Attention Cadets: Be this guy, in three easy steps.
A few weeks ago I posted a few stories that showed some examples of bad Army leadership. One of the readers, Fry, suggested that I post some examples of good leadership.
At one point during my military career we had several days of maintenance-type activities that had to be done in the vicinity of the motor pool. During the summer in North Carolina. Basically we got to spend several days in a row doing heavy work in a giant parking lot. It was hot and unpleasant. So another Specialist and I came up with a great idea. We’d stop at the PX on the way to the motorpool and buy a cooler and fill it with ice and drinks. We’d just ask people to pay what our costs were so that we didn’t go broke providing drinks for our company. We made the purchases and brought them to the motorpool, cheerful and anticipating praise from our chain of command for our thoughtfulness. Since this story is on my site, you can probably guess that this is not how things turned out.
Several NCOs approached me and my friend over this. Did they thank us for thinking of our comrades? No.
Did they comment on how we went out of our way and spent our own resources to take care our buddies? Nope.
They screamed at us. For about ten minutes. It seems that me and my friend, by bringing cold drinks for everybody, had succeeded in making our NCOs look bad. Because we had done more to take care of the soldiers in our company than they had. And they felt that we had done it deliberately.
About half an hour after this happened one of the NCOs came back. She wasn’t mad any more and, in fact, she looked ashamed.
She told us that if we made our NCOs look bad by helping out our buddies then that was a poor reflection on them, not us. She apologized for taking part in the NCO lynch mob and asked us how much we had paid for everything. She then handed me that amount of cash and just gave the drinks away to her soldiers.
Step 1: Be this person. If you screw up and one of your soldiers pays for it, have the decency to admit it, and if necessary, go back and make amends.
Another time I was asked to go to 4th PSYOP Group headquarters. Apparently there was some kind of meeting going on to determine what the new product development workstation was going to have. This was a laptop that would be used by an illustrator to create propaganda. And since I was an illustrator, someone thought my input might be helpful. When I get to the meeting I discover that I am the only enlisted person in the building. So there I am, in a room full of officers, who are very opinionated, and more or less totally ignorant about what the soldiers who were going to use the equipment actually did. So being in possession of more survival instinct than most of my readers would ever give me credit for, I sat very still and tried not to attract any notice. Eventually I failed.
“What are you doing here, Specialist?”, asked a Major with the almost exact tone of voice that you or I would say, “Ewww…I got some of that on my shoe.”
“My team SGT told me to come here, sir.”
“What unit are you from, and why did they send an E-4?”
“Because I’m an illustrator sir.”
And with that, a Colonel sitting on the opposite end of the room took notice. “You’re a 25 mike? Why didn’t you say so earlier?” And he then proceeded to direct all suggestions for the equipment through me because I was “The only one here whose ever gonna actually use this stuff”.
Step 2: Be this person. Sometimes your soldiers will have specialized or specific knowledge that you lack. It’s not beneath you to listen to them when that’s the case. It’s generally a good idea to be on the lookout for lower ranks that know things; they can help you make informed decisions.
And lastly, there is this story that I call “The Best Sergent Major Story Ever.” I did not serve under this particular NCO but I had this story relayed to me by a soldier who did. Doctors says at https://www.caladrius.com/order-cialis-cheap-20/ Cialis is the best remedy for the treatment of impotence. The chain-of-command had recently held several inspections on the barracks. And many soldiers had been dinged for various infractions. Dust on top of the blinds, shoes not neatly lined up under the bunk, clutter on the furniture. The sort of thing that soldiers get gigged on during an inspection. When it was done, many of the lower enlisted who lived in the barracks were getting reamed out for not having their living areas up to Army standards. During a formation afterwards the SGM gave a speech stressing the importance of always keeping your living area up to inspection standards. He then asked for a show of hands of those who had a cell phone. Confused, the soldiers that did, mostly officers, raised their hands.
