Wednesday, April 11, 2018

"Fire and forget" Army courses

The Army's a funny place. While "fire and forget" might be a good quality to have in a missile, it isn't a phrase that should describe your approach to online training courses.
Take Sergeant Jones here. He's wearing a beret with his "Battle Dress Uniform," or BDUs, which dates him to between 2001 and 2005.

How do I know that? Because the beret became mandatory wear in 2001, and the BDUs were phased out beginning in 2005. This bit of online training is about 15 years old.
So old, in fact, that it still references ASMIS, the Army's Safety Management Information System. This gem of a software is what the Army used before its online "TRiPS" program. According to this course, completing ASMIS is mandatory, but it's also impossible, having been obsolete for about 10 years now.
However, that doesn't mean the Army felt any need to correct errors through a new version. So driving slower than 5 mph is still considered "in line" with safety standards, while any speeds above that are "out of line." [I did the red circle on this.]
And according to this slide, driving a regular car means you don't have to worry about a plethora of otherwise dangerous things.... [this red circle was part of the slide]

I'd be curious to know if this mandatory training has actually had any measureable impact on soldiers' off-duty behavior. My guess is "probably not," apart from making them more cynical.

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