A few months ago, this blog published the post “On Command: A Confession,” wherein I talked about my personal struggles with the idea of taking a battalion command. Not unlike the USS Maine in 1898, that post blew up.
Too soon?
I got messages from other Army officers, Navy officers, even officers in foreign militaries. Serving battalion commanders wrote to say that they were struggling. Company grades and junior field grades messaged to say they were having the same crises of career. People stopped me at work, friends texted me. Everyone had the same message: they were feeling the exact same way. They were burnt out and looking for options other than command or other than the military.
There were other messages, too. Messages of support from general officers, both still serving and retired. They expressed their appreciation for my writing and encouraged me to stick it out, that it would be worth it in the end. To a certain extent, that is the message offered in this response to the recent trends of dissatisfaction emanating from the company grade ranks, called We Hear You. Written by a multiple authors, from a lieutenant general to a captain, the response is aimed at younger officers who are struggling with the decision of whether or not they want to stay in the Army, or the military at large.
I took some time to decide if I wanted to offer a response. After all, this is the Army; respectful pushback is one thing, but there’s also such a thing as insubordination. I want to be very clear: I am deeply grateful for the senior leaders who have taken the time to give a rodent’s posterior for what some dumb reserve component captain rambles about. Believe me, I have no delusions of genius or grandeur. I am happy that anything I have written has sparked a dialogue. In that same vein, then, I would like to offer a respectful response.
Before I address the aforesaid article, I want to look at the issue of officer retention. It is no secret that most officers tend to get out in the transition from captain to major. That matches life trends, such as starting a family or desiring a new career path, as well as matching the increased time investment required of field grade officers. The Army has never had to worry too much about this, as there have always been plenty of eager majors willing to do what it takes to make lieutenant colonel, and lieutenant colonels eager to become colonels, and so on. Therefore, the thinning of the ranks was never really a concern for the Army.
That was then. Now, however, the conditions have drastically changed. In 2022, the Army Reserve could not fill its battalion command positions, resulting in Regular Army officers being offered these command billets. A 2023 Army Times article on the Reserves’ laudable attempts to fix this sounded the warning bell that officers were “quiet quitting” and that Reserve O-5s were retiring after battalion command. A February 2023 Army Times opinion piece posited that the Army can’t even properly identify why junior officers are leaving. Time will exacerbate current crises if Army leaders do not seriously address the issues at hand. A battalion commander shortage this year means a brigade commander shortage in five years, and so on. All at a time of some of the most grave national security threats in the lifetimes of most serving officers.
Command burnout is nothing new. The Military Review article acknowledges that there is a cycle in the Army officer timeline, where requirements on time and sanity wax and wane, as the authors depict in this chart:
There is, however, a problem in this analysis. Ever since the Global War on Terror, those times when leaders should be able to take a metaphorical knee have become fewer and fewer. Operational assignments mean that attending resident Intermediate Level Education (ILE) is a rare option for many officers, forcing them to attend distance learning ILE. And for Reserve Component (RC) officers, distance learning is the norm. Officers tend to be thrown from command directly into key staff positions, as they are doing ILE, and trying to preserve some time for their families. Additionally, while U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) prioritizes resident ILE, distance learning ILE receives far less oversight, attention, or pedagogical review. As a result, it is one of the most despised and maligned things in the Army, uniting officers across all components as they condemn it for its lack of academic rigor and its emphasis on check-the-block learning.
Even with the end of the GWOT, operational requirements have not diminished. As many officers point out, we’re continuing to be just as busy as we were when fighting in two theaters but no one knows why or wants to be the person to reduce the requirements. Metrics-based leadership models – the kind that officers raised in the GWOT became indoctrinated into – do not reward leadership that reduces requirements for subordinates. The GWOT model of leadership in fact encourages and rewards officers who can show that they are doing more with less, even if they have no justification to be doing more in the first place.
So, the sum of this means that most officers do not get a sine wave. Even in broadening assignments, they are trying to complete ILE, working to achieve top block OERs to get their next key developmental assignment, dealing with the same increased operational requirements, and trying to keep their families together. They might be excused if they take umbrage at being told that they are “taking a knee,” as they are just able to keep all the glass balls in the air. If visually indicated, Army officer career requirements – for those who want to eventually make O-5 and command a battalion – would resemble a straight line running across the wavetops – flatlining, if you will. The analogy may be too on the nose.
