Filed Under Camp Shelby
Posted: 25 July 2008
Updated: 26 July 2008
This is coming about 6 days later then I originally planned but better late then never. Part of this post will cover my incident that yielded my first true Army punishment…almost. Ironically one of the most popular Army blogs was shutdown recently for being too outspoken of his chain of command. Will try to avoid his mistake when talking about my incident. Wouldn’t want my blog shutdown before I even got overseas.
Our last day of training was one of the best conducted training blocks. The instructors followed instructing procedures to the letter. Training was on clearing a room and assaulting on line. We ran through a very short class room explanation, then immediately moved on to practical exercise. First a dry run (no ammo), then with blanks, and finally with live ammo. The final live ammo part was the most exciting. Though we’ve been doing room clearing out the wazoo, this was the first time doing it with live ammo.
Those of us who had gone to CLS (Combat Life Saver) had to attend the Arabic class since everyone else already did it. The teacher we had was an actual Iraqi. If some remember we had an Arabic class before, but it was with an Egyptian soldier whose never been to Iraq. Apparently we were taught many wrong things. This includes the thumbs up, no it doesn’t mean fuck you. Our teacher (who lived in Iraq for 30 years) never heard of that. That’s a relief to hear, because I tend to use the thumbs up sign a lot.
The rest of the week was spent cleaning and packing up. Amazing how much stuff there is to do. We left quite a bit there since we are going back down later. Delta also managed to make it the whole 3 weeks without any heat casualties. That was a big problem for the brigade, but not for our company. At the start of our
AT, the commander had said he’d buy us beer if we could make it with no heat casualties. Well, on the final day he delivered Miller and Corona! Booyah!
As to me getting in trouble…here’s the basic run down on the incident. Everyone loads up onto the
LMTV (Troop carrying vehicle). There’s not enough room so SGT X (Changed rank and name for their protection) tells the E4s to sit on the floor to make room for two E7s coming on. If you’re confused about E#, its the
rank of said individual. I then ask “Aren’t
NCOs (aka Sergeants) suppose to be selfless and put their troops before themselves.” SGT X tells me to “Shut the fuck up” and so I do. Later in the day, the same thing happens again. SGT X tells the E4s to sit on the floor to make room for any E5s and above. Once again I ask the same question. Once again I’m told to “Shut the fuck up”. This time I mumble “When I’m an NCO, I won’t do that.” Note that I spoke after being told not too.
Later that night I get a
counseling statement for disrespecting an NCO by ignoring the order of “shut the fuck up”. My punishment was to stay back and guard the arms room while the rest of the company enjoys an off post pass. My counseling party included the Commander, First Sergeant, and all three platoon sergeants. Basically almost the entire upper chain of command was there for the event. To those unaware, its very odd for so many to be present for a minor counseling statement. Usually they are handled with the sergeant in charge of said troublemaker and the sergeant writing the counseling statement, not the entire upper chain of command. That would be for more serious
article 15s. Not to add more confusion but not all counseling statements are bad, but for simplicity in this post I’m only referring to the negative ones.
Technically, I have no dispute. I was ordered to shut the fuck up and I disobeyed. Was SGT X acting unprofessional? Usually swearing is. Was I out of line? Yup. Did he go overboard with the punishment? I think so especially since he claimed to be old school. The old school way would be a good old fashion smoking (corrective action through physical exercise). This old school philosophy also says soldiers with higher rank earned the right to sit on the seats.
Unfortunately, most the company is new school. SGT X had been making that comment throughout our training and it was pissing a lot of us off. I made the bold move to question the order. Unfortunately I went about it the wrong way. I should have pulled him aside and question him offline. Why does this anger us? Because everyone understands sergeants to be selfless. For example, sergeants ALWAYS let their soldiers eat first. You never hear them say, “Sorry private, I out rank you and hence earned the right to eat first.” That would NEVER fly. This is all based off the official NCO creed:
“No one is more professional than I.”
“I will not use my grade or position to attain pleasure, profit, or personal safety.”
“I know my soldiers and I will always place their needs above my own.”
This was my first negative counseling statement and I learned one important thing. To request my team leader to be present. I had no support during the counseling. This would had especially been nice when SGT X started giving me a speech on how unfocused and unmotivated I was and how I need to get my head into the game, etc. I totally disagreed, though my lone voice against the whole chain of command didn’t really mean much. Afterwards, my team leader heard about that speech and stormed off to the commander pissed off. He made sure more then my lone voice disagreed with that. My team leader has my full respect as I know he has my back and I his. What he did meant a lot and I thank him very much.
My punishment didn’t bother me. The off post pass was handed out the day before we left and was only for half the day. Besides, we all had our fun the night previous. There was no drinking in the battalion area. Since we were at the edge of it, leaving battalion area was as easy as walking across the street. We bought a ton of beer, walked across the street, and drank away. Was nice to relax and have fun.
See all the pics from week 3 here
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