Admitting Failure - TAC

[jcustis]

Without linking my thoughts directly to the Colonel's article and his thoughts on standards, I will say that I am not impressed by some of the crap that Marines have gotten into over the past, say, six years.

The drugs alone leave me bewildered that some of these shenanigans are even being entertained with possibilities of retention. I see that vice (whether it was one time or not) as a zero-defect realm, but that is not the practice.

It's downright shamefull when the "legal beagle" platoon is just that, a full platoon's-worth of bums waiting to be separated from the Corps because they could not hold up their part of the bargain. I for one don't believe they can all be boiled down to simple leadership failures. I never have, ever since I was a young lieutenant and the SgtMaj had the nerve to stand up in the Regimental classroom and tell the assembled audience of officers (don't recall SNCOs being there) and say that the 28 recent crystal meth drug pops (isolated into one coy BTW) were a leadership failure.

That came from a bum himself who was never seen in the coy areas without the Bn Cmdr around. It got so bad that we nicknamed them Yogi and Boo-Boo. The BC kicked ass, but his senior enlisted adviser was worthless. Never talked to Marines outside of NJP, promotion, or an award ceremony, and sat in his office all day, smoking cigarettes and playing DOS-based video games (remember those days ). I can't sit back and say his failings were the true leadership problems that caused the issues, but the term gets thrown around by too many without a reasonable understanding of what the real issues are...Sometimes a Marine just makes the conscious choice to be a bag, and they just need to be held accountable and helped out. Sometimes he needs real help.

I don't know sometimes, but I would say that we (the ones where the rubber hits the pavement) need to develop some sort of campaign for dealing with the issues that we are seeing increase with alarming frequency.

[Ken White]

Sergeant Majors around but there are probably a few good ones. Some of every rank are better than others.

The word 'leadership' means different things to different people. Don't know what the deal was in the incident you cite but in my experience, if you had 28 problems in one company, I'm not sure that anyone can fairly say that company didn't have a problem of some sort...

Nor do I know what your unit did. What too many do is punish the innocent and let the guilty skate out (I am NOT saying y'all did that, just that I've seen it happen a lot). Druggies just need to be run out and as quick as you can do it because they aren't gonna stop but they need to get out through jail to a discharge, hopefully.

No matter, really, 19 year olds gave always managed to get into trouble and taking in those who have already gotten into it outside means they're likely to do so in the machine. Good news is they're willing to take chances and if you can settle 'em down, they generally become good troops, better than most. Goes with the job. Some day, remind me to tell you about J.C and his bicycle chains and loan collection business...

[Rob Thornton]

Like many other ranks, I think our future CSMs and 1SGs are going to be among the best we've ever seen. As a CO CDR I was lucky - I had energetic 1SGs and BN CSMs who were already placing themselves where they could be of most use both in garrison and in the field.

From what I've seen in Iraq on a MiTT, that has become the rule. Our partner unit BN CSM came out to our COP quite often to get the laydown, was a friend, role model and mentor to both the Iraqi SNCOs, and showed the Iraqi BN CDR what a BN CSM could provide a BN. He also took an interest in our team' enlisted members. When I did not see him, I heard him on the TF net. There was so much ground to cover, and so much responsibility, he and the BN CDR often went out separately and at all hours. It was a good INF BN. It was not limited to the Combat Arms either, I saw many a senior SNCO from the BCT's support BN out on the LOGPACs.

I think war has shown our NCO corps that their duties are as diverse as any, and we all benefit from their forward presence. I hope this gets captured in our doctrine.

Best, Rob