Yup, I'm...

Done.

As I get prepare to call it a day...

Well, suffice it to say that it’s been so long since I wrote here that I had to go through Blogger to get m login and password.

Ahem.

Well, the round brown is still firmly ensconced upon my grape, albeit for a limited time only. I come off the trail on August 31^st.

It’s been a hell of a ride, no doubt. I would not be where I am today without the exposure I’ve received from the following people (names have been changed to protect the guilty), in no particular order:

- The Rooster: you strutting prick, you cock of the walk, you who felt it necessary to bring me up by cutting me down. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather meet drunk in a dark alley than you. I love running into you every now and again, and see how completely inadequate you are by not being in your former duty position. Hope you realize how you capped out in that gig, and NOBODY will give a shit about anything you say from now on.

- Big Sarge: You gum-smacking loser, you hide behind your bluff and bluster and use your size to intimidate – but it doesn’t work on everyone, especially people like me who are not afraid to take a hit. I hope someone takes you up on your offers someday, and schools your dumb ass for all to see. I pray it’s a young private who embarrasses you in front of all your sycophants. **UPDATE** Uh, oh, champ, I spoke too soon. You look good in that patrol cap.

- Pig Pen: Take a shower and brush your teeth. The combination of coffee, Copenhagen, and ass do not make a good combination, especially when you’re screaming in a Joe’s face. Wow. I cannot believe you found a woman to cohabitate with you.

- Mumbles the Clown: I was only exposed to your act for a limited time, but it removed any doubts why you have such a long tenure at your present grade. If you put the same amount of effort forward in your MOS that you did as a drill sergeant, you may as well get used to those chevrons you’re wearing. I cannot believe they let you have a third year!

- Bottom Kick: Wow. Somebody effed up big time giving you a job you were not cut out for. It doesn’t take much to do your job… stay knee-deep in asses all day, and the problems take care of themselves. You just are out of your depth… so I can’t hate you – I just pity you.

Got plenty more where that came from, but as I get deeper and deeper into BWI (blogging while intoxicated), I run the risk of really getting myself into trouble.

I will look back on this period in my life as one of the hardest – but one of the most rewarding. I wouldn’t trade it for the word. Now -- here’s hoping I can get back to broadcasting eventually.

Hats off in 14 days… wish me luck.

Oh, yeah, I have a blog....

So I’m not the most regular updater of my blog… but I guess it’s the fact that this job is so easy to get caught up in, and by the time I become aware of how caught up I am, I start going into overtime to make sure my family isn’t neglected. That leaves little time for composing 300 words on how effed up my Soldiers are or telling stories about my buddies.

Anyway, things have been pretty damn good since my last update. The group of drills that got thrown together to start this new company up seem to work pretty well together. My little piece of the pie has worked out nicely as well. We didn’t win any big awards for the cycle that ended in December, but one of my drills was picked as the Drill Sergeant of the Cycle. I got selected for the Sergeant Audie Murphy Club, and I got a tentative assignment back up in the DC area for when this part of my career is done.

I’m excited about what life will be like when this is all done… but at the same time, I’m aware of the clock ticking down, and it makes me think that this part of my life will be one that I’ll continuously look back on, both for inspiration and motivation. I know I’ll never be responsible for people and materiel like this again. So to say I’ve capped out at this position would probably not be too far off the mark, if I look at life realistically.

We pick up another class this coming week – and so I’ve got to get focused on that, and simultaneously fix in my mind that THIS is my job right now, and get my head out of the clouds and quit daydreaming about the 0730 to 1600 job that awaits me in about 8 months. As it stands right now, we graduate the incoming class in March, and stay on break through June. That class graduates the 1^st week of August, and we’ll get another on the 21^st. I complete DS duty on the 31^st.

‘Til then, it’s ‘keep on truckin,’ get the job done, stay out of trouble, and complete the mission.

...the new digs

Well, I’ve landed safely in the new company up on the hill. So far, it’s been a refreshing change from what I’m used to -- namely, a first sergeant who seems interested in what I have to say rather than one who seemingly has a hard time understanding how I could be this useless and still live.

I still have some lingering issues in the old unit, like an eval that’s still in limbo, an investigation pending from some missing equipment, and a little stink bomb I dropped before I rolled out to the battalion leadership. I’m not one of those assholes who looks for a bridge to burn, but if you’re going to go after me, I’m damn sure going to bring it back to you.

Anyway, onto happy subjects, I’ll be working with much the same dynamic that had me living large before the fall from grace – 2 DS’s to work with, one infantry, one armor. It ought to be an interesting mix, since I went to school with one of them and he’s an odd kind of cat. Not odd in a bad way, but I am really psyched to see what he’s going to be like when Joe shows up.

Speaking of Joe, we’ll pick up on 5 October – so between now and then, we’ll have more than enough time to get shit straight before life begins anew. The company I came to was recently training one station unit training, or infantry Soldiers, and my arrival, along with 5 others, made it into a Basic Combat Training company. They peeled off all the infantry drills, except four, and sent them throughout the battalion, and pulled us six in to make a total of 12 drills. 4 platoons, 3 each, ready to break Joe off upon his arrival.

