I would offer that discipline, at least at the Company level and below, starts with knowing what right looks like. Similar to what our other commentators have mentioned, it is imperative that we learn what the standard is: read the doctrine, listen to senior mentors, and truly watch training for the sake of learning lessons instead of going through the motions. At the JO level, we can inspire discipline by being doctrinally sound and enforcing that standard at echelon.

My BN XO and I had a funny conversation the other day that elucidates this point and I’ll share it with you all. I was dual-hatting as both a Company Commander and S3 at the time, so part of my job was to help build the UTP and the BN’s LRTC. We were in the middle of our Gate 4 training, and thus put a couple of small arms ranges, a Hand Grenade range, and some other individual-level training events. When discussing one of the ranges, he asked me how many firers we were going to have at one of the events. I gave him a number that I had received from the rest of the Commanders, a number that was well below our MTOE authorization. The conversation went a little something like this:

XO: Shouldn’t we be shooting more at this range?

Me: I asked the companies how many they wanted to send to the range, this is the number I got.

XO: Alex, asking the companies how many Soldiers they want to send to a range is like asking my 3 year old son when he wants to clean his room. How many MTOE firers should we be sending, and why aren’t we sending that number?

Me: …I’ll get back to you Sir.

A simple conversation, but I’ve definitely learned a lesson from that. If you want discipline, you have to know the standard. And once you know it, enforce it, because it’s the right thing to do. Whether that’s PT, uniforms, use of doctrinal terms and graphics, TLPs – identify your knowledge gap, educate yourself, and enforce the standard.