My two cents: if you feel that you would benefit from having maneuver branch / tactical level experience as a way to gain an understanding to the audience that you will be supplying intelligence to later as an MI officer, then I would encourage you to branch detail so you can gain that experience. If being an infantry grunt doesn’t make your hair…[Read more]

Something else that you might find useful is perusing this Smartbook DA PAM 600-3. Select each branch, review emphasized qualities, jobs, timelines, etc.

https://www.milsuite.mil/book/groups/smartbook-da-pam-600-3

Generally speaking, 2 ways to do this:
1 – execute a branch detail upon commissioning. You’ll be in one branch as a LT, and then move into another branch basically in the same timeline you get promoted to CPT and go to CCC (around 5 year mark). If you want to try out Infantry or Armor for experience, but then dive into MI or AG for a longer…[Read more]

IMHO, something can be humorous, while maintaining professional and informational features. What did you have in mind?

This was posted when I was a month out from PCS.  I’m quite sad that I’m seeing it over a month after my PCS.  I’ll have to dog-ear it for next time!

I’ve been using firefox for this site at work, because … well, Exploder tends to do that. For me, IE doesn’t load the page all the way, there aren’t any boarders, etc. Firefox has been significantly better and loads the interface all the way.

Apparently you can C+P after selecting the TEXT tab (in the text box that you write in to post). You can also write your notes out in WordPad/NotePad and should reduce issues. I see I’m not the only one who pre-writes out my posts!

Handwritten notes is a brilliant idea. My last BN commander wrote each of his staff members a quick note before our winter block leave, so about 6 months into his command. It was a few sentences, but I knew that multiplied times a few dozen people took him A LOT of time for him to handwrite each one. It was really just SO cool. After I got it,…[Read more]

I will preface that this is a very long response.Feel free to send me an email and I’d be willing to talk more over this if that would help.

The very short answer is that people are going to ‘routinely’ get weekend duty. I would expect to get 1-2 weekdays and 1 weekend monthly, depending on your population, mission, and exemptions

What follows i…[Read more]

I will preface that this is a very long response.Feel free to send me an email and I’d be willing to talk more over this if that would help.

The very short answer is that people are going to ‘routinely’ get weekend duty. I would expect to get 1-2 weekdays and 1 weekend monthly, depending on your population, mission, and exemptions

What follows i…[Read more]

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<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>…[Read more]

Since you’re short on time and attention, here’s my down and dirty. Perspective of someone who was an S1 from 2LT to a CPT, worked with 5 different headquarters commanders:

1 – Please. PLEASE. Let the staff primaries do their job.  They WILL need your guidance (don’t let them fool you otherwise) – maybe as a peer, maybe as a superior, maybe for…[Read more]

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<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>…[Read more]

Intangible: thanking Soldiers for a specific act they did goes farther than “thanks for all your hard work”. “Hey, thanks to your attention to detail working on X spreadsheet/vehicles/etc, we’re the first done in the BN…or, the Boss personally said s/he was impressed with the work, and I told them you were taking the lead on this.  Your…[Read more]

Intangible: thanking Soldiers for a specific act they did goes farther than “thanks for all your hard work”. “Hey, thanks to your attention to detail working on X spreadsheet/vehicles/etc, we’re the first done in the BN…or, the Boss personally said s/he was impressed with the work, and I told them you were taking the lead on this.  Your…[Read more]