Culture Change

We hear about culture change within organizations all the time. Most of the time, those shifts are brought on by leadership changes. Arguably the biggest culture change our modern military ever experienced was in 1975 when the military went from a draft military to an all volunteer force. When that happened, the military as a whole changed. Speaking to those who were serving when it happened and through the years after, it was almost seismic.

Right now, the US military is going through another seismic change. After 20 years of combat, where just about everyone spent time supporting, or actively deployed to, Iraq or Afghanistan (or both), there is no more war to fight.

Of course, there are still units deploying in smaller numbers to Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, but it isn’t like it was 2001-2021. If you’ve paid attention to this blog column or you know me personally, you know I deployed a combined five times to Iraq (twice) and Afghanistan (three times) over those years.

My story is not that uncommon. Everyone was deploying, some of us deployed a lot. We were a military fighting a war. We deployed. We came home. We rested. We trained. We deployed again. Over and over. That was the military we were in. The War on Terror was our life. Our time, our effort, our funding. All focused on that. Our lives revolved around it. We were a generation that fought the war. Now, it’s gone.

The problem is, it lasted so long. The majority of the military that served BEFORE the attacks on 9/11 has long since ended our time in uniform. Those of us “old heads” who knew how to train to fight a war that wasn’t staring us in the face, are gone. The leaders of todays military have done nothing but fight. For 20 years, that is all they have done.

Within those 20 years of war, the culture of the military began to shift in small ways. Our uniforms changed so there were no more shined boots and starched creases. The cultural norms of “high and tight” haircuts and adhering to absolute uniformity began to fade.

The military was taking its cues from the special operations community. For mission purposes, those folks wore longer hair, beards, wore mix and match uniforms, and walked around with their hands in their pockets. Slowly, the conventional military started to look and act like the special operators…except those folks were older, more mature, and had more experience. It is tough to tell a 19 year old Infantryman that part of being professional meant looking sharp on a daily basis when those they idolized were walking around looking “scruffy”.

The culture in the special operations community started to become “normalized” in the regular force. Officers allowing enlisted men to call them by their first names became more common. Sergeants accepting bullshit excuses from privates because they wanted to be “cool” started to permeate the force. Individual discipline began to fade…and everyone seemed to be OK with it because, well, we were fighting a war and there were bigger fish to fry. Who cares if someone has their hands in their pockets (against uniform regulations)? It’s cold out and that’s a stupid rule anyway. Except it isn’t. It’s about individual discipline.

One of my favorite scenes from the HBO series Band of Brothers is when Dick Winters uses his bayonet to break apart icy water in an ammo can…to SHAVE. They were under constant attack from the Germans. It was freezing outside. The only water they had was frozen, but he was shaving because that is what was expected. It was about DISCIPLINE.

After 20 years of fighting, and 20 years of a slow shift in culture, there is a discipline problem bubbling up in the military. Go figure. If you aren’t aware, there are accusations of some pretty horrific things going on at my beloved Ft. Bragg. Accusations of drug dealing, human trafficking, and even murder coming out of the special operations community. It’s pretty bad. I read an article that quoted a Special Forces Sergeant who said (I’m paraphrasing) this is what happens when you have an 18 month training cycle and no war to fight.

NO. IT. ISN’T.

Don’t blame this on not having a war to fight. That’s weak bullshit. This is about erosion of individual discipline and the slow culture shift in the military. This is about professionalism. Blaming this on anything other than that is just an excuse for shit conduct.

This is a problem that isn’t going away. Reestablishing discipline, which is something our military WILL NEED when the next war comes, is going to take time. Cultures don’t shift overnight. This will take STRONG leadership and accountability down to the lowest levels. Mostly, this is going to take COURAGE across all the services to say “No. That isn’t OK. And if you don’t correct it, there are consequences.”

The days of “Hey, Private. Take your fucking hands out of your pockets. Put your cap on correctly. Do what the fuck you are told.” need to come back. And they need to come back quickly. Bending to a softer standard isn’t it. That isn’t going to cut it when the real shooting starts.

People are going to say I am an old guy and I am bitter, or I don’t know what I am talking about, or those old ways of thinking don’t apply anymore. Some of them will even say there is no discipline problem in the military.

Fine. Bury your head in the sand. Let me know how that works out for you when you are facing tanks and not terrorists.

Ask yourself if you have the courage to be that leader. In the toughest of times, when you need to stand against the tide. Do you have the courage to implement that culture change?

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