Military Survey Reveals Morale Issues

[lowflier03]

Looks like its not just Naval Aviation.

http://www.militarytimes.com/longform/military/2014/12/07/americas-military-a-force-adrift/18596571/

Military Times just released the results of a survey that not surprisingly had some parallels to the results of the Snodgrass survey. Anyone think leadership will finally realize its not a "perception problem?"

 

[Spekkio]

It's not a matter of recognizing discontent, but what do you want 'leadership' to do about it, and at what level? The article also bounces between branches of service, which doesn't help any because each service has its own culture, organization, and internal issues.

The biggest driver of morale on a ship is the CO, not any particular Commodore or Flag Officer. If you have a good leader for a CO who can communicate the importance of the mission to the crew and how their service is making a contribution to the greater good, the crew will be in much better spirits even with high optempos.

So what is the solution? Do we have Commodores and Admirals come down to tell COs how to run their ships? Ultimately, COs are in place to ensure the ship can execute the mission. The touchy-feely stuff is secondary to that, even though the two are not mutually exclusive.

Snap fingers to create more ships and lower optempos? The money isn't there.

First I heard of the BAH changes...a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg syndrome occurs with BAH. The private landlords know what military BAH rate is and can be unwilling to bargain below that amount. I'm guessing that policymakers are aware of this and are banking that the small incremental changes will see a corresponding decrease in overall housing costs in heavy military towns.

On the other hand, how is any objective person supposed to take this paragraph seriously:

Wolford, a prior-enlisted soldier with 19 years of service and three deployments under his belt, works at the Pentagon. He and his family — wife, Victoria, a first sergeant in the Army Reserve, and four kids, two of them still at home — live in Stafford, Virginia, 40 miles south of the Pentagon.

To save money while Victoria finishes her master's degree to become a teacher, the family relies on coupons and visits the library, and holds off on new movies until they hit DVD.

Oh man, a family with 4 kids and a wife enrolled in a master's degree has to resort to waiting for movies to hit DVD. The horrror!

It sucks that they have to live 40 miles away because DC is ripe with millionaire politicians who drive property values through the roof, but this isn't the best example of a military family living a destitute life.

 

[armada1651]

Oh man, a family with 4 kids and a wife enrolled in a master's degree has to resort to waiting for movies to hit DVD. The horrror!

It sucks that they have to live 40 miles away because DC is ripe with millionaire politicians who drive property values through the roof, but this isn't the best example of a military family living a destitute life.

And twin pensions about to kick in, too. Yeah, I don't think they'll be living in a shelter any time soon.

 

[squorch2]

Part and parcel of shifting from a wartime footing to garrison. Yup, it sucks, but it's not gonna change that much.

 

[Treetop Flyer]

First I heard of the BAH changes...a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg syndrome occurs with BAH. The private landlords know what military BAH rate is and can be unwilling to bargain below that amount. I'm guessing that policymakers are aware of this and are banking that the small incremental changes will see a corresponding decrease in overall housing costs in heavy military towns.

Please tell me you don't actually believe that.

 

[Spekkio]

I do believe that landlords are savvy enough to know what military BAH is. I do believe that they charge at least that much in rent and are pretty unwilling to bargain after househunting in 5 different locations... whether you split it with another single servicemember or live there as a family is your business.

Now, whether they will come down in price to correspond with lowering BAH? Not so sure about that. I'm living in a town that saw 23 murders in 2012 because they lowered BAH here by 15% in the year I PCSed here, no landlord was willing to play ball with that number, and base housing offered a 1200 sq ft ranch with no basement or garage for a family of 4 because being 7 months pregnant doesn't "count" as a child as far as base housing is concerned. So 15% was obviously too drastic, perhaps a smaller increment like 2-5% would be a different story.

Would've been a bigger issue if the kids were school age, for now the wife just hauls them to parks in the next town over.

 

[armada1651]

...policymakers are aware...

I think this is the part Treetop found implausible.

 

[whitesoxnation]

I was always taught perception is reality. Looks like after a certain rank, or maybe it's just in DC, it doesn't matter anymore.

Saying that it's a perception problem is a sign of weak leadership.