I commanded 22 months. We were very busy, on the threshold of overwhelming. I finished #1 FST cdr, though I took over one of the bottom 2 troops in regiment. Along the way we transformed from making excuses, always complaining to an excellent team, family addicted to winning, being the best.

The Command Climate Survey is worthless in my opinion. Though we led Europe and even the Army in key categories, like maintenance readiness for the oldest Strykers, the Soldiers reviled my Chief (arguably the best in the Army). Early in my command I took on a clique of corrupt NCOs (pro conmen by now) and they did their best to get me fired. I had nothing to hide, wanted/hoped to be investigated because many things would come to light. BL: the first 8 months in command were ugly, stressful and I was constantly on threshold of failure, because heading that clique was my SFC (1SG) and they hated my guts. I was fortunately partnered with the best NCO soon after that SFC’s untimely move to NCOES, and my 1SG helped me clean house, set everyone straight.

In the end we brought families and soldiers together, set records, deployed throughout Europe and had fun. My command climate was healthy at last, but Soldiers still complained they worked too much; they hated the legendary 1SG who is now a CSM and my Chief, the LTs hated me. Had our bosses listened to the command climate survey, we probably would have gotten fired and early.

Solution: There’s other indicators to gauge how you are doing and the brigade and battalion commanders are truly only ones qualified to give you honest feedback- they’ll look at results and understand what you’re going through. The Joes mean well and indeed I used their input; actually their wives were great and so was my FRG, all run by the spouses and their ideas and that alone fixed our “play hard” part of the equation.