Why, then, do Army senior leaders not seem to see the crisis? Across the board, the senior leaders who voice concern – which is laudable and we appreciate it – tend to do so in a way that minimizes the concerns of those voicing them. The Military Review piece suggest that officers change their perspective. This is like telling someone who is stuck in a deep trench and cannot get out that at least it isn’t a flooded trench. While true, it does not change the situation. Largely, sympathetic senior leaders thank junior officers for sharing their concerns, empathize that command is difficult, and ask that junior leaders press through the hard times and stay the course. To quote from the article, “After time and reflection, our hope is that everyone will see that the satisfaction generated by making such a difference in the lives of others will far outweigh the dissatisfaction a commander might have felt in the moment. That is what made us desire the opportunity to command again and not say, ‘Nah, I’m good.'”
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we have a forest and trees problem. Naturally, senior leaders who enjoyed command only have their experience as their guides – just as junior leaders only have their experiences to inform their decisions. As long as enough officers managed to enjoy/survive their command time, or preserve their faith in the system, then the problem is not critical to the Army. However, I think we are reaching the point where the problem is growing increasingly critical and to ignore it is at our own peril.
Additionally, there is the issue that when a system benefits the one group of people who rise to the top, those people are less inclined to change that system. I do not say that senior Army leaders are involved in some Machiavellian scheme to keep people miserable, I am saying that to understand why so many people are unsettled requires significant empathy and placing one outside ones’ own experiences. Which is a very difficult thing to do. It does not help that Army culture is often dominated by the mindset that, “Because I had it tough, you should have it tough, too.” Leadership is about looking at the obstacles you faced in your career and removing them for other people to enable more people to rise to the top.
So, what do we do about the problem?
Well, here’s a few things to start with. One, reframe the question of command. The Military Review piece laid out these questions of prospective commanders:
As one Army spouse, who requested to remain anonymous for this piece, said, “None of those are healthy things to do, you should either be in marriage counseling or mental counseling if you consider answering ‘yes’ to any question.” Simply put, why are we asking Army families to break themselves for a stateside, non-wartime command? Is it because this is how we’ve always done it? Is it necessary? What can we be doing to reduce requirements on commanders and their families? With the majority of military families being dual-income, can we help make command accommodating for the civilian spouse, rather than ask them to sacrifice their careers?
The next solution is to address PME. DL ILE holds little value. DL CCC isn’t much better. Both are check-the-block courses that do not develop officers to the extent of time that officers devote to them. The return on investment is low. The courses drain students of their enthusiasm for learning and leave few people excited to be an officer in the U.S. Army. Radically changing PME and PME requirements across the board to actually be focused on learning and not on checking the block would help solve this issue.
There are many other ways that we can keep officers – and all Army leaders, regardless of rank – from flatlining; there are many in our force who have these ideas and initiatives, and I would welcome pieces from them on what they think or have done to try to help ease the situation. Because we need them. If we want to keep the All-Volunteer Force (AVF) and not consider selective service (a topic for another time), then we need to get ahead of the problem of officer retention right now. Otherwise, we will face the future not with our best and brightest problem solvers, but with the ones who can check the block, don’t get burnt out because they have nothing to give, and who live by the “that’s how we’ve always done it” mantra. And I don’t believe that we, as an Army, can afford that.
Thank you all for the continued dialogue, both on here and on social media. It shows how many people truly love and care about the institution that is the U.S. Army. To paraphrase Marcus Aurelius in Gladiator, “There was once a dream that was the Army, you could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish.” There is a dream that is the Army – the place of egalitarian hopes and merit-based leadership. A thinking force, which solves problems rather than overcoming them with brute strength. An Army that sets peoples free and brings liberation, and hope. Just in war, merciful in peace. It’s the Army we were raised to believe in, in the grainy photos from the Civil War or the colored prints of the Revolution. In the flashes of black-and-white footage from the World Wars. This is an idealized notion of the Army, yes, but it is what the Army can be. And it is up to all of us to continue to strive for the aspirational. As citizens, we work to form a more perfect Union. As soldiers, we strive to make a more perfect Army.
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Views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not reflect those of the U.S. Army or Department of Defense.
Cover image via Openverse
The Angry Staff Officer 
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