“Please bring you cellular phones up here, and leave them with me for the remainder of this formation. Now, everyone who lives on post, you are dismissed, have a great weekend. Everyone who lives off post, please stay here. I will be carpooling out to your homes with you to inspect them. I’m sure that all of you are keeping your homes to the sames standards that you hold you soldiers to. And if any of you call home to have your wife, girlfriend, or pets start cleaning up I will have your ass. I can fit five at a time in my car; who wants to go first?”
Step 3: Sometimes it’s just awesome to fuck with people.
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March 20th, 2008 at 4:35 am
I wish my SGM was like that
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March 20th, 2008 at 5:03 am
WOO HOO for the NCO, colonel and sergeant major who actually had a brain in their heads. I wish all of my past bosses possessed one of those.
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March 20th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
I served with some people like that sgt major and it really changed the complete outlook on every jr ranking member in my unit. for once we were human beings. I’ve been out for over two years and i am still in contact with one and consider him a true freind.
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March 20th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Good post, Skippy. In response I’ve posted three of my own memories of good military leadership at my blog: http://tinyurl.com/32nvkw .
I’ve linked to your post as well. Hope we can get some current military leaders thinking!
Peter
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March 20th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
I like the last one. Very funny. But one question, did you change the format of your website? Or is it just me?
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March 20th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
If they had their pets start cleaning up, I’d at least give them some points for ingenuity and then maybe transfer ’em to K9. ;)
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March 21st, 2008 at 4:28 pm
One of the greatest examples of Army Leaderships I ever saw was our late battalion CSM, Comand Sergeant Major Lankford. This man was known for stepping in and standing up for the soldiers. I once watched him chew a Captain’s @$$ (respectfully, of course, and he had the professionalism to do itout of earshot from the other soldiers, he didn’t know I was there) for making us clean the shop, more then we normally did anyways, just for his visit, when we were only two weeks from deploying, so we obviously had better things to do. There are numerous stories like this regardin CSM Lankford in the EOD community, but I only have space for one. Sadly, he passed of a heart attack while on a run in Iraq. He’ll be sorely missed, and fondly remembered.
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March 22nd, 2008 at 6:52 am
I’ve quoted you and linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms.blogspot.com/2008/03/re-attention-cadets-be-this-guy-in.html
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March 22nd, 2008 at 8:12 am
I recall a time coming back from operations, the skipper of the ship decided to stop just outside the barrier reff and let most of the ship off for a sports day on these deserted islands. I had to remain on teh ship as one of my duties required me to be there (no biggie, could watch what ever movie I felt like). Anyway, day goes buy, all the guys come back on board, and I get a call to go speak to the skipper, he tells me the boat (RHIB) is running a little sluggish and could I inspect it.
No problem, Captain wants something, Captain gets it, head down the boat deck after getting RADHAZ clearance, go over the boat, only to find the twin props have almost been sheared off, looks like he ran shallow over a reff (he insisted on driving)
Replaced the parts checked the rest of the drive train, and took the old props to him.
Said to him, “Sir, here is why the boat was running slow, the props were severly damaged, fortunatley there is no additional damage, and this has used up the last of our spare parts for this item”
and his reponse was, “s**t, did I do that, Sorry for damaging the gear for that, let me know if there is anyhting I can do to speed up the additional parts to get to us”, now this was on a full bridge of a frigate, maybe 12 people up there, and here I am a little able seaman telling the skippy he broke my kit and the first words out of his mouth were sorry, I already liked and respected the man, he simply emelvated himseslf futher im my eyes and that of the engineering crew.
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March 22nd, 2008 at 8:49 pm
I actually have one story about an NCO I had when I was a new private in the active Army (had recently transferred from National Guard and was all of 19 years old).
Sgt. Serrao was my squad leader, and was probably one of the strangest NCOs I had while in the service, but one I respected greatly (and still do) because of his dedication to his troops. I was young, my first time away from home and not the best when it came to balancing my finances, and because I was a bit opinionated (still am, just smarter about where I voice them) and had recently earned a couple of AAMs that made a lot of other gunners in the other sections of our platoon look bad, I was not on the popular list at the moment.
