by Joo Chung
Four months into being a platoon leader, I earned my Expert Infantryman Badge (EIB). I became, in the eyes of many, a “complete” infantry lieutenant. I was Airborne-, Air Assault-, and Ranger-qualified…and an expert. Never mind that the next day I returned to the same job that my “not-as-complete” peers were probably doing better.
In Lieutenant Land, where experience is hard to come by, badges and tabs are the go-to currency of competence. Those endowed with heavy uniforms command attention to their ability to perform, to endure, and ultimately to achieve results. In theory, this makes sense; for example, Ranger School forces lieutenants to face the realities of what they’ll ask of their soldiers in combat. EIB validates their mastery of tasks they expect their soldiers to have mastered. It’s a self-policing system that’s supposed to filter out those not yet prepared to lead.
As with most things, those pesky elements of chance, circumstance, and (mis)fortune prevent this system from being perfect. Yet, we continue to promote critical rites of passage that are somewhat predicated on circumstance and chance.
“In Lieutenant Land, where experience is hard to come by, badges and tabs are the go-to currency of competence.”
One of my brother platoon leaders broke his leg during IBOLC and never got the chance to go to Ranger. During our EIB train-up, one of the graders asked him, “Where is your tab?”, then promptly gave him a no-go. I blundered through the lane and was just fine, by the way. This kind of instantaneous judgement encourages a tribal elitism that most write off as a consequence of the military meritocracy.
While this level of favoritism may be harmless, the implications of this culture on Army talent management are damning. Colonel Townley Hedrick, deputy commandant of the Infantry School at Fort Benning, likes to dismiss Ranger School as “a blade of grass in the football field of your life.” Perhaps this is true, but it is one seriously important blade of grass on the football field of your career in the infantry. It is one that I’m sure has stifled the potential of many promising careers that never were.
What tab culture boils down to is the idea that good leaders can prove themselves with certain accolades, bad leaders cannot. Most reasonable people would reject this idea in its unequivocal form; it is in the nuances of our subconscious perception and bias that I believe we as an Army need to fix ourselves. The unspoken crucibles of the infantry lieutenant, hallowed though they may be, are certainly not prerequisites for Army leadership potential. I’d like to see someone try to argue that they are to, say, the Chief of Staff of the Army (who admittedly is by no means an under-accomplished individual himself).
“What tab culture boils down to is the idea that good leaders can prove themselves with certain accolades, bad leaders cannot.”
It’s true that virtually all of our most revered senior Army leaders, officers and enlisted, are among the most decorated of their year groups. That’s why this is such a difficult topic to address – at least anecdotally, it appears that for the most part, our best leaders are poster-this, poster-that. What matters is that we recognize that their potential is not mutually inclusive with their accolades.
I understand that the Ranger tab is a sacred rite-of-passage in some communities. It’s easy to understand why. I’ve been told that the rigors of combat demand the toughest leaders. As such, leaders must prove that they are capable before they lead soldiers. What this mentality fails to acknowledge is three-fold. First, the journey to commission as an infantry officer already has high barriers to entry. Second, every “incomplete” infantry officer who leaves the service is a loss of human capital. And finally, Ranger School is simply not the pre-combat leadership crucible our institution makes it out to be.
All three commissioning sources, ROTC, USMA, and OCS, maintain robust systems that constantly evaluate and rank cadets on their leadership potential. Their standing on the Order of Merit List (OML) depends on their academic, physical, and military leadership performances, which determines their Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) assignment. It’s a data-driven, meritocratic procedure, and it’s only getting more so: nested within the groundbreaking Army People Strategy is the Army Talent Assessment Battery that evaluates individual cadets’ leadership qualities and matches them with the MOS that is the best fit. We can then assume that – by and large – newly-commissioned infantry lieutenants have proven both their willingness and ability to serve as 11As. Furthermore, we know that there are many capable, un-tabbed infantry officers who are currently leading formations. And despite all that, we continue to indulge our subconscious, knee-jerk belief that good officers must have their tabs.
“Whether we’ll admit it to ourselves or not, tab culture affects upward mobility, and upward mobility affects retention.”
As it were, we can’t even really afford to be so particular, especially at field-grade levels. For years now, the Army has dealt with “unprecedented” and “plummeting” retention rates that are attributed to a number of causes, typically none of which are “failure to achieve Ranger tab.” Should a dataset exist describing the percentage of un-tabbed 11As of all currently serving, that percentage would drop significantly at the field-grade level. Whether we’ll admit it to ourselves or not, tab culture affects upward mobility, and upward mobility affects retention. There’s no way to calculate this leaked human capital. But the last thing our Army needs is to catalyze the brain drain with a culture of exclusion.
Finally, to be blunt, Ranger School is not a leadership school. Semantics matter; Ranger School is not an Army school where students learn how to become better leaders. It’s largely a personal endeavor, where growth comes to those who seek it. The grueling nature of the course and the urban legends it generates fuel the assumption that all graduates possess some X-factor that empirically validates their combat leadership ability. As a graduate myself, I can assure you that, at least for this Ranger, this is certainly not the case. I may have proven my ability to function with little food and even less sleep, but I can’t imagine that that’s all combat is. Tab culture prizes a 61-day “gut check” over nearly five cumulative years of officer training. Our priorities, however well-intentioned, are affecting our readiness.
It’s tempting to argue that the officers worth keeping in the first place are the ones that achieve results – namely, the ones that can reach the career benchmarks expected of them. I argue that the Ranger tab, the Expert Infantryman Badge, and other additional skill identifiers are not the benchmarks by which to assess and promote the Officer Corps.
“[T]o be blunt, Ranger School is not a leadership school.”
Our profession is bleeding talent. If we want our Army to continue to recruit and retain the best talent within the infantry, we’d do well to recognize that to a certain extent, the culture matters just as much for retention as, for example, the Blended Retirement System. We continue to shoot ourselves in the proverbial foot by perpetuating a barrier to entry that isn’t really necessary, exacerbates the military retention problem, and ultimately doesn’t make us better leaders.
In a truly masochistic way, I loved Ranger School. I’m glad I went; I’m proud to wear and bear the tab. I hope that many generations of servicemembers will get to attend should they so choose. What concerns me is how the prevailing attitudes regarding the competence of our leaders affects our Army’s readiness, especially in the garrison environment. When the chips are down and the enemy is approaching, I guarantee my soldiers won’t be saying, “Gee, aren’t you glad PL has his Ranger tab, his EIB, and his Airborne wings?” Right?
To all the sad infantry lieutenants out there who have been asked the dreaded “Where’s your tab?” – I’m rooting for you. To my Battalion Commander – can I lead my platoon now, sir?
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