The Briefing Room
General Category => Military/Defense News => Topic started by: Gazoo on March 25, 2014, 07:51:16 pm
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A Navy F-18 fighter pilot and former Top Gun instructor is publicly warning admirals that retention is beginning to suffer from the military’s relentless social conditioning programs.
Cmdr. Guy Snodgrass, until recently a Pentagon speech writer for the chief of naval operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, said sailors are becoming fed-up with the constant emphasis on social issues — an apparent reference to gays in the military, women in combat and ending sexual harassment.
“Sailors continue to cite the over-focus on social issues by senior leadership, above and beyond discussions on war fighting — a fact that demoralizes junior and mid-grade officers alike,” Cmdr. Snodgrass wrote this month on the U.S. Naval Institute website, an independent forum for active and retired sailors and Marines.
It is a remarkably frank assessment from an upwardly mobile fighter pilot who is due to become the executive officer of a F-18 unit in Japan.
He says one troubling sign already has emerged: a drop in applications to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis last year.
He says retention racked up its “worst year in history” for the special warfare community, including Navy SEALs, with a record number of lieutenants declining to stay.
The aviation side had a goal of 45 percent “take rate” on retention bonuses, but got only 36 percent.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/25/sailors-leaving-navy-over-stress-on-social-issues-/ (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/25/sailors-leaving-navy-over-stress-on-social-issues-/)