Blah! Three pages late to the party....

In support branches, one can probably still be a capable warrior leader without commanding a company (does recruiting or basic training command better prepare leaders than hard staff assignments?).
Staff (esp as a Captain) is about being a small piece of large decisions that effect lots of Soldiers; green tab time is about being a large piece of small decisions the effect a few Soldiers.

Having a good balance of the two allows you to have perspective. If you’ve never had to execute a screwed up order, how do you know if you’re writing one? If you’ve never had to push down an order that was the lesser of two bad options, how can you turn to your Soldiers and ask them to execute one?

Quote Originally Posted by Ken White
As for the Command, without getting into which branch, how many company slots are available, how long they've been in the service and so forth, that really doesn't tell me much. Plus, don't I remember that you are or were on your second company command tour? Which one of those guys did you deprive?
Funny you should mention it because it kind of proves the point…
Believe me, I was one of the last options for my second command. They had offered it to three people who turned it down, then did a post-wide search for someone in branch to come and take it.

Nobody raised their hand.

Then they swallowed hard and went looking for folks out of branch willing to do it. I said yes because I love being with Soldiers and know that if I stay in, I’ll drift further away from them. It wasn’t my branch, it wasn’t my MOS, but it was my opportunity because nobody else was willing.

So while intellectually I can understand and rationalize the whole “oh its so hard to get a command” argument, I firmly believe there’s a “well I can get promoted without it so why bother” attitude.

What concerns me the most is that these individuals will never have to address some of the most difficult leadership issues that we confront our Captains with. Eventually, they will be put in a place to make decisions about issues they have no experience with.