One of E6 who particularly had it out for me (never tell an E6 that he is the most ate up SOB you have ever met, you can never tell when they will be in charge of you) was made acting Plt. Sgt. because of our regular one being on leave, and had gotten notification from the PX that I had bounced a couple of checks. This is pretty normal on most military installations, both the bounced checks from a private and the chain of command being notified, but what wasn’t normal was the amount of energy that this E6 was putting into me getting put into Manheim for it. Fortunately for me, Sgt. Serrao had found out about it before hand, and had me contact my father who was in charge of my savings finances back in the US to get this amount of money wired to me so I could go around and pay off these bounced checks and their service charges BEFORE going in to meet with the acting Plt. Sgt. By the time I got in front of the E6 in question, everything was already dealt with and I had the paperwork to prove it, so when his recommendation of “throwing the book at me” made it to our First Sgt., First Sgt. Walker (another of the NCOs that I like to use as a “this is how you be an NCO” example) rejected it because my squad leader had already helped me take care and resolve the situations.
Sgt. Serrao and First Sgt. Walker were two of the best examples of responsible NCOs that I had ever seen, and continue to be some of my favorite experiences with real leaders while I was in the Army. The E6 in question, lets just say I still hold a grudge, because this was not the only time he tried to do something like this too me, and he made sure I knew the situation was personal, so I have yet to find anything nice to say about him, and it has been 14 years.
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March 24th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
I’m a retired artillery guy and at one of our St Barbara’s Day events the guest of honor was a retired artilleryman who had been in when there was still horse drawn artillery (this was several years back.)
My favorite part of his comments were that there were always more horse’s asses than horses on post.
While that’s still true, it’s good to know that there are still some out there that negate the general trend.
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March 26th, 2008 at 6:41 am
Clear-head and good heart, Skippy! I like your style.
I chose an MOS that took me to a God-forsaken island on a hostile DMZ, doing a very important part of an important intelligence-gathering mission… and it was there that I came to appreciate the people YOU single out here, both the Major Malfunctions and the Corporal Punishments, as well as the Good Soldiers like you and me…
It was also atop that mountain that I learned to make STUFF roll uphill. I got VERY, VERY GOOD at my enlisted-man’s job, and when some ill-informed brass gave me grief, I followed his orders to the letter… and HE caught hell for it!
There are some GOOD PEOPLE in the Armed Forces, then as now… Me? I was handpicked to fly immediately back to that DMZ 27 hours after the USS Pueblo incident hit headlines Stateside…
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March 26th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
After 20 years in the Air Force, I have figured out that there are a lot of officers in the Air Force but few leaders or as someone once told me, the only difference between the Boy Scouts and the Air Force is that the Boy Scouts has adult leadership.
Another thing I learned is that officers think they are god but an E-9 who has been in for 30 years IS God…
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Snyarhedir reply on January 29th, 2011 11:56 pm:
You mean “adult supervision”. I have read that same statement in a joke book or a Reader’s Digest.
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March 27th, 2008 at 11:45 am
There’s a long post on my blog called Cleansing the Deist Cancer about my d-bag of an NCO. I was an E-3 and could recite the NCO Creed- not because I intended to be an NCO, but because it was the antithesis to my NCO’s particular leadership style. What NCO forgets to bring rank to the promotion ceremony for the ONLY Soldier under his supervision? He even made me write my own bullets for the AAM the top kick insisted I be put in for because he didn’t think I deserved one. Fortunately, though, there was 1SG James “Scott” Barker, a man I would follow into Hell if he’d asked me. He and his wife are still dear friends, and if I ever return to O’ahu I’ve got a room waiting at Schofield Barracks. He exemplified “Every Soldier is entitled to outstanding leadership, and I will provide that leadership…”
Thanks for the post and the good memory.
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Snyarhedir reply on January 30th, 2011 12:04 am:
I sure hope that you believe in temporary damnation.
