Political Correctness in the military gets people killed

[Guest wannabeflyer]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704409004576146001069880040.html

"In November 2010, each branch of the military issued a final report on the Fort Hood shooting. Not one mentioned the perpetrator's ties to radical Islam."

Even after this rampage, the military still refuses to identify the true enemy we are fighting that is the ideologies of radical Islam. Another example of the type of officers in leadership in today's military, risk adverse, politically correct, and lacking spine. Thoughts?

[Napoleon_Tanerite]

I challenge you to find ANY OPR (or equivalent document) that calls a spade a spade, and could be used as anything resembling a credible evaluation of someone's character, or indicate possible problems with the individual. I've never seen someone called a shitbag on an OPR unless it as a no kidding referral, and even then it's a "he sucks, but..." kind of thing. I'll agree that there is a major problem with PC in the military, but the lack of any reference to Hasan's problems in his OPRs isn't just a symptom of the PC military, it's a symptom of our very broke performance evaluation system.

[Guest wannabeflyer]

I challenge you to find ANY OPR (or equivalent document) that calls a spade a spade, and could be used as anything resembling a credible evaluation of someone's character, or indicate possible problems with the individual. I've never seen someone called a shitbag on an OPR unless it as a no kidding referral, and even then it's a "he sucks, but..." kind of thing. I'll agree that there is a major problem with PC in the military, but the lack of any reference to Hasan's problems in his OPRs isn't just a symptom of the PC military, it's a symptom of our very broke performance evaluation system.

I agree with you, but would argue that our "very broke performance evaluation system" is a symptom of the PC environment in our military. We have adopted a softer, more caring approach where firewall fives and captain America bullet points are expected on performance reports. Even constructive feedback is not allowed to be documented as it would be seen as a blot on a person's record. And I'm sure that Hasan's raters at least sub consciously knew how it would it would look if they gave negative feedback on a devote muslim's OPR.

[SurelySerious]

We have adopted a softer, more caring approach where firewall fives and captain America bullet points are expected on performance reports.

I would argue it is pervasive in U.S. society, not just the military. On that topic, can't wait to read "Everyone's a Winner: Life in Our Congratulatory Culture"

As far as the shooter, that's not something that should be on his OPR, it should be part of an OSI (or CID in the Army's case) investigation. Why no one connected the dots would be my question. Not wanting to link him with being a radical Islamic goes back to what Steve Davies posted

Edited February 19, 2011 by SurelySerious

[Napoleon_Tanerite]

I agree with you, but would argue that our "very broke performance evaluation system" is a symptom of the PC environment in our military. We have adopted a softer, more caring approach where firewall fives and captain America bullet points are expected on performance reports. Even constructive feedback is not allowed to be documented as it would be seen as a blot on a person's record. And I'm sure that Hasan's raters at least sub consciously knew how it would it would look if they gave negative feedback on a devote muslim's OPR.

It's really a chicken/egg type argument, but the root problem remains the same-- we as a service simply can not stand to document someone being a shitbag. At the same time we've downplayed true measures of quality such as flying hours, deployed time, etc. We've created an environment where a guy can be an unreliable, incompetent dirtbag who ducks every deployment or bad deal gig, yet still gets promoted. To make things worse, it's very likely that a shitbag can get promoted over a more deserving person, simply because that shitbag caught the one good deal opportunity and rode that to his success, while the passed over line swine was deployed and missed out on the "opportunity to excel" by virtue of doing his REAL job hacking the mission.

ETA: And the it's a combination of nobody wanting to be that guy who takes the first step and gives an honest eval, in combination with honest evals that are actively shot down from the leadership level as "not taking care of your people"

Edited February 19, 2011 by Napoleon_Tanerite