I retired a long time ago and saw a few big guys cut loose but stories like the 2 below seem to occur regularly. The second link is the firing of the wife of a colonel in the first link, both brigade level commands.

https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2022/10/07/two-fort-hood-brigade-commanders-fired-amid-investigations/

https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2023/02/07/military-police-commander-at-fort-hood-suspended/

Wow, a husband and wife duo both fired.

My guess is that the services aren't doing a very good job of picking the right people to command.

The Navy was firing people left and right a couple of years ago, the AF had some high profile cannings the last couple of years too. (I think one was a former Thunderbird pilot if I recall).

No doubt, it also goes into training people for command.

The Air Force seems to have a squadron or group commander fired every other month. In my tenure as a squadron commander (across two commands), four peers were removed at my base alone...poor unit climate was the driver for 3 of the 4 (4th one was a more stereotypical "making unprofessional decisions with the wrong head" situation). I know of several others across the service in the past 5 years alone.

Don't know about the other services but the USAF seems to be much less tolerant of poor leadership performance than it used to be. When I was a Lt, it was just accepted that the O-6 is going to be an a-hole to you and make you feel small for not knowing everything he did. That culture wouldn't fly nowadays (for very long).

Of course, we also get more information much faster today than we did back then. You used to just find out because someone was plastered on the cover of the Air Force Times for malfeasance...now you can find out from an official press release, Facebook, Reddit, text chains, and any number of other applications. So maybe things haven't changed that much...we just know about it more.

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/air-force-minot-commanders-relieved/?amp

Seems like another day in the nuclear mission.

I was at Minot, in the Munitions Squadron, when the missiles were flown across the country. I knew all of the folks involved with the maintenance, assembly, breakout, and delivery of the missiles personally. Those were dark days for the wing and especially my squadron.

If I weren't such a greenhorn Lt, I would've gotten the axe like everyone (literally everyone) above me in the CoC, starting with my O-3 flight commander up to the wing king. Virtually overnight, every higher-ranking person I knew in the AF was gone and replaced. My flight commander sticking up for me to the O-8 investigator was the difference in me having a <1 year career in the AF and being here today.

pretty much, we just had an NSI ahead of schedule because the inspectors went to two other nuclear bases and did horribly, so they were like, lets see whats up at Minot.

From what i hear, LRS done did F up...like stupid stuff...

Sounds like cooking the books, if it was NSI related. Even when you fail NSIs, you usually only get fired if A) you are deliberately going against guidance or B) you are clearly not the person to fix the issues ID'd or C) "to be the fall guy"

...but a group, squadron, and flight-level firings together don't indicate the fall guy / "right fit to fix" scenarios.

heres the thing..

E-1's to like E-4 and even some O-1's and 2's, are idiots...I would not trust people down the line to be competent enough to make decisions, especially these 19-20 year old where their frontal cortex is not fully developed. Maybe an issue with NCOs and CO's....but dang...people are idiots...

We entrust quite a bit of decision-making authority in Lts and even E-4s in my corner of the AF (maintenance/munitions/logistics). Thanks to manpower restructuring coming our way, more and more will be placed on their shoulders in the years to come. I won't argue that means our junior folks have to mature faster than their civilian peers. Of course, so have countless military members for ages - the beaches of Normandy and Okinawa were full of folks without fully-formed frontal cortexes.

I would have little sympathy for a 21-series O-2 (like those in an LRS) that gets removed for something in their AOR going awry. After two years, they should know enough and have enough experience to, at the very least, be engaged, ask questions, and set/reinforce standards in their flight/section. They have an AFI/AFMAN for everything they do - it isn't rocket science.

They will have time to recover (unlike their squadron and group commanders) and learn from it...but they do need to learn that they were responsible for the flight, and responsibility comes with accountability. Better to learn it the hard way at O-2 than at O-4/5. This is, in actuality, how we can curb the trend of command firings in the future (to try to stay on topic).

Noblemen06 said:

---

We entrust quite a bit of decision-making authority in Lts and even E-4s in my corner of the AF (maintenance/munitions/logistics). Thanks to manpower restructuring coming our way, more and more will be placed on their shoulders in the years to come. I won't argue that means our junior folks have to mature faster than their civilian peers. Of course, so have countless military members for ages - the beaches of Normandy and Okinawa were full of folks without fully-formed frontal cortexes.

