Quote:
Originally Posted by ArmySGT.
It was a tool in 1992 when the US Army was drawing down from a Cold War 2 Million to 800,000. In theory it gets rid of the unmotivated, in practice it bashes square pegs into round holes.
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"Up or Out" really dates back to the mid-1950s. As the War and Navy Departments were being combined into the new Department of Defense, the civilian leadership of the armed forces begain to be increasingly drawn from corporate America. Part of this was a drive to further educate the military leadership be encouraging more and more college style education. For the most part, this drive for more education in the officer/NCO corps is good. Where it fell apart was the DOD's efforts to insure that ALL NCOs/Officers HAD to have higher education.
As the US begain to become involved in Vietnam, there were several policy changes that were made. First was the one-year tour of duty that was implemented following the unsatisfactory points system of the Korea War. Great for morale, right (only another 127 days and a wakeup!) but utterly destroyed the fighting capability of units as the one year mark approached.
But DOD also implented a policy of posting an officer to a combat unit for six months and then rotating them to a staff position for the remaining six months of their tour. Since Vietnam was a battalion-level war, this put a lot of pressure on the green 2nd Lieutenants, just as the LT was getting experienced enough to become a real leader....POP! He was now a staff weenie back with the REMFs.
As the need for more and more lieutenants became apparant, the decison was made that if officers didn't meet certain performance and education milestones, then they would be RIFe'd (Reducation in Force), "encouraged" to seek positions with the National Guard/Reserves, "retired" to recruiting or ROTC duties or flat out be encouraged to resign.
As the Vietnam War wound down, "up or out" became firmly inbedded in the Armed Forces. Now DOD is willing to lose a combat proven officer because he didn't make his performance metric and get his promotion to major within three years (because he was in the field leading the troops instead of kissing the colonel's ass as a staff weenie). But some jerk-off whose best skill is his ability to kiss ass without wearing knee pads is on the fast track to becoming a general.
Yup, up or out is working so well.....