3 comments and a question.

1. Additional duties, in my opinion, take away from your time doing your job, what you are there to do in the organization. Its not that I don’t think we should have them, but I do not think there is any service member that enjoys having do something else besides their main MOS. This is especially true when you put the most junior person in a job that is not considered important enough to be a staff officer/NCO job but can have the ability to impact the entire unit. The responsibility of a junior officer, not just junior but new to the unit and the profession, is to be good at the position you have been assigned to, whether that is as the AS2, BDE Engineer cell or as  a line platoon leader. Officers will have a long time in the Army to do other jobs that take away from your time doing what you love, do not rush it.

2. I think everyone will have a different opinion on being an IO from what they have had to do it on and what level of interest the command had in it. Me personally, while you learn a lot from it, I would not wish it on anyone. A job like that will find you, but you may want to wait until you naturally have learned about the organization before taking on a role that has you investigating it. And no one will be impressed that you were an IO, so if you think that will get you recognized or seen as a contributor to the unit, you are looking for the wrong AD.

3. I completely agree on your assessment on property. An officer never has enough opportunity to learn about how important property is, how you inventory it, how G Army works, etc before you take command, so use it. However, once you are comfortable being responsible for inventories, signing equipment out and trusting your Soldiers with tens of thousands of dollars of equipment, start thinking at the grad school level. Is this the right Soldier to be assigned the 240? Did I think about who gets what weapon? When was the last time I trained on this piece of equipment? Do I have a Soldier or NCO who can teach me how to use it? Why do I have a grenade launcher but I’ve never heard of this BN doing a 302 range? When was the last time my unit did an EDRE-like event where we stressed our vehicles out besides the normal exercise mayhem of getting vehicles to the field? Use the time now to see how people manage their property and start planning for what you want as CDR.

Finally, my question. Why do you view over communication as so important? You mention you did not, so can you expand on that?  It also just depends on the supervisors leadership style and how much they want from their subordinate and how they see that relationship correct?