(5 of 10)
Westmoreland also eliminated nighttime bed checks, except in disciplinary cases, as well as the need to sign in and out overnight. He abolished restrictions on how far from his camp a soldier may travel when off duty and ordered that 3.2 beer may be served routinely at evening mess and that barracks may have beer-vending machines. Any officer or soldier who raises a personnel question should get an answer from an authority on his base within 24 hours. Implicitly recognizing that longtime noncommissioned officers are most resistant to change, Westmoreland told commanders to make sure that their NCOs "stay ahead of changes in the country and society" and act "in keeping with the modern army philosophy."
Removing Burrs at Carson
Nowhere is that philosophy already more evident than at Fort Carson, which services the 25,000 men of the 4th Infantry Division on its vast post west of Colorado Springs. There, Major General Rogers is urging all of his subordinates to help heal "our self-inflicted wounds" and remove "the harassing burrs under the saddles of our soldiers." Today's youth, contends Rogers, "want to participate in decisions; they are curious. They want to know why, and they are not satisfied with answers based on faith or 'because we've always done it that way'−and I respect them for it."
There are no Saturday morning inspections at Carson, no reveille or retreat formations. At the Inscape Coffee House, black light illuminates slogans proclaiming that "Life is a Big Happening," and a peace symbol adorns a beam. Here officers drop in to rap with the troops. "At coffeehouses off base they scream about the Establishment," notes one colonel. "Here they can scream at the Establishment." Five enlisted men's clubs serve up beer, whisky and go-go girls. In an experiment, the G.I.s have fashioned their quarters into semiprivate cubicles, brightening them with colorful rugs, curtains, posters and pinups.
Carson has shifted from what Colonel David R. Hughes, the division's chief of staff, describes as "an authoritarian to a participatory approach−because then a man feels that he has a stake in what he is doing." A 19-man group of enlisted men meets regularly with Rogers and has had 70% of its suggestions accepted by him.
Does Rogers' approach work? It is too early to tell, but there are positive signs. Re-enlistments have increased 45% at Carson, the retention rate of junior officers has doubled, and two-thirds of the noncareer G.I.s rate their own morale as fair to excellent. AWOLs have declined, and incidents requiring investigation by the provost marshal have dropped 25%.
At North Carolina's Fort Bragg, Lieut. General John J. Tolson III commands the XVIII Airborne Corps with a similar desire to "cut out the crap," contending: "The soldier today is smarter than 25 years ago. What worked in the Army then won't work now, and the older guys are going to have to accept that." His men do