11-16-2011, 05:24 PM
John,
My experience was that it's a mix. The technical challenges weed out the truly incompetent pretty fast, so many of the O-4's and O-5's are pretty good, with the true dullards usually being retired before making O-6. The retired ones frequently got hired by the Washington contract community, where their "skills" continued to hamper progress.
The good news is that the selection process for O-7 and above seems to work pretty good for the most part. Some of the most intelligent and knowledgeable folks I had the pleasure of meeting with were O-7 and above. There was at least one exception, but he retired as an O-7.
The problem is that the O-4's, O-5's and their civilian counterparts control more of the decision and information generating effort than one would guess. Hence the decision maker rarely sees the ideas the field grade folks didn't like, independent of the merits of the idea.
I can also say that the folks who would cling to a position in spite of an preponderance of information to the contrary did exist, but they are almost always overruled or otherwise ignored. These guys tended to gnash their teeth a lot.
My experience was that it's a mix. The technical challenges weed out the truly incompetent pretty fast, so many of the O-4's and O-5's are pretty good, with the true dullards usually being retired before making O-6. The retired ones frequently got hired by the Washington contract community, where their "skills" continued to hamper progress.
The good news is that the selection process for O-7 and above seems to work pretty good for the most part. Some of the most intelligent and knowledgeable folks I had the pleasure of meeting with were O-7 and above. There was at least one exception, but he retired as an O-7.
The problem is that the O-4's, O-5's and their civilian counterparts control more of the decision and information generating effort than one would guess. Hence the decision maker rarely sees the ideas the field grade folks didn't like, independent of the merits of the idea.
I can also say that the folks who would cling to a position in spite of an preponderance of information to the contrary did exist, but they are almost always overruled or otherwise ignored. These guys tended to gnash their teeth a lot.