Compass Points - Managing Marines?
Divesting Marine Corps Leadership?
Compass Points - Managing Marines?
Divesting Marine Corps Leadership?
January 24, 2024
.
Among the terrible divesting inflicted on the Marine Corps over the last several years, perhaps the worst has not been the divestment of so much air, armor, infantry, artillery, combat breaching and bridging, and more. No, the worst divestment has been the divestment of Marine Corps leadership. In the Marine Corps there is maintenance management and there is supply management; nothing wrong with those. Things need to be managed. But Marines are never managed. Leaders of Marines do not manage Marines, they lead them.
.
In Military.com, Drew F. Lawrence writes about a GAO report that said Marines are living in barracks that are filthy and in disrepair. Lawrence writes that since the GAO report, ". . . new images of dismal conditions at a Marine Corps facility appeared online in recent days -- dead vermin, flooded washers, apparent mold . . ."
.
What is the solution to unsat barracks? The Marine Corps proposes the solution of installing civilian dorm advisors in the barracks in order to better manage the problem.
.
Compass Points readers have been quick to respond.
.
==================
.
What happened to my beloved Corps of Marines? When did we move from a combat organization to a "business entity" with Human Resources rather than Manpower department. "Resident Advisors" responsible to whom? Why do we have civilian run billeting or quarters? What happened to NCO's, SNCO's our 1st Sgts and Sgts Major? Do they think their job is a 9-to-5 position? As a Company Commander aboard Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe in mid-to-late 1970's my 1st Sgt and I inspected the barracks (open squad bays) weekly and occasionally visited the barracks at varying unannounced times. I also charged the ranking NCO living in each squad bay with the "care and cleaning" of the Marines living there. As with the 1st General Order "I took charge of this post and all government property in view." These Marines, their equipment, their housing and all things about them was my responsibility. Yes, the barracks were aging with some maintenance problems, but they were taken care of by base maintenance. And to top this off we have the madness of FD2030 I fear for the future of our Corps.
-- Palmer Brown
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. . . for the last five years, the phrase Esprit de Corps seems to have vanished from the senior leader vocabulary. There might be a reason for that. I never heard Gen Berger use the phrase. A spit and polished Barracks, despite the drudgery to achieve it, is a source of pride in oneself and the unit. It is Esprit de Corps.
-- Douglas C Rapé
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sad point of this issue reflects poorly on the command structure for allowing these barracks to fall into this state of disrepair! As a leader of Marines, I was taught to "take care of your troops and lookout for their welfare". To allow this to have happen is unconscionable. This situation did not happen overnight. It would appear that several commanding officers ignored this issue during their tour of command! Further, it is embarrassing to establish a program of Resident Advisors (RA's) to handle these situations. This is not a college campus or Air Force quarters. These are Marine Barracks! Where are the Sergeants and Staff Non Commissioned Officers? Are we allowing the Gen Z's to have their way?
-- Colonel Jack D. Howell
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. . . The Marine Corps going to Barracks Advisors is disturbing. The quality of life where Marines live, eat and work is a primary command function. Turning the command responsibility of where Marines live over to barracks advisors goes a long way toward explaining why this problem exists.
As a squadron commander at New River in 1980 my Sergeant Major and I inspected barracks weekly . . . dealing initially with a rampant marijuana problem. One of my barracks buildings had an indoor passageway. Marines who were found to be marijuana users were required to move to rooms that had their doors removed. It was not long before I could no longer detect the lingering odor of marijuana on weekly barracks inspections.
Commanding officers who do not inspect their barracks and deal with barracks issues on a regular basis are not doing their job.
-- Bob Whitener
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
. . . Back around 2012, I toured a barracks, I won’t say where. The state of barracks was totally unsat! This is an open squad bay type. The racks looked like amateurs made them. Dust balls the size of half dollars were under and behind the racks. The paint on the walls and ceilings was peeling.
I asked the Bn SgtMaj who was with us, why is the barracks in such a state? He replied, “we are in a state of war, our focus is on warfare!”
I couldn’t but help think about the lessons I was taught by great Marine leaders. Do what is right ALL the time. Take care of the small stuff so it doesn’t turn into big stuff that you can’t handle. Attention to detail in training will save lives in combat, and so on and so on.
The Marine Corps doesn’t need stinking RAs, the Marine Corps needs focused, solution oriented, hard charging leadership to fix their billeting and other health, welfare and morale issues!
-- Alfred Karam
.
==================
.
In his article in Military.com Gary Anderson writes,
.
==================
.
. . . Civilian dorm advisers are being added to Marine Corps barracks. What's next? Fizzies in the base swimming pool? A dead horse in the commandant's office? Is the Marine Corps becoming an "Animal House"?
