Warriors,
We’re continuing our discussion thread in the series “Student to Lieutenant.” You can see our original post here, or read the entire series using the tag. This week’s post continues advice along the journey from college student to branch qualified Army Officer.
“Phase 3: Graduating #BOLC & Follow-on Schools”
After a bit of a break, the series is back with a bit of a “think piece.”

First a revelation: Many BOLCs have pre-written stock graduation speeches. It’s actually part of the TRADOC approved curriculum. Swap in some dates and demographic data from the graduating class, you’re done. Why? Well, because speeches are hard, not every BOLC Commander is an award-winning orator, and because some student’s uncle might be both a surprise guest and GEN SoManyStars… anyway, it’s possible your graduation speech did not blow your mind. Here’s what I (just me personally) believe should be the speech for every BOLC graduation. Wisdom in two-parts.

Part One: You are already a failure. It’s not debatable. It’s a verified objective fact. Since 2008, when the Army did the first study of leader-task saturation until a decade later when the same problem still exists… there exists objectively too many tasks for you to be able to achieve all of them to standard.

That’s AWESOME! That’s such great news! You CANNOT do it all. You cannot do all the PT. You cannot do all the marksmanship. You cannot do all the quarterly training… Go forth young Leader! You’re now a fully commissioned failure like the rest of us. Welcome to our club. It is not your responsibility to do everything. Your responsibility is the much harder choice of what NOT to do. Your job, your duty, is to determine where it is acceptable to fail today and deliberately ignore that thing #EffIt.  Then, go kick @$$ on the stuff you think is important. Occasionally, you will choose wrong… like REALLY wrong. That’s okay, too. In our club of failure, we call those failures, “experience.” The more “experiences” you have early on, the less often you have them later…

Part Two: You’re dying. You are terminal. You’re dying as a person. You’re dying as a Leader in the Army. You’re DEFINITELY dying as a Platoon Leader. Part One, I hope relieved you of the pressure to try to do it all. Part Two, I hope impresses upon you the importance of investing an authentic and uncompromising effort into the things you choose to do. <see attached>

These are templates… OF YOUR LIFE! 83 rows (for men), 52 columns… women get 88 rows (women live longer, on average). Every column a week. Every row a year of your life. Every week in your life in a very simple excel spreadsheet. You finish a week you color it in… Look at mine, it’s color-coded. Grey weeks are past. Yellow was Ranger School. Dark grey was deployments. Blue was military schools. Purple and Green were important moments – marriage, Change of Command, graduation… How many weeks will you get to be a Platoon Leader? an XO? a Commander? My template also has a red line at 49. Thank you genetics, that’s when I anticipate my first heart attack. The second red line is the longest surviving male in my blood line. Your time is finite. Go forth young Leader, affect some lives before another box turns grey…

 
Next post: Phase 4 — Reporting to your first Unit
Alternative Next post: “Fine, let’s talk about Ranger School”

 
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~Jeff
JOF “BOLC” Topic Lead