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Gavalier Rivera
Professor Vargas
EN105: First Year Writing Seminar I: Critical Reading, Writing, and Thinking Across Contexts
2 March 2016
Policies are Killing our Military
During my vast career in the Military, I have meet great Soldiers and Leaders but there
were some that were not so good. Those that usually dont follow laws and policies get held
accountable for. As a Soldier, you always know that the good Leader is the one that always keeps
the eye on every Soldier and in every task in order to make sure that task are being conducted
effectively and Soldiers are being taken care off. By doing this Leaders learn how to manage task
and personal so he can achieve their goal which it is to accomplish the mission no matter how
hard. Also keeping the team strong by enforcing the army values, purpose, direction and most but
not least a great morale level. Throughout my career I have had outstanding Leaders, I have been
able to become a good mentor and a great Leader in a very short period of time, but the reality is
that now in the New ARMY many things have changed. Now days it is a little harder to find a
good Leader to follow. It is for some reason hard to find people that are there to help, to coach, to
mentor, and to develop you as a Leader. Todays days people are afraid to hold others
accountable for their action. The discipline has become softer, and if you try to correct someone,
you could get in trouble due to todays societies different believes. Generals are politicians,
Officers want to do Non-Commission Officers job. The Non-Commissinon is the one that makes
thing happen, but the reality is that so many policies and regulations have been added and now
they cant be as strong minded as before, they are too afraid. They are a afraid to do anything that

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can cause them to lose their jobs therefor they choose to be softer in discipline with the Soldiers
and that allows them to not lose their careers. Then that is the reason why I ask myself, why has
the Military Leadership Changed so much?
I am totally sure that some people might think that my believes about what happens in the
Army are too exaggerated and that I do not know what I am talking about. The reality is that we
do have the strongest, most advance Army in the World but some people might say that because
they can only see the Army from an external point of view. They also say what I am saying is
incredibly wrong but if they only knew what is really going on from an internal point of view,
they might get a really big surprise. Yes, I do agree that we have the greatest, most trained, and
funded military in the world, but I am sure that we also have an Army with the lowest morale in
years. In reality it does not even matter how much money you pay a Soldiers, if the morale is low
he or she will never give their 110% that is required from them in order to perform the rigorous
missions that Country requires in order to keep winning Wars and restoring peace across the
World. . Yet, the question is, why is the morale so low? What are our Leaders doing about it?
Why do lots of great Soldiers and Leaders are getting out the service? It could be many things,
but I believe the answer is simple, our problem for good Soldiers getting out is the lack of
Leadership and the poor decisions our politicians are taking. I am talking about the lack of
Leadership from the top to all the way down to the Squad Leader. This problem are away from
the naked eye of the People of the United States and that we are finding in our ranks.
A tanks can not shot without a Soldier behind the gun. If we do not have any Privates and
Sergeants eager to take charge and perform their duties according to their job title we will not
have the good quality Soldier we have todays date in the Army in a near future. In reality we
need those good Soldiers and Leaders to provide their experience to the young ones so when is

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time to shoot that weapon, we are as effective as we always been. One of the first changes that
impacted the entire Army in which affected great Leaders was a new policy directly aiming at all
Soldiers with Tattoos. Great Troops and Sergeants, veterans of two Wars, that saved many and
many lives and gave the American people the freedom they have today and that were willing to
take charge and had all requirements, qualifications and experience to become better officers,
warrant officers and pilots were put on the side because they had visible tattoos on their bodies.
Many of us agree and understand that a tattoo on your face, neck and hands might not look
professional, but a tattoo that is below your elbows or knees does not affect your efficiency as a
Leader. Making such quick changes to those type of policies from one day to another without
taking into consideration how many great Soldiers and Leaders will be affected, it shows the lack
of compassion for your Soldiers that have given so much for their Country and as a result they
took their eligibilities and qualifications away because of a tattoo and then you wonder why the
Army is having problems and why the morale in the ranks is the lowest is years.
The Army is less than a 1% of the population of the entire United States of America and
its Territories. To add war for almost 15 years, a reality that we all have to live with for our entire
life and politicians only worrying about their personal agendas and turning down all bills that
come down to their plates. It is hard to see the big picture, but the Soldier do not stop fighting
because he is not getting paid. Soldiers stay fighting without pay because their loyalty know that
they have to take care of business in order to be able to return to their families. Soldiers always
believe that the person on their left and right is more important than anything.
The top gets paid to reason, but we have to keep something clear, they got to stop
thinking about themselves and start to pay attention to what they are doing to the people. A
perfect example was a Brigadier General that got in trouble for bad conduct while in command.

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He was accused of having an affair during deployments in Iraq. While we, the Soldiers and
Leaders of his units were doing the right thing, he was not being the example he should have
been by providing to his leaders and was having an affair with one of his Captains and showing
preference to his staff and not to the Soldiers working hard outside the wire. He had many rules
in the camp such as not to be sleeping with no one, drinking and using pornography when in
reality he was doing all of them and more. The lady we was messing around received a Bronze
Star medal for her Service in Combat and others Soldiers and Leaders that went above and
beyond were recommended to receive a Bronze Star Medal for their sacrifices and for saving
lives and what this Colonel back then did to them was the most disrespect he did to his entire
formation. This Brigade Commander downgraded all award because he did not find enough
justification for them to receive that level of award. All Soldiers Leadership had approved all
awards and recommended it approval due to their excellent performance but the Colonel who has
having fun with his Captain denied for the approval of their awards, what a disbelief.
This events are only some of the thousands that are happening today in our ranks. For me
an award is not important or a Tattoo policy, it does not affect my life. Nevertheless, this
decisions that are being taken by higher Leadership that is affecting Troops lives, but they are
happening on a daily basis destroying great young Leaders morale and careers.
Today many people are living on a sleeping society, in a society that worries about their
status on facebook and how they look. They are not thinking that what happens in the
government does not affect them. Our top Leaders are taking measures that will affect our kids in
the future. My son might never know what a volunteer service was, he will have to serve without
options. The Army as well as other branches are losing combat expirienced, top quality Leaders

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and Soldiers and the Top Leadership of our Army still focusing on their agendas, which it brings
me to my conclusion that Policies are Killing our Military.

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Unit 8: Deep Revision Assignment (1 Revised Essay from the semester)

For my deep revision assignment I took all learning experiences from this semester and I
put them in place in order to correct this essay to the best of my knowledge. I took time to read
and re-read my essay in order to find all errors, misspellings and fragmented sentences in order
to provide my readers a better product. I provided more detail in order to support my thesis so
my readers can get more of a glance of what my message was to the readers. I re-aligned some of
my wording because in some cases it was not making sense. I also re-position words in order to
better provide a clear statement so readers could get my point of view. I also fixed my conclusion
because it did not have a clear end to my essay.
Making my final essay made me realize that I have to take my time and to really research
my ideas. Its a process where is just not putting words together but having a chronological way
of writing them and telling your ideas in a way the reader can imagine it and make sense out of
it. Peer reviews helped me a lot on this process due to the feedback my class mates provided me
and the way they showed me how it could I have done it better. Overall it was challenging and I
have ways to go to perfection when it comes to writing but quitting wasnt the answer. EN106
here I go.