When old things become new again

By David W. Kuhns Sr., Northwest Guardian

There was an interesting discussion on an Army Knowledge Online forum the other day. It was an argument over which was better, the “old” Army or the “new” Army.

Some pointed out new innovations in equipment and organization, widespread combat experience and compensation, and declared the “new” Army to be clearly superior. Others pointed out that senior leaders from the “old” Army are the ones carrying out the changes today and declared the “old” Army to be superior.

I think both sides were correct — and wrong, as well.

You can’t look at the Army as passing over a series of divides. At what point was the Army “old?” When did it become “new?”

I enlisted during a time when everyone agrees the Army was not doing well — the 1970s. Money was short; equipment was aging; and morale was in the dumpster. But as easy as it is to condemn that “hollow” Army, it wasn’t all bad.

For one thing, we had some great Soldiers from an earlier era (the really old Army?). My first NCOs were all combat veterans from Vietnam. Whatever the nation thought of that conflict, those Soldiers knew what they were doing. Heck, I even worked briefly with a warrant officer who enlisted a week after Pearl Harbor. He was a repository for lessons learned from 40 years’ service — World War II, Korea and Vietnam. There wasn’t some gap between the service of those “old” Soldiers and my “new” ones. We learned from those who went before. Some of those lessons have had to be modified over the years, but they are still part of the foundation on which today’s Army is built.

While there were some really bad young Soldiers in uniform in the ’70s, there were some pretty good ones, too. They were the ones who carried out the modernization and improvements of the ’80s.

The battalion commanders, command sergeants major, first sergeants and company COs who led the Army to overwhelming victory in Desert Storm were products of the “hollow” Army. Their Soldiers then are leaders now. There was no shift from that particular “old” Army to the new one today.

There will always be things we liked about our early days in uniform that pass away.

Generations of good Soldiers prided themselves on the quality of the spit shine they could produce on a pair of combat boots. You could gauge a unit’s discipline by the shine on their feet. Now the boots are a dull tan.

But does that mean the “old” days were better? We might get nostalgic about the time we spent with a can of Kiwi, but that sort of effort did little to train Soldiers for combat.

There are features of the old versus new debate that will probably never change. Basic training was always tougher back in the day, the drill sergeants were meaner, the discipline more sadistic — and thus more effective. The time frame is immaterial — whether the old-time basic training was in 1975 or 2005. If standards had really slipped and conditions grown as progressively softer as legend would indicate, new Soldiers would be training at Club Med by now.

The only thing I can really say about my “old” and the current “new” is that it just keeps getting better and better. And there is no end in sight.

David W. Kuhns Sr.: david-kuhns@us.army.mil