Mike,

Welcome to the Team!

Tom

Dallas,

As a former special forces maintenance company commander I am very aware of managing expectations especially when it comes to readiness and training. Although a MTOE change would help tremendously, honestly, its not a realistic option. Instead focus on the things you can affect as a commander. Here are some good starting points.

1) What…[Read more]

Armel,

The above posts hit all the right points. Know you equipment, know your soldiers, and know how it fits into the overall mission. As a commander, I would love it when staff sections would ask me to get in on their training. For example, if you as an S-6 go to the training briefing and see Company X is out doing a range maybe you can ask the…[Read more]

Wade,

If you have the counseling’s to support this OER then I would by all means say that you are duty bound to write this negative OER. When the new NCOER came out while in command I had to give a SSG a qualified NCOER. In the out brief I was honest with him and said, “you are 5 out of 6” SSGs in my company. He started to get emotional and I l…[Read more]

Kenny,

This is one of the best questions I have seen on this forum by a cadet. Brock hit it right on the head. Lead them, do not try to befriend them. You will develop personal relationships in time but even still, there always needs to be a layer of professionalism with personal relationships with your troops. If you trust your subordinates and…[Read more]

What an awesome insight! That sounds like some great connections.

Micah

This is great! My rule of thumb is that if I’m going to be gone for more than a long weekend, I’ll put something brief up. I find myself getting caught up in the trap of posting an out of office response and jumping back on my e-mail anyways and responding to messages. It’s definitely something I’ve had to work on and shake the habit.

Micah

I found that I understood the things I needed to do, I just couldn’t figure out an optimal battle rhythm in which to get them all accomplished.  My lack of knowledge on how to manage my time was a huge distractor for me.