,” but in the age of advanced forms of evaluations, of advanced training methods, of modern medicine, up or out is obsolete. People can be given the choice to excel and remain at a given level. They can become master tacticians while remaining at the captain or major level for 20 years, or choose to advance if they have aspirations of more responsibility.

The Army is making progress regarding the reform of the officer accession process. First of all, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker has taken personal interest in the evolution of ROTC, saying that preparing cadets to become commissioned officers has become a wartime task.

Second, the true revolution in ROTC has been underway for more than two decades. Maj. Gen. Bob Wagner in the mid-1980s shifted ROTC from preparing for 19th Century to 20th Century warfare. The key was changing from training in task accomplishment to an education in leadership (decision-making). The shift in emphasis replaced the “rabid dog” approach in field training to placing cadets in leadership positions. Wagner also increased the quality of the cadre and made cadet summer training more personally challenging.

Recently, the Army has increased its effort to recruit better officer candidates (now called “scholar/athletes/leaders,” or SALs).

All too often, a necessary evolution in training, especially education, took a back seat to the numbers driven recruiting efforts to make “mission” in an Army driven by an attrition doctrine. That is now changing.

Today, service leaders are implementing further changes to cadet summer training. Cadets are being challenged while in leadership positions at tougher problem solving. Training is evolving from mere task training to something more, how they handle the stress of decision making while dealing with multiple complex tasks. But more work remains and beliefs must be changed to move the current level of accessions to a level that creates more autonomy earlier in an officer’s career.