Sen Jim Webb that is:
Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., is pressing the Defense Department for justification of why the military has so many flag and general officers, and he also wants to know why the military is paying salary and tuition assistance to officers on loan to some Washington, D.C., think tanks.
The requests for information from Webb, a Marine veteran and former Defense Department official who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services personnel subcommittee, appear remarkably similar to the efforts of another military veteran, former Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, who once headed the same subcommittee.
Glenn, a retired Marine and former astronaut who headed what was then called the military personnel subcommittee from 1987 to 1994, launched an overhaul of flag and general officer policy after he began asking why the number of senior officers was not dropped at the same rate as the size of the force in the post-Cold War drawdown. Glenn also forced changes in the military’s fellowship program, which basically loaned military officers and civilians to members of Congress to be staffers.
Webb said Wednesday that he is just asking questions at this point.
In the case of flag and general officers, Webb said he wants an explanation why the number of senior officers continues to grow. He has not concluded there are too many, but is asking why there are so many, and what exactly they are all doing. Those kinds of questions began Glenn’s multi-year push to reduce the number of admirals and generals, which he based on the officer-to-enlisted ratio and termed “brass creep.”
Defense Department statistics show there were 38 four-stars, 149 three-stars, 299 two-stars and 464 one-stars on active duty at the end of March.
Brass creep-or ass creep?
He’s probably barking up the wrong tree about the fellowships-they do provide a positive return for the services and more importantly they provide a venue for senior officers to mingle with people who influence political decision making. That’s probably a good thing in the long term.
But complaining about having too many flags? Right on the mark.
The US Navy has more flag officers than it has ships. It has flag officers holding positions that were long held by Captains. To justify this flag creep-it has had re-organization after re-organization, like the at the place I used to work-which was and should be an O-6 command. Yet they got sucked into a flag staff, the current incumbent has used and abused these people mightily. ( Yes Grunie-I’m talking about you!).
Good for Senator Webb. However to get anywhere-he is going to have to turn up the heat and ask for more information from the senior flags who have helped this situation along.
fellowships= lobbyists payed with our tax dollars to influence our tax dollars
I agree that there are too many stars in the puzzle palace, the issue is one of perceived power. I believe that this started in the 50s as the Air Force rose from its beginnings. The more people wearing stars, the more powerful the service appears and the more access to committees that have the funds.
Mike