Dumbing-up the Army

Are military recruits over-stressed by modern high-tech weaponry, with consequent "dumbing-down" of training regimes?

FORT JACKSON ~ Brigadier General Bradley "Hummer" Abrams, one of the nation's leading military trainers, believes not.

"The U.S. armed forces don't need any 'dumbing down', as you call it. Our fine American educational system is proving its worth. We have no trouble recruiting capable intelligent young people who we train to a level that leaves no room for downward moves.

		Virtual reality-trained field specialists exhibit flocking behavior under full reality.

"The depth of training hasn't changed, only the equipment. Fifty years ago a soldier had less technology so was trained exhaustively on maintaining and assembling what today is taken care of by vendor just-in-time logistics" the General explained.

"Today's military personnel have a wider range of equipment but simply don't need to know the workings in depth - similar to the civilian workplace. The learning curve is largely eliminated by weaponry's advanced design, battle-hardening, and refined combat handling - facilitated by the manufacturer" General Abrams said.

"With specialist contractors supplying primed weaponry almost literally into the serviceman's hands, maintenance and complexity are basically outsourced. Our fighting people just get on with the job!"

"Disembarkment deaths" blamed on excessive simulator training. Combatants inadvertently alight from moving vehicles or aircraft for coffee or a bathroom visit.

Professor Tonsur E.G. Glabrate of the Center for Army Lessons Lost (CALL) strongly disagrees.

His study of technological impact upon basic training in the armed forces indicates a learning curve too steep for traditional recruiter demographics.

"We have an unbalanced armed forces. The flood of technology and rapid swing to new training regimes has introduced organizational stresses that are not fully understood.

"A gap has opened in ranks between GI's and specialists, who are now seen as geeks and not real soldiers. Traditionally "us and them" attitudes were between grunts and officers, with some leakage towards supply or admin" Professor Glabrate said.

	Commanders may find themselves leading one-man charges if under-accessorized grunts fear enemy ridicule and fashion taunts.

"How quickly we forget the lessons of the past! For example, during the Vietnam war Project 100,000 degraded the once-fine American army to a state not unlike that depicted by the films Apocalypse Now and Casualties of War - epidemic insubordination, indiscipline, drugs, racism, and 'fragging,' the murder of officers.

[In 1966 Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara allowed the army to lower its recruitment test pass mark to ten percent and allow applicants entry with Intelligence Quotient (IQ) of sixty two or higher (IQ=100 is the defined average smarts). An IQ of "room temperature" is typically afforded jugs and toasters~ Ed]

"This technology rush and classroom-learning emphasis is being pushed by vendors to make sales, yet flies clean over the heads of low-echelon musterings.

Professor Glabrate offered SheepOverboard.com evidence of dangerous or flawed training methodologies from his research, the findings summarized in captions accompanying photographs in this article.

Veteran military trainers have derided Professor Glabrate as provocative and discriminatory, saying the his language implies academic isolation and cultural bias, while others consider him blatantly ignorant of training procedures and methodology. They point to centuries-honed techniques, demonstrated abilities and proven skills at instilling discipline and etiquette in trained killers.

		Excessive and intense cyber training on computer-controlled armaments induces the very rare Group Asperger's Syndrome. "These are simple boys who just want to shoot guns" says Prof Glabrate

In a final broadside, Professor Glabrate produced psychological assessments revealing an alarming range of syndromes, many till now mere psychiatric hypotheses.

"We observed the emergence of truly bizarre symptoms, like hybrids of paranoia, autism, sociopathic, and schizoid, behavior.

"Such predilections are quite startling," Prof. Glabrate continued. "If researchers seek subjects for sociopathic or genocidal behavior studies, they choose either military training camps or penitentiaries. But these emergent syndromes are the stuff of criminal insanity at best and science fiction horror at worst.

	Packbots might provide tactical gains to modern fast-moving armies, but battles are being lost while soldiers attend field classes on Packbot operation and maintenance.

"Now, with intensive virtual reality (VR) simulations, and heavy bias toward academia and technology, we find recruits exhibiting severe disorders previously found only amongst infants with congenital or developmental behavioral disease or elementary school-age children with learning and social disorders induced by chronic television and computer gaming overdose.

"This is a frightening new development in military training outcomes!"

SheepOverboard.com was privileged to look in on one of the army's new learning schema based on methodologies developed at the respected think tank RTI International.

Reproduced below is an outline of the approach now taken by the armed forces that gives new meaning to what some describe as "unorthodox activities" undertaken in the nation's military boot camps.

Strategies for Lifelong Learning

The U.S. Army has transformed its focused schoolhouse training to a lifelong learning approach, supporting this change by developing training technologies and modules to complement lifelong learning.

Based on a plan developed with the help of RTI, the U.S. Army Signal Center is focusing its institutional training on basic principles and initial assignment training.

	Combatants risk defeat when, in the heat of battle, munitions vehicles are found laden with folding seats, whiteboards and markers. Mass tutorials and tactical briefings ensue as the enemy approaches.

This means that soldiers get to their first assignment much more quickly and they have focused and intensive training on the tasks at hand. The Signal Center is using distributed simulations to provide additional just-in-time training for soldiers changing assignments.

Helping the Army justify the investment in this change is identifying the long-term cost savings that are now being realized.

This lifelong learning approach, which was adopted by the Army Senior Leaders Conference at the Association of the United States Army in January 2002, emphasizes four enablers:

• Web-delivered simulations -- a form of immersive learning by doing that allows soldiers to acquire and practice skills in interactive 3D simulations that can run stand-alone on standard personal computers. Units in the field in Iraq, Korea, and Europe are also using these simulations for sustainment training and new personnel training

• Resource centers -- provide support to distant learners from help desk IT personnel and subject matter experts, which is essential for eliminating barriers to learning

• Assignment-oriented training -- allows soldiers to focus on training for their first assignment and get into the field faster and with fresher skills

• Virtual campuses -- provide front-line support to soldiers and instructors.

All changes to working systems draw fire from seasoned veterans. The new school of thought to run the US Military on a modern business footing has attracted scrutiny from some of the sharpest minds in the system.

Illustrating this delightfully was a brough-ha in 2002 during a war game termed "Millennium Challenge 02" whereby Blue's fleet had to be refloated after Red team outsmarted it - 'it' being USA's entire virtual effort in this scenario.

The issue was covered nicely by Army Times article which began:

" The most elaborate war game the U.S. military has ever held was rigged so that it appeared to validate the modern, joint-service war-fighting concepts it was supposed to be testing, according to the retired Marine lieutenant general who commanded the game’s Opposing Force.

That general, Paul Van Riper, said he worries the United States will send troops into combat using doctrine and weapons systems based on false conclusions from the recently concluded Millennium Challenge 02. He was so frustrated with the rigged exercise that he said he quit midway through the game. " ...

... Van Riper .. was highly critical of the command’s concepts, such as “effects-based operations” and “rapid, decisive operations,” which he derided as little more than “slogans.”

“There’s very little intellectual activity,” Van Riper said about Joint Forces Command. “What happens is a number of people are put into a room, given some sort of a slogan and told to write to the slogan. That’s not the way to generate new ideas.”

There ought to be more open debate over the new concepts, Van Riper said. He said he had told command officials repeatedly that they should vet new concepts with a process similar to that used in academia, in which “people have to present papers and defend their papers.”

“In the process, good ideas stand the test of the cauldron they’re put in, and come forth, and the ones that aren’t so good get killed off,” Van Riper said. “I haven’t seen anything killed off down there [at Joint Forces Command]. They just keep generating.”

Needless to say, the grunts are puzzled.