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April 21st, 2008 at 7:36 am
My dad was in Crypto in ‘Nam with the flyboys, and had a story. He got a new 2nd Lt. Real young punk. Dad was career enlisted (retiring at E6). He’d been there over a year, and this snot-nosed brat starts to tell him how to do his job.
Dad proceeds to do it his way, and gets yelled at. Finally, the 2nd Lt. takes him to the CO. Who proceeds to tell this infant that Sgt. Warner had been in uniform since before the Lt. had been born, and to shut up and let the Sgt. do his job.
For the record, dad was a swabbie during WWII and switched to the Air Force right after, and getting a chance to play in Korea, then Nam, retiring afterwards since a GED wasn’t good enough to let him get promoted again.
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July 12th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Yeah, I had a good section NCO when I was on active duty at Ft. McClellan. She chewed me out once for leaving her that the Ammo Point at Ft. Bragg (note we were TDY on FTX) to correct deficiencies in my truck. She didn’t (& I didn’t) think it would take that long (all day — got brain lock). See, you could pick up ammo in a truck at McClellan with one missing lug nut; it was a deferred maintenance item since I had been in the unit; you couldn’t at Bragg.
SSG B tried to keep us in the Supply office working and not in the motor pool cutting grass. She arranged for prisoners (from on post) to cut the grass. We did pull maintenance on our vehicle; hey, we used it every week to go to get stuff. I never cut grass except when I was at a short school there; it was a sort of pre-PLDC (Primary Leadership Development Course).
I even went to training meetings as a Specialist (E-4) when she was working on manual the property book; yes, a company with a property book — the Army list of the stuff we were suppose to have as well as what we actually had like carpenter’s tool kit, radio’s, trucks, and TA-50.
Her favorite complaint was, it seemed, “This company has too ##*^&& much money. This is just **** ^^^^.”
Oh, I do not know what happened to the Gortex. Yes, I signed for them at Logistics. Yes, everyone signed for theirs. No, not funny. They asked me about it by letter after I got out. ( I wish I had added ask CID they may have investigated the prior disappearance of Gortex from that post. I think my professor was slightly freaked out about it.)
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July 12th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
By the way, Skippy, great story!
CCO
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August 22nd, 2008 at 11:18 am
Wow, I hadn’t expected it to be the second entry after I made my request. I don’t remember exactly why I asked for some examples of good leadership, but I’m glad I did. That third guy is definitely my favorite. :D
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September 3rd, 2008 at 6:02 am
I’m the Battalion BOSS representative for my unit… which means I’m responsible for Morale, Health and Well Being, and Quality of Living issues in the barracks. Our new barracks was a 33.5 million dollar high speed building that we all loved. Until the power outages started. Every weekend. To the point that I stopped drinking or planning on leaving town for the weekend.
I wrote memos, filled out the forms, had DPW (Department of Public Works) on speed dial. One weekend the power went out friday morning and was still out at 2300. I was still in uniform, waiting for DPW to show up and fix the problem. Soldiers were out in the public spaces getting hammered and I was making hourly calls to our CSM, who I was tracking was going back home that weekend to see him family after 2 weeks of field problems (out on monday back in on friday, not over the weekend stuff).
He walks up at 2315 (1115PM for those vivilian folks)he walks up in civvies. Many MANY of the guys out drinking are underage, lots of the females are barracks rats, all in all it looks like a disaster in the making, he could have busted just about everyone there for something. He walks up to me, ignores all the drinking and general merryment that goes on in an army barracks after a week in the field and waits with me making small talk while DPW finally shows up, fixes the problem. Then he calls me and the Staff Duty NCO over and suggests that he’s heard rumors of underage drinking in the barracks and suggests that they try to get control of the situation.
Be this guy, Don’t make a bad situation worse because you can, if you ask people to give up their time for a job that doesn’t help them in any way, do the same once in a while. And always give people a chance to fix a problem before landing on them for it.
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