. . . Back in the days when the Marine Corps was still the Marine Corps, quality of life was considered a basic leadership responsibility. Every Thursday evening was a field day cleanup and maintenance effort supervised by the noncommissioned officers and staff NCOs, which platoon commanders then inspected. On Friday morning, the company commander would inspect the living spaces. It was not unusual for battalion and regimental commanders or the general officer commanding the installation to make surprise "heath and comfort" inspections of various units. If unreported maintenance or cleanliness problems were found, the proverbial excrement flowed downhill immediately. If a squad's area was found to be unsatisfactory, it was not unusual for a regimental commander to have the entire chain of command standing tall in front of him. The squad leader, platoon commander, company commander and battalion commander would then all take part in a very unpleasant discussion of how "we" had failed.
--Gary Anderson
.
==================
.
When Marine barracks are unsat it is a leadership problem. Better leadership is the solution. Problems are solved through leadership. Civilian barracks monitors? That is just business management. Sadly, what did the Marine Corps name its new approach to Marines? Did they call the publication, "Leading Marines?" No, they call it, "Talent Management." It is time to stop trying to use techniques of business management on Marines. In the world of civilians, leadership is old-think, problems are outsourced, and people are managed. For more than 200 years, no matter what civilians think, it has always been true, Marines lead Marines. Marines are a breed apart. Marines did not answer an ad, they answered a calling. Marines are led to become -- not masters of business administration -- but masters of war.
.
- - - - - -
.
Military.com -- 01/12/2024
Marine Corps Plans Resident Advisers in Barracks and Other Fixes as Gross Facility Photos Surface Online
By Drew F. Lawrence
.
- - - - -
.
Military.com - 01/22/2024
Is the Marine Corps Becoming 'Animal House'?
By Gary Anderson
Gary Anderson is a retired Marine Corps colonel who commanded several battalions and was the commander of Camp Hansen, the largest Marine Corps installation on Okinawa, Japan.
.
- - - - -
.
Marine Corps Times (marinecorpstimes.com) 11/01/2022
Marine Talent Management 2030: Flawed foundation, flawed document
By Col. James K. Van Riper (retired)
When studying the current state of affairs, one can't help but document the past mistakes that led to it.
In 2007, my brother (a SSgt) and I (a young Capt) were sitting in a Fallujah chow hall. We were discussing the interesting initiatives we had seen coming out of Quantico. Weird uniform regs, rent-a-cops at the base gates, and other changes in policy that seemed detached from our ethos and common sense. For example, HQMC had just announced that units were to refrain from conducting weekly field days and barracks inspections, on the premise that our Marines were combat veterans and should be allowed to live as adults without intrusive leadership. We were perplexed as we discussed these changes in the rear.
Then it struck me. "This is the plot of Risky Business, the Tom Cruise movie!" "The adults have left town and are all in Iraq, and the kids are back CONUS selling all the furniture and getting ripped off by hookers!
We laughed then, and we still do about that memory, although the crisis is no laughing matter now. There are plenty of bad decisions along the way...like using the war money from 2003-2014 to build barracks of shoddy construction, contracting out the maintenance, then losing that maintenance contract when the war money ran out. So Marines wait for days for an FMD guy to fix a leaking pipe.
Like building barracks that are supposed to look like apartments so Marines will feel like adults, but the layout in fact isolates Marines from one another and is the enemy of cohesion and camaraderie.
To bookend that beginning: I was a Bn commander in 2016. The base announced it was moving to a centrally managed barracks, with consolidated check-in and a customer service help desk for maintenance issues. After some digging, I discovered it was the good idea of some Quantico civilians.
Shortly after this, the DC for I&L came to our base. At a commander's town hall, we told him that someone had come up with the idea to centralize and consolidate barracks management. We told him it was a horrible idea and would make unit ownership of problems, cohesion, and leadership a further challenge.
He explained that he had been briefed by his civilian planners on this initiative, and it had sounded like a good solution. He further apologized having not paid close enough attention...for getting sold a bill of goods and promised the commanders he would kill it immediately.
Thanks to him, that initiative was put down then...but it arises again.
What does this chain of bad decisions have in common?
There are two components. First is the outsourcing of our Corps to the "continuity" of the federal civilian workforce. Good ideas, dreamed up by federal government civilians, with motives of Retention, Cost Savings, and Messaging. No motives involving combat effectiveness or readiness are involved. The second component necessary for these ideas to gain traction is when our senior leaders abdicate their leadership role and permit their implementation. Our leaders, who should be vigilant guardians of readiness, are at the front door signing us up for Kirby vacuums and magazine subscriptions. And letting the hookers ransack the house.
I saw photos of the facilities at Camp Pendleton that caused all the media attention. It is inexcusable for Marines to live in such squalor. I have become cautious about what I read in the media, but if any of the stories are true, the commanding officer and sergeant major should be relieved for a 'loss of confidence in their ability to lead.' Also, don’t hire civilians to manage living quarters for Marines; find some Marines with old-fashioned leadership skills. They still exist, don’t they?
I have been a Marine for 70 years and am worried that the Marines have lost their way. With stories like this and the Force 2030/Talent Management 2030 mess, I feel justified in my concerns.
Please help, General Smith."