Hi, Carson

MOS training on drill weekends is a constant battle.  As a Signal officer, I experienced many of the same problems while I was a company commander.  Soldiers want to do their MOS job. Without just passing the buck on this one, I will tell you that your best asset when it comes to this is your BN CDR, LTC Kevin Jones.  I’ve worked wi…[Read more]

Hi, Carson

MOS training on drill weekends is a constant battle.  As a Signal officer, I experienced many of the same problems while I was a company commander.  Soldiers want to do their MOS job. Without just passing the buck on this one, I will tell you that your best asset when it comes to this is your BN CDR, LTC Kevin Jones.  I’ve worked wi…[Read more]

Submit a request and get a second branch. What are you now? If not a 91A, check out my post at https://juniorofficer.army.mil/discussion/more-than-one-branch-within-the-ngreserves-pros-and-cons/ and request for the 91A branch qualification… It’s DL.

Unfortunately it never took place. We had an emergency that required multiple hours of effort to fix, and then when the dust settled I was pulled into my BC’s officer and told I was talking command of one of our companies, so I had to bounce and start my assessment. Maybe next time….

– most officers will tell you to always side with the Sr. Rater. The Army looks only at that box check, and you need over 50% MQs to promote. There’s a different group who will tell you that narrative is read – what’s there and what isn’t there; also some cynics who say its down to writing ability sometimes.

– a good rater will sell you to sr.…[Read more]

I believe we’ll all experience this more than once throughout our career.  For me, the degree to which the rater and senior rater (SR) diverge dictates how I would handle this problem.

Minor discrepancies can often be handled by addressing the problem directly with the rater to adjust fire on expectations.  It’s the major break-aways from SR’…[Read more]

Micah,

Some good stuff on your document, a few of them I did not think about when I made my 3 DITY moves.

One other thing I would add is to make sure you have a load plan.  For example, I did not plan to unload EVERYTHING the first day we arrived so I made sure that I loaded some things last, like the kid’s bed stuff, pet supplies, some pots…[Read more]

Wendy,

Thanks for pointing this out. It didn’t load the first time and I think it should be there now. Enjoy and good luck!

Micah

Another way to go about this is to explain a couple of ways that you are going to the organization and then ask for specific feedback on those COAs.

This is not to say that you are presupposing that you will ‘fix’ anything in the organization, but that you have certain talent sets and you are aware of your future organization’s mission and…[Read more]

A lot of great techniques/ideas on counseling. I am late to the conversation, but I do want to add one technique that was valuable for me as a commander. As Gary points out in the above post, providing questions in advance is important for an effective counseling session. Taking the advice of a mentor, the last question I always asked on the…[Read more]