The interesting part is that the commander stayed the same, so did the XO, and four of the drills remained, as I mentioned before. So it could go both ways – a battle of old –vs- new, with ideas and operating procedures being smashed back and forth, or a massive mind meld of best practices combined, to the benefit of the greater good. I’m hoping for the latter, as I’ve seen some things so far that don’t make me smile so big.

Oh, the big news, of course – UNDER A YEAR NOW!!!! Real Army life, here I come! 11 more months and 4 more cycles!!!

A New Frontier

It’s been a long 6 weeks or so, and a lot’s happened. They don’t call drill sergeant duty tough for nothing… and the cycle that I’ve just been through has validated that statement for me.

I started off with my old team broken up… my right-hand guy got moved upstairs, following another personnel move that had happened directly after the previous cycle. That left me with one drill sergeant that I’d worked with before, and the addition of another who didn’t have the best reputation around. I was still optimistic, based on my belief that everybody should get a chance, regardless of their rep… if that was the case with me, hell, I’d never have a shot in the broadcasting world! But I wasn’t too worried, as this guy was only going to be with me temporarily.

So, we start off with 60 kids, about half of them 18 or younger, and immediately the friction starts. The “new” drill in the platoon, who has about 6 months on me time under the hat-wise, starts doing things his way, in direct contravention of what I counseled him to do before we picked up. The senior guy is supposed to be the standards guy – I set the standard, and the other drills enforce the standard I set. Well, this guy goes off on his own little tangent and does things the way he wants, regardless of what’s been set out for him.

Talking to the guy is a waste of time. Ever have one of those old-ass staff sergeants who are forced to work for a younger sergeant first class? Yep, same situation… but the idea here was that since this guy was going to be temporary, I could just marginalize him until it was time for him to leave. So I had him doing the duty gear, and handling little things… keep him out of my face. He had a hard time doing that right too! Well, add insult to injury – the first sergeant decided to give him to me permanently, and move the other dude I’ve worked with to another platoon, and replace him with yet another old staff sergeant with a bad attitude.

So, all of these switches going on, the platoon is in shambles since there’s been no set standard for discipline… I enforce one way, the other drill does it another way… they’re just out of freaking control. I bust one kid with over a grand on him – he won it gambling at night and buy selling STOLEN tobacco from the PX – and I cannot keep the leash on everyone else. They weren’t ALL dirtbags – but it WAS a classic case of the 90/10 rule. 90% of your time is spent on 10% of the population… never more so in my experience than this right now.

Anyway, so the first sergeant calls me in and calls me out – the platoon has no direction, they’re floundering compared to the other three… and I’m on the hook. Get it together or I’m gone. Wow. He then proceeds to tell me how there’s no sense of ownership in the platoon… but of course fails to mention that the lack of ownership was preceded by his gutting of my drill sergeant manpower.

OK, flash forward about two and a half weeks. I finally get the joe-crud, take my sick ass to the doc on Wednesday, and end up on 24 hours quarters. I get a phone call in the afternoon – one of my battle buddies looking out for me – and I find out that the first sergeant has put out in a meeting that I am moving to another battalion – 2/54 – and I’ll be replaced the coming Monday.

I am not being fired. At least that’s what he tells me.

I have been “hand-picked” to stand up a new BCT company inside an infantry training battalion. This is supposed to be somewhat of a big deal, having been selected “by-name,” as they say.

I don’t believe it, or maybe that’s just how I’ve been conditioned in the past year… but I can’t accept the fact that I was given a golden parachute, if you will, to escaper this situation.

I’ll tell you, this one cycle has really shaken my confidence in my abilities – not just as a drill sergeant, but as an NCO period. It’s hard to really look at yourself and say “I have done all I can do, and it is simply not enough.”

I’m going up the hill after a much-needed leave, and start fresh in a new unit. I’m going to take all I’ve learned and apply it in this new environment. I hope I can pull it together for this new unit. I hope I can look myself in the mirror and know I’m doing the right thing, not just for the joes, but for my fellow drills, and for myself.

I gotta say I’m so ready for this to end…. One more year…

Getting Ready for Phil... er, Fill...

So, we've got less than a week to go before I get the first full class in my experience as a drill sergeant. We’re the last company in battalion to get a class, so we’re pretty conspicuous walking around in PT uniform all day while everyone else is sporting ACU’s or their individual field gear.

The worst part of prepping to fill is getting ready for the pre-fill inspection. If you’ve ever been through a formal inspection before, you know that different leaders have different ways of inspecting. When we get our areas ready, it’s to prepare for THAT GUY. Yes, THAT GUY. You know the one I’m talking about. The guy who sticks his entire nose into the mouth of a canteen, sniffing for the slightest hint of mildew or sourness. The guy who licks his fingers, rubs them on the inside of a canteen cover, looking for dirt – and regardless of whether he finds dirt or not, LICKS HIS FINGERS AGAIN and continues with the next item.

