The Pentagon Should Unshackle Its Military Personnel with One Standard Evaluation

Wilson VornDick

Security,

Perhaps a joint, secure, and streamlined personnel evaluation system would unshackle and release one of DoD’s most potent and lethal weapons – its people.

After the Allied invasion of Sicily was complete in the late summer of 1943, Lieutenant General George Patton took a respite from the war to type up an Efficiency Report for his deputy, Lieutenant General Omar Bradley.  The short, two page report had only thirteen questions.  In them, Patton observed Bradley over the course of “intimate daily contact” and commended Bradley as “not only a great soldier, but an utterly loyal friend.”  When asked to gauge his deputy up against the other general officers that he was familiar, Patton ranked Bradley 2nd out of the 12 he knew and recommended that he be granted command of “An Army.”  Patton was already famous in his own right but General Omar Bradley would go on to be one of only four 5-star generals in U.S. military history and the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Seventy years later, evaluations remain an integral, albeit understated and underappreciated, system for the military.  In fact, the U.S. military now stands as one of the largest assessment organizations in the world with almost 1.4 million active duty and 800,000 Guard and Reserve personnel. Combined, they expend in excess of 3 million hours (roughly 342 years) annually in the preparation, rating, review, and socialization of their military professional evaluations.  Yet, each Service has its own stove-piped assessment system that essentially evaluates the same thing: identifying the most qualified Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Marine for advancement and assignment to positions of increased responsibility.  However, my recent study in Joint Forces Quarterly (JFQ) finds that while the distinct Services’ systems appear to support their respective Services’ needs well enough, four disparate and divergent evaluation systems burden joint operations, distract from larger Department of Defense (DoD) personnel initiatives, degrade the Joint Force’s ability to achieve stated national military objectives, and inefficiently expend limited resources. Moreover, the highest military positions remain at the Joint, Interagency, and Secretariat-level so why isn’t there one standard evaluation?

Administrative Obstacles to the Warfighter