More along the lines of “they got caught.” Had it been kept within the community, well…
In the Army you have an enlisted leader who is there to help and to an extent mentor you as a junior officer. Your job is to run the admin side of the unit particularly as a boot Lt. In ROTC our battalion commander summed it up nicely. “If you platoon sergeant offers a suggestion, consider it very carefully. If your platoon sergeant says ‘sir, you might want to think about that,’ don’t do it.” As a boot Lt. your job is to learn how to do unit finance, scheduling, make sure everyone has their mandatory computer based training, etc, oh and some military stuff if you’re in a combat arms field. As an infantry platoon leader, you have less time in the military playing soldier then about 2/3rds of the enlisted guys in your platoon on average. However here is where you learn to lead. If you have good NCO’s (most are) you learn by watching and imitating them and how they treat their men. If the s**t ever hits the fan, it is your sworn job to stand tall, and yell “follow me” if need be, no matter how much that might suck.
As a 1st Lt. you have some basic grasps of the actual infantry mission, the tactics behind it, and on average 2-3 years of experience with the admin side. You are a “commander” in the sense that you sign the paperwork and officially approve things. A smart Co. XO still leans heavily on his NCO’s, and realistically you’re still in the vein of trusting your NCO’s to actually coordinate the soldiering stuff. They are the subject matter experts in that. You know how to handle NJP’s, emergency leave request, etc, they know how to most effectively execute a hasty anti-armor ambush. Stay in your respective lanes, and everything works wonderfully. Here you start to learn to command, rather than lead. One is a function of personal bravery, ability, and responsibility. The second is a mixture of knowledge, administrative skill, and the morale fiber to make the very hard decisions of combat.
As a company commander you are a commander. Your job is to coordinate the actions of 120-150 or so young men who’s lives rest in your care. You are still a little fish in a big pond full of staff and field grade officers though. On post, you are senior enough to be noticed when things go bad, but junior enough to not able to fix issues. You still have your NCO’s to help with things, and a Co. 1st Sgt is not someone that anyone really wants to mess with.
The strong NCO corp that is too an extent joined to the officer class in the Army is not universal across the other services. In the Army, even in noncombat MOS’s, a Major is going to think twice about tussling with the battalion Sgt. Major (or god save him, the Command Sgt. Major). Yes technically a CSM has to salute a lowly first day 2nd Lt., but if that 2nd Lt gets a little to big for his britches, the CSM with a word can have an O-6 or General haul that LT in an take pieces off of him (provided he doesn’t just do it himself, and double god help the LT if he thinks that a CSM can’t chew him out). In the USAF (my dad retired as an O-5 in the AF) in certain fields you see this same sort of enlisted and commissioned symbiosis. In the flight community though, particularly in the USAF and Navy there are no enlisted pilots (WO’s in the Army and Marines are an odd exception). In the fast jet community, there are no “fighting” enlisted folks, they are all maintenance, POL, etc.
The ready room is officer country only. Here instead of developing an officer from day one with a leadership responsibilities and men under his command, the junior pilot is the FNG. And in charge of no one other than themselves, and trusted with no one besides themselves. They will spend the first couple years of their career being lead, with little responsibility besides being in the right place and technical proficiency with their aircraft and weapons (and please note I’m not down playing how much work that requires; I’m just stating that it does require you be in charge of someone else). An O-3 fast jet pilot, is most likely quiet technically proficient, and starting on the track to be an able administrator to run a squadron and a wing eventually. However they are barely dipping their toes into the leadership and command responsibilities that a O-3 in other branches or MOS’s/AFSC’s might have gotten from day 1.
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As a junior officer in the Navy, I had two simple rues.
- The Chief is always right.
- When you think the Chief is wrong, Rule 1 applies.
Chiefs–Chief Petty Officers (CPOs; E7-E9)–are the backbone of the Navy. Before the Navy started doing crazy things with the uniforms, the move from 1st Class Petty Officer (E-6) to CPO was significant in that they went from the blue working uniform of sailors to the khaki uniform of Officers. It was a statement that they no longer “one of the guys/gals” among the sailors–that their job, authority and responsibilities were now closer to that of officers.
An unwritten part of a CPO’s job is to train Junior Officers.
Obviously, as you get to be a senior officer your relationship with the Chiefs changes. When I was in command I had only one rule for my Command Master Chief (CMC; an E9)–“No surprises”. I empowered my Chief’s Mess (i.e. all the CPOs at the command; a “mess” is the place where you eat aboard ship–the “Mess Decks” or crew’s mess (E1-E6), the Chief’s Mess (CPOs) and the Wardroom (Officers).) The only thing I insisted on was a heads up if they were handling something that would or might come to my level. 90% of the timeI just nodded and let them do their Chief stuff. If I had some direction, it went through my CMC.
So yeah, officers have a similar relationship and respect for our señor NCOs…well, good officers do…some other officers, not so much.
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Provided, of course, you have good chiefs, and, I would add, First Classes under them. And woo boy, could I tell you some stories about what happens when you don’t.
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Actually, I have never met a bad Chief…I’ve met a few bad E7s, but never a bad Chief…if you get my meaning.
Absolutely. I had a great IS1 working for me at CSG7. To see him in action with the younger sailors was truly a sight to behold. I walked by an impromptu counseling session he was having with an ISSN and heard him say, “I’m already tired of talking about this!”. The look on the kid’s face was priceless. I had to walk away to avoid laughing which would have destroyed the “proper learning environment” my IS1 had crafted. Yes, he made Chief soon after.
