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Regular Joe
 
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| Agreed. Which is exactly what we did. All expert badges, unit identity, etc. came off. Sterile uniforms. ISOPREP ready to go. Every one has a cover story (everyone's a medic, right 10thSFG?). Only thing on were US ARMY and flag. Again, I did not dismiss anyone's right, even downrange - but I don't think that having a combat unit that is uniform in its identity is necessarily a bad thing. When you're back in garrison, I think you should wear what you want - period. When you're in a Combat Outpost, and it's just you no matter what for 40 minutes, I don't see it as being necessarily all bad about having everybody looking the same. I think this Soldier was well within reg and rights to push back. I think the way the CoC tried to enforce it and bully was horse manure. I am simply stating that uniform combat appearance is not with out value.
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Harmony Church Survivor
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But I see some wisdom in uniformity.
Major, this is one of the few things these soldiers have that is their decision, and their decision alone. AR 670-1 protects them from this whole chickenshit idea of uniformity. The patch they decide to wear or not to wear is a HARD won right inside the military.
As has been mentioned multiple times in this whole string is the word chickenshit.
Pick and choose your battles. You have someone who has heard the owl hoot a few times, so concentrate to use that as a combat multiplier. Who cares what he wears on his right shoulder. His whole unit has the same patch on their left shoulder.
This kind of mentality may lead to him switching on his own accord.
Don't get hung up on 'uniformity', get hung up on team building and cohesion. That is what wins wars, not what one is wearing on one's right arm.
And what was pointed out earlier, if a CSM is so proud of his scroll (which he earned the old fashioned way) that he won't switch, does that make him an ineffective leader???
As I started telling officers in 1989, take care of your NCO's, and they'll take care of you. This is mox-nix shit, so let the backbone of the military deal with it. You'll do better to read some Machiavelli then even read AR 670-1. That is the muddy side of the field that we NCO's do better enforcing that the officer corp does.
......."If you dream about shooting me, you better wake up and apologize" Reservoir Dog
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Regular Joe
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| Meh, you're reading what you want to read and using it how you want to use it. I am doing neither. I have affirmed at all times and all places the spirit of the law. And it is as the reg says, our choice. Yours as an NCO or an EM, mine as field grade, the GO's, whatever. I am simply stating that I do not see the argument of uniformity as valueless. The way they approached this issue in this case, however, I do see as valueless and has added nothing to their team building. Rojo Diablo, please point out in my replies where I said that anyone did not earn or should be entitled to wear it. Please further go on where it points out that I am agreeing that unilateral uniformity is a must have. And I see that it did not take long to degenerate into the wide paint brush "the officer corps is useless" undertone. Hmm...I've run into some piece of shit NCO's in my 20 years. Must mean the whole NCO corps sucks? Funny thing is the lions share of NCO's I've served with have been stand-out, so I prefer to judge that as the norm. The situation is probably as it reads: some pencil head got visited by a good idea fairy and tried to apply a policy without thinking about how.
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Stare Master
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With all due respect, sir, neither Rojo Diablo nor anyone else has said or inferred that the officer corps is useless. In fact, several others who have responded to this topic are officers.
Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you, Jesus Christ and the American GI. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.
"History teaches that when you become indifferent and lose the will to fight someone who has the will to fight will take over." COLONEL BULL SIMONS
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Hard Charger
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| There are more important things for a commander to worry about than demanding that everyone wear the same combat patch. Lets fast forward a few years to the end of the GWOT and all these units will be filled with soldiers with different combat patches ! Uniformity police will be in despair I expect.What irks me no end is that commanders are flagrantly contravening Army regulations and then trying to justify their untenable position.
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Harmony Church Survivor
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Diablo, please point out in my replies where I said that anyone did not earn or should be entitled to wear it. Please further go on where it points out that I am agreeing that unilateral uniformity is a must have. And I see that it did not take long to degenerate into the wide paint brush "the officer corps is useless" undertone. Hmm...I've run into some piece of shit NCO's in my 20 years. Must mean the whole NCO corps sucks? Funny thing is the lions share of NCO's I've served with have been stand-out, so I prefer to judge that as the norm. Easy now....I have never said that the Officer Corp is useless. I entered Ft. Benning the day AFTER I graduated High School to serve 4 years (turned into 6) to see what it is like as a PFC D.I.T. Dirt and earn money for college. I PLANNED on finishing my career as an officer. Life happened and plans changed and I didn't take a commission after college, but I have NEVER thought badly about Officers. I've learned to trust the soul of a person, rather than the position they hold. So please don't put words in my mouth. I'm saying that if some officer is trying to enforce same AR, they should use the NCO chain to enforce it. And if they are wrong about what they want to try to enforce, well, that is why they have a CSM to talk too. This particular case, the Batt/BDE CSM should have stepped up and said he understood where the commander was coming from, but he can't make these soldiers wear somthing because the soldiers are protected from that by 670-1.
......."If you dream about shooting me, you better wake up and apologize" Reservoir Dog
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NRA Life Member
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Dfiremann (5/22/2008)
... #2) For every officer like I mentioned in #1 that I met, I have met *10* CSMs that are as bad or worse. They don't give a flying eff about Joe, they go through the motions and bust on camp cleanliness and uniforms. I swear to the Almighty, there is an entire line Company of CSM/SGM's flown into Victory once a quarter to ensure no Soldier is allowed anywhere near a weapon, and everyone on the planet is wearing their reflective belt to ensure the maximum effectiveness of the enemy to hit our Soldiers. That has always annoyed me to no end.
My long distance provider is Black Hills Ammunition. Defend the Second Amendment 
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Regular Joe
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