I would have little sympathy for a 21-series O-2 (like those in an LRS) that gets removed for something in their AOR going awry. After two years, they should know enough and have enough experience to, at the very least, be engaged, ask questions, and set/reinforce standards in their flight/section. They have an AFI/AFMAN for everything they do - it isn't rocket science.

They will have time to recover (unlike their squadron and group commanders) and learn from it...but they do need to learn that they were responsible for the flight, and responsibility comes with accountability. Better to learn it the hard way at O-2 than at O-4/5. This is, in actuality, how we can curb the trend of command firings in the future (to try to stay on topic).

---

That was a different generation, waaaaayyyy different generation.

As it relates to military matters, the generation thing is overblown. I remember when millennials were the black sheep, yet our generation fought through 20 years of war without dishonoring our country. People grow up in a hurry when going to combat becomes a reality.

Noblemen06 said:

---

Sounds like cooking the books, if it was NSI related. Even when you fail NSIs, you usually only get fired if A) you are deliberately going against guidance or B) you are clearly not the person to fix the issues ID'd or C) "to be the fall guy"

...but a group, squadron, and flight-level firings together don't indicate the fall guy / "right fit to fix" scenarios.

---

A simpler explanation is to make sure that the person you are sleeping with is your spouse.

And not one of your subordinates, or their spouses.

Follow that simple rule and it resolves 90% of the Army reliefs for cause.

Don't misuse your credit cards or violate travel regs and you eliminate most of the rest.

Totally agree - the post you quoted was specific to the AF's behaviors in the nuclear community. Most of the commanders I've seen removed would have done well to heed your insight. Money and sex make for target rich environments to get caught up in impropriety.

Trinity Ag said:

---

Noblemen06 said:

---

Sounds like cooking the books, if it was NSI related. Even when you fail NSIs, you usually only get fired if A) you are deliberately going against guidance or B) you are clearly not the person to fix the issues ID'd or C) "to be the fall guy"

...but a group, squadron, and flight-level firings together don't indicate the fall guy / "right fit to fix" scenarios.

---

A simpler explanation is to make sure that the person you are sleeping with is your spouse.

And not one of your subordinates, or their spouses.

Follow that simple rule and it resolves 90% of the Army reliefs for cause.

Don't misuse your credit cards or violate travel regs and you eliminate most of the rest.

---

BINGO.

Zippers and $$ are probably 95% of the problems. Many of these folks have the perception that they are/were untouchable or at least, smart enough to outwit "the system."

Some are just raging jerks. Unfortunately, not enough of these get excised and some do become, essentially, untouchable and almost never go down until a flagrant zipper infraction that they can't cover up.

So, need to do a better job of selecting folks for command. Looks good on paper, or riding someone else's coat tails, often =/= good IRL

Noblemen06 said:

---

Seems like another day in the nuclear mission.

I was at Minot, in the Munitions Squadron, when the missiles were flown across the country.

---

I learned that this qualified as a "Bent Spear" instead of "Broken Arrow"

Noblemen, Shenandoah were you at Minot?

'06-'09…my first assignment. Great timing!

Yes, strange times. I was there 08-10.

One thing to note. Just because one didn't see this back in the day doesn't mean the stuff wasn't happening. We have much better reporting procedures today, much better CID (despite the FH report), and much better will to eliminate corrosive senior NCOs and CDRs.

Noblemen06 said:

---

Totally agree - the post you quoted was specific to the AF's behaviors in the nuclear community. Most of the commanders I've seen removed would have done well to heed your insight. Money and sex make for target rich environments to get caught up in impropriety.

---

That was somewhat inadvertent. I intended to refer to the OP's links to the firings at Fort Hood -- which I know something about. The number of "command climate" firings have increased -- but inappropriate relationships remains the dominant cause, followed by travel regs.

Navy and AF nukes definitely have different standards for firing.

In the Navy 95% of it seems to be "don't run your boat into anything" or accept gifts from fat foreigners in exchange for contracts.

Ha, that whole fat Leonard thing is wild.