WTU issues

The Warrior Transition Battalion in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, is under intense scrutiny following six suicides and 25 domestic disputes in a five-week span. [Source]

Accusations from family members include both neglect and overmedication by cadre. According to advocate and former Army spouse Patti Katter, "a lot of them were National Guardsmen who had never deployed before and did not understand post-traumatic stress disorder or brain injuries.”

I can see how this can happen. Warrior transition units can either be great places to be or bad, depending on how they are staffed.

Think of it this way: as a commander, where would you want your best people? Correspondingly, where would you want your worst? Typically, a commander would want their best people within his own unit, and where they would have the most impact.

By contrast, if you had to pick someone to ship off to a different unit to deal with people getting out of the Army, you would select the sergeants you don't want to have around. Unfortunately, the sergeants running the show at Bragg's warrior transition unit (WTU) were poorly trained.

To get the best results, I would place previously-deployed non-commissioned officers who are within three or four years of retirement in charge of WTUs. These guys would typically have had multiple deployments, and seen some bad stuff of their own. As such, they would be capable of greater compassion than those who have not been deployed and a bit mellower than many "young buck" sergeants I've seen.

Plus, they're less likely to have have a bad attitude about being stuck in a non-MOS (military occupational specialty) position. If you're not interested in deploying again, want to make use of your previous military experience, and want to finish up your career in a place where you probably already own your home, a warrior transition unit would be a good choice.

One of the guys I worked with in Tarin Kowt fit this description and was assigned to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. As his last assignment before he retires, he said it was the best thing he could have hoped for. It may not be "high speed," but it's exactly how soldiers on the cusp of retirement are best utilized -- much better than sitting on some battalion staff somewhere counting down the days.