Army Colonel is critical of ISAF HQ and gets send home!

[helolumpy]

Looks like a Reserve Colonel sent a diatribe to UPI about how dysfunctional the ISAF staff is; specifically he blasts the use of Powerpoint:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=upiUPI-20100823-112700-2345&show_article=1

After the higher ups caught wind of it, he was sent home.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/27/powerpoint_colonel_busted/


After having the previous thread about the evils of Powerpoint, I thought this would be interesting!

 

[Hozer]

Yawn, much more to the story...0-5 who suddenly feels compelled to rail against the perceived dependency on PPT....yawn again...oops..gotta go brief for another hop...

 

[Deleted member 24525]

BTW it wasn't ISAF, it was the subordinate command IJC

there is not much more to the story...
the guy was worthless for 2 months, wrote an article about how everyone is a .ppt retard met with two generals and was on the plane home in 48 hours.
Granted, it is true that almost everyone below his rank agrees with what he said, but they also agree those types of rants are reserved for the ready room...not the media. He was about 70% correct in what he said, but he was wrong in going outside the command.

 

[phrogdriver]

I got the same impression. You just can't call the people you work with idiots and expect things to work out for you. If he'd just called out the use of .ppt, he would've been okay. Railing about the idiocy of your command is just going to get one canned. And it did.

 

[Clux4]

I am not sure a Reserve Colonel at 61 has much shelf life. I think this was the "last act". He probably was retiring at the end of this tour.

 

[Jim123]

Regardless of whether the COL was right or wrong to publish his rant/great big F-U or whatever his motives, I don't believe for even a second that the outcome was any surprise to him.

(A running joke in the reserves is the saying, "I already quit once.")

 

[Schnugg]

Now where is that spaghetti ppt graphic when I need it?

here we go...makes perfect sense...

 

[eddie]

A running joke in the reserves is the saying, "I already quit once."

I am suddenly reminded of the New Jersey Education Comissioner, Bret Schundler.

To paraphrase: "No, I won't resign. You can fire me so I can collect severance."

 

[slug]

Saw a quote from an anonymous Russian General at Ft. Rucker once, I think a Warrant Officer quoted it (appropriate):

"We have found the critical weakness in the American Military and that weakness is called Microsoft Powerpoint. While you are tweaking your slides... we will be killing you."

Still, all things considered, after reading the rant, COL Douche Bag released it for his own glory. Along the same line as GEN McCrystal getting profiled by Rolling Stone. "Hey kid, we'll make ya famous!" I think this puts said COL high in the running for the Douche Bag of the Year Award, or the DBOTY as I have christened it. Although I think McChrystal has that one locked (sorry Sir, you're a rock star, genius warrior, but a monumental F-up it was).

My final advice to said DBOTY runner-up COL: hurry up and die already, so that our taxes stop paying for your pension. Shite!

 

[Deleted member 24525]

Slug I would have to agree with you on the fact that he did it for his own personal reasons. That is proen by the fact that now he has a Facebook Page: trying to capitalize on it..the page didn't start until after he was relieved. It is like he is trying to make himself into a folk hero...
I hate to do this, but you all need to see the douchebagetry with your own eyes:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Colonel-Lawrence-Sellin/155619744453235?ref=ts

 

[ryan1234]

In light of Gen. McChrystal, this had to an intentional career suicide. John Boyd had a bunch of bad things to say about the Pentagon - but he didn't say it to the media...he said it to their faces.... granted the career progression after that was about the same, but at least Boyd managed to make a few impressions and get things done.

 

[helolumpy]

Regardless of the outcome, he makes some very valid point regarding the use of Powerpoint slides in our briefing process.
The J-3 will develop a schedule for slide production to meet the CUB/BUB schedule every day.
How many hours do we waste building slides and back-ups for briefs?

 

[Deleted member 24525]

The worst part of all of this is indeed the waste of man hours..people spend so much time on power point that they end up negelcting their real work...

 

[navymic]

The powerpoints are not the true waste of man-hours, the bloated staff here is the waste of man-hours. If there aren't powerpoints, people would still be twirling their thumbs (more than they are now).

While most of what the Col said was true (except for his first paragraph), he was the wrong messenger in the wrong forum. He had a bad reputation before this article. He was here for less than two months, but made an immediate impact, and it was not a good one. He didn't like his initial job here, Regional Command LNO, so he fished around for another one. He thought he was smarter than everyone else, but I guess there is more than one defintion of smart. Overall he was a poor Army 0-6. Now there is one less Col for my swinging dead cat to hit.

 

[phrogdriver]

Good article on the proper use of Powerpoint.

With great power comes great responsibility.