Decisions that boggle the mind

Hey everybody. Nope I haven’t fallen off the edge of the world. With serious knee surgery, powerful drugs, painful physical therapy, a pending divorce, and the holidays, I just haven’t had the time or inclination to do much posting. But I found out something the other day that pisses me off.
If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I was the PAO for the US Joint Forces Military Skills Training Center. I did that in 2002, 2004, and 2005.
The Center originally was the training camp for Reserve and Guard officers of all five services to compete for slots on the US team to compete at the NATO Interallied Confederation of Reserve Officers (CIOR) Military Skills Competition held every year since 1948. It’s a pentathlon consisting of rifle marksmanship, pistol marksmanship, 500-meter land obstacle course, 50-meter water obstacle course, and a 10 to 15-kilometer land nav course. The competition moves from NATO country to NATO country every year. What’s interesting is that for the rifle and pistol competitions, the shooters used the weapons of the host country. No race guns. Just off the shelf, out of the armory weapons. 200 meters for the rifle; 25 meters for the pistol. The water obstacle course is swam wearing the host country duty uniforms. The US has always done well at the competitions. Sometimes, very well.
A few years ago, right before Sep 11, a smart team captain came up with the idea of opening up the Center. They had the best marksmanship instructors in the military there teaching how to shoot. Almost all of the instructors wore the President’s One Hundred tab awarded to the top 100 military shooters at the National Matches held each year at Camp Perry, Ohio. They had the top land nav experts teaching advanced land navigation skills. They taught International Laws of War, nutrition, task visualization, combat first aid. So U.S. Army Reserve Lt. Col. Bob Thompson started advertising what the center had to offer. There was a little interest in what the Center had to offer.
Then Sep 11 happened. We were now at war. The Global War on Terrorism. Interest in what the Center had to offer took off. Instead of one three-week training camp each summer, the Center started conducting training courses for anyone who asked. A platoon leader from the 344th MI battalion brought several of his platoon and squad sergeants to learn how to be better shooters. They wrote a short time after leaving and said when they went to the range to qualify, his company had a 100% pass rate, the highest in the battalion, and the battalion commander wanted to know what they did to get their scores up. The 108th Training Division, now in Iraq training part of the Iraqi Army, sent their marksmanship instructors to a four-day training course so they could be better marksmanship instructors for the Iraqis. The head land nav instructor at the Center, A Naval Reserve SEAL, was chosen by the commander of SEAL Team 2 to re-teach advanced land nav to the active duty SEAL’s. Cadre at the Center received emails and letters from former attendees at some of the training camps that said the land nav and marksmanship training they had received had saved their asses in Afghanistan and Iraq. Navy marksmanship instructors from the Great Lakes Naval Training Center came to learn from the Center’s instructors. Facility Engineer Team 19, deploying to Iraq, stop first at the Center for a 3-day team building course. Officers who completed the three week training camps said it was some of the best training they had ever completed, including Rangers, Special Forces, West Point grads.
So it seems that Lt. Col. Thompson was right. The Center could and did provide valuable war fighting instruction to those who need and wanted it. Until this year.
The Center is congressionally mandated to be funded by the US Army Reserve Command. The upper leadership of USARC has for years hated the Center. So much so that when awards were written for cadre and officers, they were turned down. Lt Col. Thompson was awarded the Navy Commendation Medal by an Admiral from the Joint Forces Command because the powers that be at USARC refused to okay the Army award. USARC has tried several times to cut all funding. This year, they finally succeeded. Some pencil pushing geek, who probably couldn’t make the team one year, cut the funding because “if it’s not related to fighting the Global War on Terrorism, it goes.” Back in the 70’s and 80’s, the Center had the reputation of being the “San Antone Jog and Supper Club” as Lt. Col Thompson called it.
That was then, this is now. The Center’s budget was cut in 2006 so that NO training camp was conducted, and just to show a face, funded two 3-man teams to go to the NATO competition. No training, no adjustment for jet lag. Just fly in. Compete. Go home. And I found out last week, there’s NO funding for 2007.
So we can spend millions of dollars to fund a NASCAR car to get some bubbas to enlist, or a dragster, or Army Athlete program, or a high school all-star football game. But a facility that trains Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Airmen to be better warfighters gets cut. Good bonehead decision, asswipes.
At least the website is still up. http://www.uscior.army.mil/