10th Mountain Division, Ft. Drum, NY. Went through 'Winter Warfare Training' there back in January 1990. Funny thing is that there are no mountains at Ft. Drum. Hills, but not mountains. Only time in my career as a soldier where I actually had the government pay me to go skiing. Froze my butt off, but overall, it was fun. The 10th Mountain boys are going to have lots of fun with 2LT Rapone. I would be scared if I was him. What an idiot to go Infantry.
The 10th Mountain is a Light Infantry unit. We know 2LT Rapone is not Ranger qualified but he can still be assigned an Infantry Platoon. General Norman Schwarzkopf, Gulf War 1991, was an Infantry officer who was not Ranger qualified, and yes, I have seen Infantry Platoon leaders in my time in the U.S. Army who were not Ranger qualified, but that was many years ago. It also depends on when you get sent to Ranger school or if you failed the first time and will try for a second time. 2LT Rapone could be assigned to a specialty Platoon (Mortars, NBC, etc.) or work as a clerk at HQ, S1 or S4. If he does not get an Infantry Platoon assignment, his career as an Infantry officer is over. He will need to branch transfer or go into the Reserves to finish his time in uniform.
Man, the U.S. Army has sure changed since I was in. Sad letter about West Point, seems like the Honor Code has gone to shit along with everything else. Too much liberalism and Political Correctness. Your experiences on Active Duty seem to be following that trail. That really sucks. Soft soldiers as a result of a soft Basic Training, a soft West Point and even a soft Ranger school. Well we can partly thank women integration for causing a lot of it. We now have women in the Infantry and Ranger school. Sad.
A Secret clearance is good for 10 years. 2LT Rapone would not have needed a clearance as a Specialist (E-4) when he was with the Ranger Battalion and before his deployment. As I mentioned before, I did a tour with the S2 at Battalion level years ago (I was in Civil Affairs by that time) and was involved with the issue of security clearances and OPM. Soldiers are suppose to notify OPM during their 10 year period with a Secret clearance of any significant changes in their life. It rarely happens. An Intelligence officer with the S2, or actually any unit Commander, can request a background OPM re-investigation (update/cause) on any officer he/she feels a need for. It may take a while. A few years ago OPM had a huge backlog on Secret and Top Secret clearance investigations. 2LT Rapone's clearance could also be downgraded to Confidential. I would not say OPM hands out Secret clearances like candy. Well, maybe today they do, I don't know. But the clearance also plays into being MOS qualified.
Why would your PL not have to pay anything back to the government? It is like a student loan. "The military hardly ever actually goes after people for their crimes." I don't know if I agree with that. It wasn't like that when I was in. Much like what LTC Heffington's letter talks about, and I'm older than him. Again, times have changed. In my day you were history is you tested positive for drugs on a piss test. Insubordination was an Article 15 offence. I feel sorry for the soldiers (officer/enlisted) who are out there every day giving 100% and having to put up with their 'shit' counterpart. Just my 2 cents...
Thankfully, I've never been assigned to Drum, and I likely never will be. Too cold up there for my liking. But my experience with 10th Mountain Soldiers has been pretty positive, overall. I've definitely enjoyed working with them and 25th ID Soldiers more than any other conventional units out there.
Times have changed. If you don't have your tab, you're done. Or go out to a place like Ft Hood or Ft Bliss in those heavy divisions. You can still get away with being a non-tabbed IN officer over there, but you better have it by the time you take Company Command. If not, you're a joke and won't make it. That's just how it is now. As for the Mortar Platoon or the Scouts, those are actually harder to get than a regular Rifle Platoon. Typically, the two best PL's that aren't selected to become Company XO's become the specialty PL's.
There are a large chunk of folks in uniform that are what I like to call Oxygen Thieves. That's why I went into an unconventional unit with population control as soon as I could. And now my funny-colored Frenchman's hat means that I won't have to leave. Get what I am saying? Dirtbags of all shapes, sizes, and colors come in expecting things to be handed to them, they're lazy, and they don't have drive. Oh well, just a reflection of society itself, I guess.
I've never been an S-2, but I've seen some very questionable characters get a Secret clearance. The threshold just doesn't seem to be very high. I don't know what a Ranger needs for clearances in this day and age. The minimum for an SF Soldier is a Secret, and all the 18A, 18Z, 18F, and 18E guys have a TS/SCI. Most of the other guys have at least a TS for one reason or another, but Secret is the minimum. Again, not sure what Rangers need to stay in the 75th.
When I was in a conventional unit, I saw guys fail PT tests for a year straight while getting retested every damn month, guys get DUIs and stay in the military, guys get retained after popping hot in a piss test for weed, and guys that couldn't qualify on their assigned weapons. And we took those guys to combat. Before I deployed, I had an NCO walk up to my desk and ask me to sign a bunch of weapons qualification cards. I told him that I didn't know that these guys had gone to the range. He told me that they had hand-jammed the cards. Two guys were given passing scores so that the 1SG would get off their backs, and a few more were NCOs trying to make points for a promotion. I was fucking livid. The next morning, I went to the range with each of them personally, and I coached them all myself on shooting. Of the 5 guys I took down there, 3 of them were successful (1/2 passed, 2/3 improved their scores to get enough points to make the promotion cut-off). The other 2 guys needed additional training, and it was conducted by other NCOs at a later time. Of course, all the while, I'm hearing about the importance of haircuts, clean uniforms, doing mock promotion boards, etc. AKA admin bullshit that doesn't win wars or keep you alive when someone is doing everything in their power to kill you. This is a snapshot into what we are dealing with. It's also why I developed a sour taste in my mouth about the regular Army, so I went to do something else. And it was the best decision I ever made in my professional career.