Generally speaking, as long as your actions don’t appear to represent the Army as a whole or otherwise disclose Army things, you’re okay. Regs probably say different, but it’s the same ethical principle as attending a political rally in civilian clothes vs in uniform. Also important to remember: government service doesn’t make you an authority on…[Read more]

Up until recently, my experience with civilians in the Army was a more intense indoctrination into the chain of command than less, due to hiring civilians almost exclusively from a career military or near career background. Having recently attended DPMAP (DoD Performance Management Appraisal Program) training to qualify as a supervisor of…[Read more]

This is a very complicated question, but I’m glad you’re going after it! I remember as a lieutenant seeing standing orders from the battalion commander that he was the final authority on firing a SFC or higher. This effectively meant that the chain of command skipped the battery commander, as any Soldier below SFC would be fired by that SFC, and…[Read more]

•Does your supervisor establish hard times for leaving home?

No one kicks me out of the office, but I routinely had to kick my Soldiers out at COB while in command. We were short personnel and if they stayed late to get the work done, I couldn’t justify my request for personnel. It’s also good not to burn people out early in their career, even i…[Read more]

As Company Commander, I received appropriate initial counseling and OER counseling from my Brigade Commander. I don’t remember receiving much of either in previous jobs from my senior rater, but my Brigade Commander gave me nothing to complain about for my tenure in command.

The term “Drink and Think” is a bit abrasive, but it draws direct attention to the fact that drinking and thinking are not mutually exclusive, and focuses us directly on removing that stigma. Similarly, just because one event is called “Drink and Think” doesn’t mean every informal discussion that promotes those two things has to be called that.…[Read more]

Generally speaking I’ve seen Weekly Tasking ORDERSs (WTO) or Daily Tasking FRAGOs (DTF). For some reason no one wants to publish a Weekly Tasking FRAGO (WTF).

Wholeheartedly in favor of Drink and Think. Whether it actually has some magical property, or whether we just socialize it so, I’ve seen people be more open and honest with a drink in hand than not. I’ve heard people say “your real self shows when you drink”, which has always made me despise the anti-drinking movement – implying we need to cover…[Read more]

Agreed you have to make the best of it. I’m still struggling with how/why the numbers go the way they go. For instance, from West Point Class of ’07, 60 were branched Field Artillery. For ’08, 100. For ’09? 140. This led to a conversation with the officer submitting my battalion’s USR, revealing we had 26 Lieutenants for 11 MTOE slots. So, every…[Read more]

We’ve tried a battle rhythm, but it gets totally crushed from higher. We’ve shifted our weekly company meeting at least 3 times, and it’s still not ideal. We’ve tried to RECLAMA taskings less than a few weeks out, but nothing seems to stick. If we could lock in a training calendar at least a few weeks out, it’d provide some measure of sanity. I’ve…[Read more]

Regardless of what the events actually are, I’m most excited about the gender/age neutral but MOS-specific part, with no alternate events. If you’re being shot at but can’t run, you don’t get to jump on a bicycle and bike away, or jump in the river and swim away. You don’t get to decide how heavy the wounded Soldier next to you is before you…[Read more]

@jrolli, I wouldn’t say technical competence is less important than command competence, but I also wouldn’t manage our officers exclusively on technical competence. There’s a growing movement in the cyber officer ranks to focus exclusively on technical things and just sort of let leadership things fall where they may. Don’t get me wrong – we need…[Read more]

@ae_rollinson – this is my first unit with an OPCON/ADCON split in the chain of command, and even though those terms were defined in BOLC, it doesn’t appear we’re actually operating that way. There’s actually a spaghetti-looking graph showing which teams are OPCON to which command, yet most of them are ADCON to this command. On the personally…[Read more]

@cale, overall it was a positive event for me, reinforcing a desire to be at the point of friction. I still have great respect for him, and credit the success of my first deployment directly to his leadership.

I’ll admit I’m still not comfortable giving orders, as it feels too much like asking favors. If I want something, I still try my best to…[Read more]

Is this the Army version of “Kirk vs Picard”? “taking point” vs “empowerment”?

I had a Squadron Commander who insisted on physically being at the most dangerous point of the patrol. We had one officer take sniper fire (non-lethal) on a particular patrol route, so our Squadron Commander insisted on being in that exact spot on one of the next…[Read more]

Alan,

Thanks. Makes much more sense now. If you had been referring to the first article I found, I was going to have to check every last thing I’d written before I wrecked myself with an unbeknownst disruptive voice. [edit]

Also, I used “dissonant” when I meant “disruptive” earlier. The intro to this article was disruptive, but the ending…[Read more]

Is this the article you were referring to?

http://www.benning.army.mil/armor/eARMOR/content/issues/2016/APR_JUN/2Klein-Hastings16.pdf

If so, I’m struggling to find exactly what makes that article dissonantdisruptive. I see unit names not explicitly connected with “resounding success”, but isn’t that what makes a detailed analysis useful?

– Does one mode make a difference over another?

Yes. Bottom line is I want to catch whichever senior leader I’m engaging at the most convenient time/manner possible. Choosing the wrong mode of communication (i.e. phone call) can imply my issue demands their attention right this instance. Email is my “go to”, as almost nothing requires immediate…[Read more]