Did you know? The Patriot Post is funded 100% by its readers. Help us stay front and center in the fight for Liberty and support the 2024 Year-End Campaign.

December 13, 2017

Military Readiness: ‘Careerism’ in the SF Community?

Despite recent allegations, the strenuous reviews necessary to advance ranks and billets serves us well.

“Careerism” is a dirty word in any context. It references a person in management who is no longer effective — motivated to maintain their status primarily to obtain pension and retirement benefits. Self-serving careerists are a drain on an organization and tend to make their subordinates miserable. However, in military command positions, the consequences of substandard leadership can be lethal. All of us who have career service in the military have crossed paths with careerists.

A recent post on this topic that circulated through the special operations community accused senior Army Special Forces leaders of exactly that. Titled “Careerism, Cronyism, and Malfeasance in SWCS: The End of SF Capability,” the post bemoans the erosion — if not outright elimination — of standards throughout the schoolhouse pipeline that produces the Army’s legendary Green Berets. While the author does a good job citing examples that support his argument that standards aren’t being maintained, he does not provide sufficient evidence tying his charges to careerism.

Unfortunately, some of today’s military analysts have taken a page from the mainstream media and are resorting to ad hominem attacks that malign character and motives rather than conceding that folks with honorable intentions could arrive at different policy solutions. While there most assuredly are careerists in the military chain of command in each service branch, they are relatively rare exceptions because of, in most cases, the strenuous reviews necessary to advance ranks and billets. It’s even rarer that multiple careerist officers and senior enlisted leaders are found in a single command at the same time, as the author alleges. It’s possible, but not likely.

Sensational careerism accusations may generate some additional interest at first, but they put the focus on the individuals rather than the real issues, and seldom result in changes to processes and policies. Worst case, unsubstantiated overuse of pejorative terms eventually leads the consumers of such posts to ignore the author’s arguments altogether.

Erosion of standards, particularly in a force as critical to today’s fight as our Special Forces units, is a serious issue. The examples cited in recent posts resonate because it’s easy even for folks outside the community to see the connection between the standards and the skills and abilities we believe these soldiers require. Even so, there are possible explanations other than careerism that would lead SF senior leaders to direct these changes. The most plausible of those is that the combined pressure of maintaining an exceptionally high operational tempo (OPTEMPO) along with mandates to increase the size of the Regiment (in hopes of reducing OPTEMPO) led senior leaders to conclude that the risk associated with adjusting standards posed less danger to the organization — and to our national military objectives — than continuing to chew up and spit out the same limited pool of operators.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.