Op-Ed Contributor - Up, Up and Out - NYTimes.com:
". . . there are three major changes Mr. Gates should add to his agenda, and they deserve President Obama’s support.
First, the Air Force should be eliminated, and its personnel and equipment integrated into the Army, Navy and Marine Corps. Second, the archaic “up or out” military promotion system should be scrapped in favor of a plan that treats service members as real assets. Third, the United States needs a national service program for all young men and women, without any deferments, to increase the quality and size of the pool from which troops are drawn."
Our current volunteer service is the best performing military we've ever had. Conscription may be needed if we face another world war situation, but we're better off without it now. If the federal government wants to create a new volunteer service and force our young people into government service, they can do that without disrupting our military. Young people performing charitable or other benevolent service under government guidance would learn a great deal about the waste, fraud, abuse, and inefficiency of government programs - knowledge that will serve them well as voters.
"At the moment, the Army, Navy and Marine Corps are at war, but the Air Force is not. This is not the fault of the Air Force: it is simply not structured to be in the fights in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Ridiculous - the Air Force is involved via flying UAV missions, ferrying troops and cargo, and involved in direct combat in both theaters. If the Air Force can manage it's workload without stressing it's staff, they should be congratulated for that. We certainly don't need to dismantle a strategic asset at a time when Russia among others is rebuilding strategic assets that only missiles and bombers can attack if needed.
"The result is an “up or out” system that demands service members move up the ladder simply to stay in the military. Any soldier passed over for promotion twice must leave or retire.
Treating service members like so many widgets — in particular, the enlisted men and women who make up 85 percent of the ranks — is arbitrary and bad management. I have seen many fit, experienced officers and enlisted Marines arbitrarily forced out because there were only so many slots into which they could be promoted."
This is one of the reasons our military is doing so well - the tendency to create intractable bureaucracies is damped by this promotion policy. In a society where we celebrate companies that fire the bottom 10% of their performers, we certainly shouldn't complain about a military that seeks excellence within it's ranks.
". . . would New Orleans reconstruction have lagged so long if we had had a national service program in natural-disaster recovery?"
Once again the excellent response by our Coast Guard gets overlooked. In the New Orleans tragedy, the entire US government reacted more quickly, with more supplies and more people than at any time in US history. Within just the last few decades, such a disaster was primarily the responsibility of those on the scene, the city and state leaders. The tragedy in News Orleans is that the city & state leaders felt no obligation to do their jobs and just sat back waiting for the federal government to save them.
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