Accountability

With all the news about top officials going down in flames over the Walter Reed Scandal it causes me to wonder.

How many times over the last 10 or 15 years have these same problems been pointed out by lower level personnel? How many times have the grunts been told to "shut up" and quit complaining? How many times has someone had the idea to fix up the place or maintain things better only to be shut down or ignored? I see it happen all the time, whether it be in the military, a para-military organization (like fire departments or police departments), or regular corporate America.

The problem is simple, GOOD IDEAS HAVE RANK. If you aren't high enough in rank or seniority, your idea isn't good, it's whinning or making waves. If you are high enough in rank or seniority, all of your ideas are good, even the really really dumb ones!!

Now of course I'm being slightly sarcastic. There are good organizations all over the place. The thing they have in common is that they value everyone in the organization and recognize that the genesis of many good ideas is not from the top down but instead, from the bottom up.

Too bad the folks in the Army and at Walter Reed didn't see fit to do something about an obviously unsatisfactory condition until they got caught. I don't praise the news media very often, and Lord knows they will be circling this story like a bunch of vultures, but the Army deserves two black eyes over this one.

Pyro,