Headspace and Timing

[Pete]

One of my battalion commanders who was also a Mustang like I was didn't think very highly of me and the efficiency reports he gave me show it. I was da*ned with faint praise. It wasn't that he thought I was incompetent as much as being lacking in the "bust a*s" quality that he wanted to see in his officers, having subordinates who treat every little task, no matter how trivial, as though their lives depended on it. His temper tantrums were awesome. He retired as a two-star, but when he commanded his battalion he turned the place into a U.S. Army Separation Point for all ranks, high and low. It was during the early 1980s when the Army was making a deliberate effort to get out of the post-Vietnam doldrums. That needed to be done for the good of the service, but a lot of the careers of good guys were collateral damage while it was happening.

Most guys wouldn't admit to having had something something like this happen to them on a public forum but it has a lot to do with that vague concept of "The good of the service." I was a soldier once and true.