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These are fascinating. I know that in Corporate America, it works only tangentially like this. I had a senior VP of Sprint PCS named John Garcia that used to tell me that when he told people what to do, he followed two simple rules:
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Never tell someone to do something you know full well they cannot or will not do. It’s a waste of your time.
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Never tell someone to do something you are unwilling to do yourself. It’s just going to unnecessarily cheese someone off and the job won’t get done the way you wanted it.
John had spent his entire career in the phone company and had done a couple of years in the Army when there was still a draft, so I guess he knew what was what. He had a way of getting the best out of people. The corporate environment wasn’t really his gig; John didn’t worry much about other people’s sacred cows. So, when I think of good bosses, I usually think of him.
Other than that, I never really noticed a tendency for people to foster talent in private industry and it certainly doesn’t happen in public services if my last 17 years are any indicator. Teachers are some of the worst in terms of helping the younger members of the profession gaining in knowledge or ability. Too many people are obsessed with getting credit for mediocre performance, let alone superior results. It’s among many of the reasons why this is my last year in the classroom.
So, it’s neat and really kind of heartening to read about how the military fosters better performance out of people, no matter how kind or unkind it is. The closest I got was two years in college ROTC, which, I’m sorry, bears about as much resemblance to actual military service as horse crap does to roast beef.
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Snooze. When I saw her quotes about wanting to be a role model or an inspiration, it wasn’t too difficult to imagine where the problems could be potentially sourced. No reasonable person outside the lower IQ levels of professional sports ever considers himself a “role model”. The whole pourpose (this civilian imagines) for a service demontrator is to promote either the service or the country. Self should never come into play.
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I think I inspire lots of people to eat BBQ at locations all across the country.
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Gotta disagree with you here. There is a good bit of evidence that seeing somebody who looks like them/ comes from a similar background as them can be a huge motivating factor for underrepresented or minority groups (we see it all the time in the work I do in science and technology).
I get it. Be the inspiration. Just don’t say you’re the inspiration. I gotta imagine that the less eye-rolling you inspire from the people working under you, the better.
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No kidding, i thought you meant the thread title originally.
Without going all out SJW, i’d just like us to stop for a moment and have an unagitated look. Would a thread here about a man having screwed up been titled “he must have been a bad, bad boy”? I don’t want to spark a discussion about this topic, nor do i want to point fingers at the OP because i’m sure there’s no ill intent, but can anyone really say that the woman in question isn’t being marginalized by being called “a bad girl”?
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Well, to be fair, you can’t also hold yourself up to be an empowering woman role model on the way up and not have to wear that tag on the way down too perhaps? I don’t know. Without any of the details, it is hard to draw any conclusion. I don’t think the thread title was meant as anything other than a humorous one. The gal in question didn’t seem to have any problem with her callsign “SiS” (although there seems to be more to that call-sign than meets the eye based on that interview…I’d be curious what it really means).
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And apparently, on her now deleted Instagram page…she did refer to herself as
‘Chick Fighter Pilot’ and ‘Girly Girl’, so my assumption is she is fine with being called a girl. Also, I would add, she is still a badass in my opinion, flying one of the coolest jets around. But maybe she just wasn’t cut out for certain types of leadership. It may have nothing to do with her gender - again, without any details, it is impossible to know.
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Fair point, i’m oblivious of her media persona.
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Me too. I only know what I know from that 2 minute video of her introduction as the new Viper Demo pilot. In this day and age, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was something on her personal social media site or something that did her in. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram…they seem to take down all manner of people (men or women) when someone overshares or touches on something that is operationally out of bounds. I think one of her last posts on Instagram mentioned something about a Major’s son (also in the Air Force)…perhaps there was some friction there about stepping outside the boundaries and being too familiar or something. Who knows.
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I have zero issue with her saying she wants to be a role model or inspiration. Doing interviews and stuff with civic groups (I’m full time LE and work at our academy), particular with kids, the list of talking points I get handed specifically says to say things like that. I think our female officers are almost mandated to say it. Minorities, females, etc, there is a huge push by organizations to show them off to encourage diversity in applicants, and thus hiring. Regardless of how that person may feel about the issue, when your public information office people show up and heavily suggest things like that, you don’t have much of an option.
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I am apparently unable to explain myself. I’ll move on…
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Yes there is and it is important.
Absolutely. In the military, you are there to do a job. Support and defend the Constitution of the United States agains all enemies, foreign and domestic. Period.
If while doing that job you work, are successful and others, in and out of the service, take inspiration from you, so much the better. But the job comes first. Of course, you may realize that you are being a role model…which is OK if it doesn’t go to your head…the guy standing in the chariot behind you whispering, “Remember, tho art mortal” must always be heeded.
Service, yes. Country, also yes. There is always a recruiting component. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the funding justification mentions showing off the F-16’s capabilities to prospective foreign customers…although I can’t imagine that is the case at this year’s Fly Iowa air show at Boone municipal airport, but you never know…3rd August if anyone is interested in going. @BeachAV8R, are you guys going to be showing the Kingair out there?
The Bottom Line is that the USAF mad her assignment a big deal–a historic first or whatever. So now it becomes a big deal that se got fired. That psucks but, nobody said life was fair…at least the never said it to me.
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We have before…but lately we have been so busy flying medical transports it has been difficult to carve out PR time. Previously we have done Hickory, Statesville, Rutherfordton, Lincolnton, and Monroe airshows…as well as the CLT Runway 5K, but the last two years we haven’t committed to static displays because of our intended purpose.
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