HELSINKI, Finland, Jan. 20 (UPI) -- U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan is suspected to have pulled the trigger, but it was the pervasive indifference and endemic political correctness of the Army's bureaucracy that loaded the weapons.
In full reactive mode, the Army leadership produced a report of the Nov. 5 attack at Fort Hood, Texas, and is identifying scapegoats for the failure of policies they themselves established and encouraged. By punishing a few colonels and majors, the Army's generals and senior executives can again feel good about themselves knowing that, after 13 dead and 30 wounded, in the end "the system worked."
Just like the Christmas Day airline attack, allegedly by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Fort Hood report will likely maintain the administrative status quo and lead to changes in promotion procedures that will punish the innocent rather than address core administrative policies and processes.
Problems in soldier management span the gamut of bureaucratic incompetence from the ridiculous, to the mundane, to the genuinely harmful.
From a training standpoint, probably the most surreal and ridiculous moment in my military career came during the latter part of the Clinton administration when I attended a lecture about the newly established Consideration of Others program in which the speaker said participants should note "actions that indicate a sensitivity to and regard for the feelings and needs of others and an awareness of the impact of one's own behavior on them."
My initial response was that she was stating the obvious, but as the discussion devolved into sensitivity sessions, the strength of ethnic diversity and multiculturalism and the seat-squirming intensified, I thought fondly of having my teeth drilled.
The serious side of this whole social engineering effort by the military, in no small part, led to the climate and the inculcation of notions that could account for the reluctance of those soon-to-be scapegoats in the Hasan case to report on or attempt to impede Hasan's advancement.
It is much easier in retrospect to say that those colonels and majors should have done something, while the entire Army culture was pointing them in the opposite direction. Had they done so then before the Fort Hood attack, no doubt there would have been cries of racism and Islamophobia and demands for investigations and disciplinary action.
Less dramatic career impediments face ordinary soldiers every day. Try calling an Army personnel office, and you might reach a voicemail recording saying he or she is not available, referring you to a colleague whose voicemail also indicates he or she is not available.
Sending e-mail asking for information or a request for administrative action is often not unlike throwing the request in quicksand or trying to have a conversation with a fire hydrant. Unlike the Army personnel management system, hitting the fire hydrant with a crowbar could possibly elicit a reaction. It is not unusual to send five to 10 e-mail messages on the same subject without ever getting an answer. It is where e-mail goes to die.
In many respects, the Army personnel system remains stove-piped, indoctrinated and frequently lazy in its processes that fail to weed out a dangerous Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.
More discouraging, however, is that very bright, experienced and innovative soldiers are not always identified and employed effectively because the Army system does not possess the vision, initiative or creative thinking necessary to identify the best people and match their skills to the most challenging assignments.
Taken as a whole, military personnel offices are the epitome of passive and indifferent bureaucracies. It can be little more than an exercise in the mindless filling of slots with bodies. Ordinarily an army in peacetime could survive. The consequences of placing unqualified or mismatched personnel in Afghanistan, for example, could have lethal consequences.
On a positive note, however, because of their chronic inactivity, such governmental operations leave very low carbon footprints.
With a few notable exceptions, as far as choosing the best and the brightest, the Army never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
I suggest that the Army personnel management system no longer receive an annual budget but be paid by commission based on the number of satisfied customers (soldiers) it serves. Already a bureaucratically bankrupt organization, I bet it would be financially bankrupt within a few months.
The saddest story of the military remains its unsuccessful attempts to stem the skyrocketing rates of mental-health disorders. Suicide rates among active-duty soldiers continue to climb. Rates of veteran suicides are even more worrisome. Depression and other related mental-health problems among military spouses are prevalent and often neglected.
Undoubtedly there are many talented and willing soldiers in the ranks who are being underutilized and could make enormous contributions to the current war effort at many different levels.
Call now. Leave a voicemail.
--
(Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D., is a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and a veteran of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. The views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Army or government.)
--
(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)
