Quote:
Originally Posted by billethkid
Is it possible that the permissive attitude and watering down of expectations, nobody fails, everybody is equal is manifesting itself in our services?
I know from talking to drill/gunny sergeants at Parris Island it is very prevalent there, hence all services.
Not allowed to discipline, expectations are watered down, etc, etc......compared to pre permissive America.
Just a thought.
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I agree with you 100%!
It's been going on a lot longer than most realize. I saw it in the 80's when I was an instructor in the Navy at the Nuclear Power Training Unit in Ballston Spa NY, we were told to be "pumps not filters". The Navy Nuclear Power Program at that time had a 60+% pipeline attrition rate for the Nuc program, by design, it was supposed to be hard, they wanted only the best in the program operating the reactors in the fleet. The powers that be wanted to lower the number to <30% so we were told to be "pumps not filters" for the students and let the fleet worry about weeding out those who couldn't cut it. I don't know a single instructor at the time who took that direction to heart, we all knew that we would be returning to the fleet and would see these guys again, no thanks, the filters stayed on.
We received students out of Nuclear Power School in Orlando that should have never made it to NPTU. Every instructor got two or three students in every class to be a mentor to in addition to their normal instructor duties. One of my charges come out of NPS with a 2.48 GPA, minimum passing grade is 2.50. He didn't have the academic skills to make it through the program and eventually failed his final oral board, twice. The filters worked.
Before retiring from the Navy in '99 I had guys reporting to my division on the ship that were of questionable abilities. These guys were intelligent by most standards but by Nuc program standards were a box of rocks. There was a lot of "hand holding" to be done and we had to make them "feel valued" when they came on board. We had to "make them feel motivated" to do their job, a load of crap. They signed an enlistment contract, they get a paycheck twice a month, they're told to do it, motivation complete. It's the military not summer camp, you don't do your job, people die.
What happened on these two ships can be boiled down to three things, poor leadership, poor watch standing practices, and too much reliance on technology. Watch for the results of the investigations, you'll see all three listed as root causes.