as troop commander, a nice coin went far. taking breaks, bbqs, team-building events like paintball using mwr funds and using FRG for fund-raising to throw Halloween, thanksgiving and Christmas parties was always nice. look at it this way – you just trained hard and waiting for you is a bbq’d burger. that burger doesn’t cost much but it leaves a lasting impression at end of training. we also had cooks in my forward support troop, so my 1SG ordered hot chow for almost every field training event, whether before or after, or during – it was a morale booster. as an LT in Hawaii, we threw a BBQ luau-style after every convoy, range or field time, used every chance to celebrate and party, which made Soldiers eager to always train. when I was stuck with my platoon over holiday weekends on the big island, I’d sign out a TMP and take my troops to the beach, or to the movie theater/mall. some leaders want to use every opportunity to train and make life hard – I want to make life easy, fun, and balance that with training believing it gets you further.

other morale boosters – dating back to my LT days, I realized that if range can’t go hot before 09:00, I don’t need to be at the arms room before 06:30; amazingly, not all think this way and some set arbitrary zero dark thirty timelines. also, instead of having Soldiers sitting around at range all day or forcing level 1 concurrent training, I’d split firing orders to before lunch and after lunch – that way other people didn’t need to wait for 6 hours before they could shoot; common sense stuff – the 5-ton truck would take back a firing order and bring back another while range detail ate. also, zeroing is stressful for most soldiers, but many soldiers need 23 (not 18) rounds to zero, but I’d order enough ammo to zero with 100 rounds because the point is not to qualify, but to also train and gain confidence. as an officer, you are responsible for the timeline, so plan one that makes sense; start convoys as late as you can to allow your Soldiers as much sleep prior to as possible. you see, Soldiers don’t mind working hard as long as it makes sense. senseless decisions bring down morale.

when my troop went on a convoy throughout eastern Europe, thankfully my squadron commander thought along the same lines and we used every opportunity to allow our soldiers to enjoy the cultures that they visited and learn about them. for some young soldiers, that is something that they’ll look back on and remember.