Quote Originally Posted by Jedburgh View Post
Hell, it gets ridiculously frustrating sometimes. Almost a decade ago I had one of my SSGs receive a Field Grade Art 15 for having a drink with a source in the Balkans. All of our pleading about local culture, source rapport etc. was dismissed by the Bn Cdr in his "zero tolerance" approach. (Just to be clear - the guy wasn't drinking. He nursed a drink while the source was drinking. Anybody who's worked that AO knows there are many people who won't trust you if you don't have a drink with'em. Just like sitting down to drink tea with a source in the ME.)
Ridiculous. Slightly off-topic here but this is another brazen example of a leader enforcing a regulation without bothering to apply any form of critical thought. One of the reasons that I left the big Army and crossed over into the dark side was the number of "leaders" who I had worked for and around who believed that leadership meant ensuring blind to the letter of the regs. Personally, I have always that thought that it was either laziness or stupidity or a combination of both. Thinking is much harder than simply doing whatever the book says. God forbid someone try to consider the intent of a reg rather than just what it says in black and white. Of course we can't have Joe going down town and tying one on with the locals. No good can come from that but is that what was going on with that SSG? Obviously not but why should a leader think when he can just read from a book and do what it says?

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