So, needless to say, we go over everything with a fine-toothed comb to make sure the aforementioned “guy” has nothing negative to point out. As I mentioned before, we are the last company in the battalion to fill – so it goes to reason that everyone’s been through the inspection already. That’s a good thing, as we’ve been able to learn from their mistakes so far – the honest mistakes (“woops, forgot to remove that paint can from the back mop closet”) to the incredibly stupid ones (“damn, sir, I have NO IDEA whose live rounds those are…”). So, add those factors together with the fact that my first sergeant has an uncanny eye for the small shit, and you can understand why I’ve been working some STUPID long hours in the past two weeks.

Those of you out there who have been to basic probably recall some type of mural or painting in your bay or company area. I had one in the middle of my floor that I decided to pain over last cycle. I’m not sure whether it was the aesthetics of an 8^th-grade skill-level painting that made me want to get rid of it, or that fact that it depicted a drill sergeant on horseback, holding the dismembered head of an Arab, complete with burning mosque in the background – either way, it had to go. So we had another one laid out, courtesy of one of my drill sergeants’ wife – unfortunately, the motto at the bottom of the painting (BOOM – You’re Dead!) had a minor typo in it that made it look a little stupid. So, we went for number three during this extended break. I finally finished the painting of the goddamn thing yesterday, so I’m attaching it for your viewing pleasure. Pay no attention to the garbage behind the pillar... I hate the fact that I took the photo from my phone and didn't neaten up beforehand!

Cool, huh? I have to lay a few coats of floor-grade polyurethane on it to protect it from Joe’s big dumb feet. We can’t have off-limits areas (called ‘kill-zones’ in the vernacular) according to policy, but I damn sure make anyone who walks on it sorry for having done so.

I’m enjoying the weekend off prior to our fill – so I’ll sign off for now. Once we get into the full swing of the cycle, I may not update at all, but come back and check in anyway!

The Never-Ending Cycle Break... is ending soon...

It’s been awhile since my last update. Let me state up front that all my predictions came true, and in a nutshell, I haven’t had a trainee since St. Patrick’s Day. For those of you counting along with me, that’s about 4 months of my 24 months as a drill sergeant where I was not doing much of anything. If you count the cycle break we had from Thanksgiving to the second week of January, you’re looking at nearly six months of idle time out of ten months total as a drill sergeant.

Well, not EXACTLY idle time. Our beloved first sergeant has found plenty of busy work for us to do – I originally wrote “bs” as a typo, but whatever works – including a completely new paint scheme for our company area downstairs from the platoon bay and grass that requires complete cutting twice a week.

I can’t complain too loud, though. I was able to take 5 days of temporary duty to fly to Las Vegas to accept the Oldfield Fellowship from the Radio-Television News Directors Association. I came home “up” about 3 grand and a great deal more confident in my blackjack playing abilities. I went on leave a few weeks later back up to the old homestead in New York and saw the folks, and just recently returned from another leave to drive my 84 year-old grandfather from Florida to Indiana. Hell of a road trip, let me tell you.

So, on to business... some changes around the platoon came during the break. I lost 2 of my drill sergeants to other platoons, one of whom was my right hand guy. He’s the dude that told me at the beginning of my first cycle that if I handled the administrative nonsense of the platoon, he’d give me the high PT, high BRM, and honor platoon. He outdid himself… since the platoon had all three of those honors back-to-back as well as the Soldier of the Cycle and Drill Sergeant of the Cycle respectively. The other drill was sent to a platoon with no infantry DS’s, but he’s also super-squared away. So while I’m sorry to see them go, I appreciate the chance to be able to stand on my own two feet and run things the way I want to run them, without having to fight off two Type-A drills at the same time.

I’m gaining a drill from one of the upstairs platoons, a crusty old supply guy whose acerbic wit and sarcastic tone already have me torn between thanking God I’ve got a wiseass to work with and cursing the first sergeant for sending him my way. We’re going to work out fine, though.

We pick up on June 29th. I was initially broken up about that, simply because we’d be into the 18 hour day phase right when Superman Returns is released to theaters! I already spread the word that I’d take a CQ shift or staff duty the first day so I could catch it on opening day… Thank God they bumped the release date up so I can see it on the night of the 27th!

Anyway, I’ll make more of a habit of the cycle updates. I believe this cycle will really be my first “real” cycle, as I now know where everything is, how to conduct all of the training, and what my left and right limits are, so to speak. I also think this will be a fat group, too. We’re on the cusp of the so-called “summer surge,” where all of the high school grads are filling up Army training centers. I haven’t been through one of those yet, so I’m looking forward to it. We have a maximum capacity of 240 Soldiers in the company, 60 in my platoon. Hopefully I won’t get 60 – I don’t have enough gear for all those guys!