Soldiers are turning to social media when the chain of command falls short. The Army sees it as a nu

[rangerrebew]

Soldiers are turning to social media when the chain of command falls short. The Army sees it as a nuisance.
Despite the Army's insistence that soldiers should bring issues to their chain of command, rank-and-file troops are heading online to resolve problems when their unit leaders can't, or won't.
Patty Nieberg

Posted on Jan 9, 2025

 
When trash bins overflowed at Fort Liberty and continued to pile up for weeks last winter, soldiers at the North Carolina Army base sent photos to a soldier-run Instagram account to highlight the unsightly issue. Comments flooded in, many of them jokes at the Army’s expense. Within days of that initial social media post, which prompted news coverage, base officials responded and the garbage was removed.
 

The de facto smoke pit of the digital era, social media in the military has long been a gathering place for service members and veterans. But it’s also a tool of last resort for rank-and-file troops who feel that the only way to fix a problem they’re facing is to post about it publicly and break with a longstanding cultural norm in the military to keep issues in-house.
 
The Army, as an institution, has seen social media as a crucial recruiting tool in recent years, but when it comes to how the branch uses these platforms to engage with its own members, some current and former soldiers say the strategy is unclear at best and adversarial at worst. Recently, Army leaders have been reluctant to embrace newer forms of media as a way to receive feedback from soldiers. Instead, the preference, and oft-repeated talking point, has been that soldiers should run their problems through their chain of command.

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-online-soldiers-quality-of-life/

[rangerrebew]

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2022/02/14/capt-crozier-hero-to-his-teddy-roosevelt-sailors-and-then-fired-set-to-retire/

When the Commanding Officer of an aircraft carrier can't get the people in the carpeted offices to respond to his concerns, you know the average enlisted person's complaints are going to be ignored.

[Timber Rattler]

Yep, the most effective action that Army soldiers can take when their command chains fail them is to post their complaints and pics on U.S. Army WTF Moments on Facebook and X/Twitter. 

https://www.facebook.com/usawtfm

https://twitter.com/thewtfnation?lang=ms

With 1.6 million followers,  immediate heat is generated and sometimes the responsible field-grade or even flag-level commander will chime in if he or she is being lied to by underlings.

During a roundtable with a handful of reporters at the October 2024 Association of the United States Army conference in Washington D.C., Task & Purpose asked Lt. Gen. Omar Jones, head of Army Installation Management Command if he knew of Hots&Cots. Jones said he was aware of the app but does not pay it much attention.

“I empathize with why service members and their families may choose to use alternate channels to seek assistance when they feel unheard,” Jones said in a statement after the roundtable, adding that soldiers need to use their chains of command and submit work order requests through official channels like the Defense Department-wide Interactive Customer Evaluation, ICE, and the Army Maintenance Activity, ARMA, portals. He emphasized that using official channels puts information into a database that his team can “track and follow up on” and helps leadership hold “housing providers and ourselves accountable.”

The Army’s “preference” is that soldiers bring their concerns to their chain of command and take advantage of open door policies, which are designed by each commander, Heather Hagan, spokesperson for the service said in a statement to Task & Purpose. According to Army command policy regulation, open door policies put the onus on soldiers to make leadership aware of any personal or professional problems that a soldier “has been unable to resolve,” and require commanders to notify soldiers about their specific policy.

EXCEPT...that doesn't work!  And these morons can't figure out why their soldiers go to social media with their complaints?  Jones' arrogance is symptomatic of the problem...he doesn't want to hear about it.