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…