If values are not conveyed down as well as up in any organization, they are counterproductive. The signs are diverse and numerous. Infrequent contacts with senior raters continue to be viewed as increasingly important. Each and every fleeting contact is orchestrated to create the best possible perception. The creation of these perceptions becomes more important than reality.
Patronage is seen as increasingly valuable and necessary to more and more junior officers.
High level staff and joint assignments are more sought than troop duty. Troop duty is viewed as too risky beyond the minimum necessary to qualify for promotion and high level staff jobs means that it is more likely that critical general and senior officer contacts will be made. Getting the next career advancing assignment is believed to be more important than doing one s job of the moment. Challenging training events, like night live fires, are routinely curtailed or not considered at all, because the commanders view them as not worth the career risk. When these events do occur, they are so tightly controlled as to lose their training value.