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Hard Charger
 
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Dfiremann (5/25/2008)
and Tomahawk, for the sake of fun, let us wargame. Your COP gets steam rolled by a "with it" cell. One dude is all cockstrong with his scroll on the the SSI while all the others decided to wear the unit patch. Who do you suppose gets tortured and gets his throat cut on TV first? That's stretching pretty far from the original topic isn't it? If you go back to the first page you can see that the NCO in question is an MI guy and this activity appears to be taking place at the FOB. However, if the above scenario is seen as a realistic one then the obvious solution is to go to sterile uniforms. With everything velcro'd on, it's a process that takes 10 seconds so that's not much of an issue. Army uniforms have always been about combining aspects of both uniformity and individuality (specifically, rank designations, distinctions between officers and enlisted personnel, and individual awards and other types of recognition.) If they really were just about uniformity then everyone would wear an identical uniform, but they don't.
Martin  "When I'm in command, every mission is a suicide mission" - Zapp Branigan, Futurama
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Hard Charger
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Dfiremann (5/22/2008)
I would like to add three things on this very good discussion. I understand I am one of the unpopular officer minorities in this realm, but that doesn't change my points... #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. Well I agree with you 1,000% here. The stupid shit I've seen Sergeants Major do is orders of magnitude worse than the stupid shit I've seen officers do. What's worse is that usually if a junior officer suggests something impractical or just plain silly, a decent NCO can talk him out of it. Nobody can talk a CSM out of anything except maybe another CSM and probably not even then. Back when I was a private I was convinced that the rank of CSM was sort of like a gold watch, that you gave it to an NCO who had reached his level of incompetence and then you empowered him to go around and make silly rules and regulations. As I got older and wiser I began to understand the value of a good CSM but I also began to see the damage caused by bad ones.
Martin "When I'm in command, every mission is a suicide mission" - Zapp Branigan, Futurama
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Regular Joe
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| Way back when...there was a cartoon about the Sgts Major Academy. It showed the road leading into it and on each side there were tall stakes on the roadside. Each had a spine hanging on it with a MSG or 1SG rank on it. When one looks at the decisions that some CSM make it really makes one wonder where in the hell their spine went. The only spine shown is when it's to show lesser ranks their power. Fortunately there are a few really good ones around and by what I've heard from some joes there's fewer every time a retirement year rolls around instead of taking an assignment that will not matter to the troops.
 Ein bier, bitte.
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Seasoned Vet
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I can't help but wonder if a lot of the stupid stuff committed by our Joes and Janes like the prison abuse scandle, the female mudwrestling fiasco and of course the sniper shooting a Quran could not have been prevented if a few more good Sergeants Majors were out and about instead of safely ensconced at the FOBs bitching at Joe about wearing his boonie hat with the cord around his neck and other such trivial matters. But hey I'm just a school of hardknocks NCO who hasn't been to all the latest sensitivity conferences and been enlightened to the same degree!
Stand in the door!
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Harmony Church Survivor
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....could not have been prevented if a few more good Sergeants Majors were out and about instead of safely ensconced at the FOBs bitching at Joe about wearing his boonie hat with the cord around his neck and other such trivial matters. But hey I'm just a school of hardknocks NCO who hasn't been to all the latest sensitivity conferences and been enlightenedto the same degree!
Amen, brother!!
......."If you dream about shooting me, you better wake up and apologize" Reservoir Dog
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BS6's Dude
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| The CSM comments here in the last few posts were so good I had to copy them and send them to myself for future reference. I don't wanna even start on the issues I've had with the CSM in my unit. Unbelievable...
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Air Force Liaison/P.Net Original Cast of Characters
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Has anyone seen my reflective belt?? I gotta go to the latrine and it's dark outside........
LOAD CLEAR! LOAD CLEAR! Your Job is my Hobby!
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Seasoned Vet
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| Don't get me wrong I'm all about safety and preventing stupid Joe accidents, anytime we lose a Soldier to a preventable accident it is just a waste and seeing a senior NCO addressing such concern | | | |