The Military Has a Bureaucrat Problem

I'd like to share a, heavily edited, anecdote on this subject to reinforce the SWJ Editors, and the AEI authors concern.

Several years ago, but less than a decade, I was slated to attend an event at a prestige Army Institute at a base in PA (which informed readers should easily be able to guess the identity of…)

The Base Commander, a Colonel, and his staff were responsible for the organizational busy work, like coordinating the token attendance registration fee, off base accommodations, and etc. NOT the General or senior officers or staff at the Institute itself, who delegate this sorts of things. This included dealing with VIP's from other Nations Militaries, all the way up to the WH's NSA, who had intended to be an unofficial attendee.

I happened to be the last person to get my registration info turned in… and much to my very great surprise, the confirmation email I received revealed a coding bug that accidentally sent me WAY more information about the other registered 'guests' than was appropriate. Put bluntly, a LOT of Generals and Secretaries and under-secretaries of a LOT of Countries, as well as important Americans, eventually had to change all of their personal and billing data… but I'll get to that in a paragraph or two.

I had already contacted the Base Commandant about a different, somewhat related matter, but when I saw what was obviously a nightmare of an IA breech, I called again the next day to make sure it got fixed (and figured letting the Colonel take the credit, rather than following SOP wouldn't do me any real harm). The Colonel was away that particular week, and I got his secretary, a civilian, instead. It turned out that she had some relationship with the civilian IT contractor they'd brought in to handle the DB and auto-reply coding. Moreover, the moment she heard of my, technical, affiliation, she said something that astonished me: SHE had the Colonel's voice mail and email log-on passwords, and actually THREATENED to use them to delete the message and emails I'd already sent to her BOSS! I.e. she had not only inserted herself, a civilian, into the Military Chain of Command, she'd used that authority in a manner that would have landed an enlisted secretary in the brig!

I gave her a chance. When I didn't hear back from the Colonel within what I considered an appropriate period, I kicked the matter over to the Special Agents at IA (with insanely high grades, due to the nature of the problem). Needless to say, I did NOT attend. The DoD IG or DISA or "I don't need to know" ended up resolving the issue, but that was the end of quite a list of Officers careers, which was a pity however appropriate, because save for misjudging one civilian's character (I'll leave the reader to ponder WHICH civilian I'm referring to…), they were exemplary soldiers.

Having just outperformed a civilian Pentagon department with a $100 million a year budget, over a 3-5 year period, with one tenth of one percent of their ANNUAL budget, and only ONE "paid" staffer… by 2000%. I'm well aware of how annoying this "problem" is… In my case, AFTER our/my results, the SecDef ordered a comprehensive overhaul of the ENTIRE bureaucracy… except he's been replaced. So NOW that SAME bureaucracy has TWICE the annual budget, and TEN times it's old performance target, but hasn't changed a bit. So whichever General is going to be in charge in a couple years when the DoD IG gets BACK to RE-AUDIT this same gaggle of lazy, derelict highly paid lay-abouts, will have proven, via accepting the gig in the first place, that he's unfit for further promotion and should retire (the Peter Principle in practice).

I suppose the lesson is: in this day and age, General's or Officers that want to climb the greasy pole, need to know who the Old Men's Giant Killers/Fire-fighters are, as failing to invite them to a Party one is throwing to celebrate something THEY had a hand in culling, is career suicide. LOL.

A. Scott Crawford
ascottfoundation.org