Army Development of Junior Leaders

[nichols]

KIM; Long flight to Pendleton, the local gas station had Czech beer.

I picked up this thread on my Blackberry a couple of days ago, work and family obligations stopped me from responding........

So now for the first installment.

I recieved my first good conduct medal as a L/Cpl

2nd as a CPL

3rd as a Sgt

4th as a SSgt

5th as a SSgt

6th as a SSgt

7th as a GySgt

I picked up my first fireteam as a L/Cpl, my first squad as a L/Cpl.

First Plt (Sniper ) was as a junior SGT.

I spent my first 11 and a half years going from Infantry unit to Infantry unit. Right around the 11th year my monitor decided that I needed a "B" billet (Drill Instructor, Recruiting Duty, or Marine Security Guard) to prove that I was a well rounded Marine

I signed up for Infantry...period....I didn't want anything else.....I wanted deployments.......I didn't want to protect swamp Lejuene or surf's up Pendleton....I wanted to be on the pointy end of the spear.

I was damn proud of the fact that I was a L/Cpl leading a squad, was better then a Sgt leading the squad? In my heart, I honestly thought so. These Sgts were coming back from B billets, I had more time in the fleet then they did. Ultimately I gave the Corps more bang for the buck.

What is the answer, does a three year Sgt had the same knowledge as a three year L/Cpl?

I would say yes. So with this in mind, the only thing the rapid promotions does is put more bucks for less bang, it gives them more money, more stabilty. More of a reason to stay in and commit.

Ultimately it hangs on the seasoned salts to temper the young leaders.

This is a no sh!^^er

"As a Sniper Plt Sgt I required an open squadbay for my Plt. This Plt was the snipers for the Battalion Recon that was attached to our Regiment. Our Regimental S-2 Chief (2 years less time in service then me) came into the squadbay in search of cymlights (sp) for the tactical intel desk. He went into our gearlocker and preceeded to test all of the cymlights that we had. during that work up we were heavy into the ITG non-illum. He came out with the Einstein....hey Sgt Nic, I just saved you a lot of embarassment....every single one of these 18 inch cymlights don't work......"

The good SSgt just wasted about 80 dollars worth of cymlights (1987).....they were infra-red, without NVGs you couldn't see the illum.

Very easy for me to say...SSgt those are infra-red. Ultimately I knew what he was looking for, I knew what we had in the gear locker......It's very easy for the junior leader to say the senior guy did it. But we as service members to the United States have an obligation that we use but at the same time we will revert back to.....well, so and so is senior to me so it's not my fault.

That's BS, let's stop blaming the system, I didn't get promoted soon enough but my mother stopped listening to me crying around the age of 11 or so.

If the rapidly promoted servicemembers do not get our mentoring even if the system gets them promoted faster and ultimately sooner then us, then we have failed. whether it be a L/Cpl that has just lost his squad to a barracks duty skater or a S-3 Ops guy that sits back and says....back in my day....

It ain't the rapidly promoted nimbnutt's fault, it is collectively the junior and senior leadership that is criminal if that individual doesn't receive our full mentoring.

And now for the end state....

I found myself as a Marine that spent 16 of 21 years overseas. Promotions were slow. The guys with the well rounded career had a house with 10-15 years of payments. Kids in college. I have a new house with 5 years worth of payments (I've been retired for that amount of time) a 13, 5 and 3 year old). I have manged to catch up and pass many of my peers from bootcamp due to my deployment times.

This all begs the question, what's right and what's wrong?

The only wrong thing is when we don't mentor.