George,

Thank you for the feedback. I love your question of how you continue to instill these ideas. Due to the nature of the SF mission, we never deploy as units. We deploy in 1 to 2 man augmentees with an SF ODA Team. Therefore, all of our training revolves around the concept of Soldier X will be one of the only maintenance experts on the deployment.

Are you competent enough to complete your job with little to no outside help? Can you make decisions with little to no guidance. Can you be a leader when no one is around to lead you? These questions are essentially what my philosophy is answering. I try to wrap those ideas into all the training that we do.

For example, when we conducted our company FTX, my 1SG and I planned zero events. All we did is say on this date we will have a company FTX that focuses on individual combat readiness and first-line supervisor interactions. That is the extent of the guidance. From that guidance, my NCOs (unfortunately I have no LTs) planned, resourced, and executed a company FTX for a seven day period. It was my way of executing my command philosophy through actions. It allowed them to show their competency, lead their Soldiers, and I gave them to freedom to make changes on the fly, thus allowing them to demonstrate their disciplined initiative.

I like the idea of briefing every incoming Soldier on the command philosophy. In fact I liked it so much that I had two new NCOs show up to the company today and I briefed them personally on the philosophy. So, thank you for the advice.