Mike,

Your S4 team will make or break you.  Your company XOs will make your life easier or harder, and your fellow staff OICs/NCOICs will either be your best friends or worst enemies.  Employ your Senior NCOs(be patient with them, they know everything that you need to know, but won’t share it with you if you don’t treat them with respect), i…[Read more]

Alex,

Thank you for your contribution.  Financial training and counseling for BRS and for financial health in general is an essential aspect of leadership development.  Not all personnel, i.e. ROTC, has access to the base financial counselors at ACS etc…  In which cases leaders fill the even bigger gap.

Having never been a S4, I can’t answer your questions directly, but have some suggestions that came out of my own lessons learned from S1-land. I hope these help you have a more effective RIP. Even if you have the ideal RIP with your predecessor, keep in mind that there won’t be time to do everything. Put together some questions to ask them (or…[Read more]

@brock.j.young – Preach the good word!! Definitively agree with your bit on promotion timelines for ARNG. Agree totally about you being your own best manager, too. @george.l.gurrola – agree with all you posted, too. Very similar to my thoughts that I’ve posted here.

@cale – My response to your post is a serious of ‘gates’ that I’d recommend…[Read more]

Team – great post and follow-up comments! I agree that it takes initiative to chart the next step. A former officer I worked with asked me the same question and I mentioned the following:

1. Define the “next step.” Depending on your career timeline, what assignment does the Army recommend?  Does this fit your priorities in regards to your pe…[Read more]

Have you seen this post? Could be used as a proactive tool in the future. https://juniorofficer.army.mil/career-timeline-tool/

Great news, @scott1f5.

My two cents for you or the next person who has pay issues like this: Keep an eye on your LES and, if its not fixed by the time you get to your new unit, tell post when you in-process and tell your BN S1 (file pay inquiry). They can actually sit in the finance office and get details on where the pay is in the process and…[Read more]