I learned this much in my experience as an Army Officer and civilian Fed employee. Catch-22 was right. You can’t trust an Army Officer over the rank of Major. You just can’t. They are going to have priorities that supersede you. They will tell you whatever they feel they have to. Just the way it is.
Here! Here!
Former USAF and spot on!
In joint service for 10 years
Not that every service doesn’t have their share of a-——— but
No service more obssessed woth date of rank and maneuvering on the job to impress the chain of command than the Army
And dont get me started on the Navy where i swear they lobotomized their 0-5’s
Give me the Marines anyday!
In general, I concur, no pun intended.
I was fortunate that there were a couple of LTC's and a bird Colonel whom I knew had my back. Almost forgot an incident where the DCG of 32nd AADCOM completely obliterated a team chief's finding in a Nuclear Surety Inspection.
It's a story interesting only to me...lol. Reader's Digest version: one of my extra duties was an Augmentation Reserve Force commander for a nearby Nike Hercules site. We had 4 hours to assemble a 40 man platoon, issue weapons and live ammo, and respond to their site in case they were attacked by terrorists.
The team chief was miffed that we arrived in 3 1/2 hours, because we were only 5-6 miles away. I told him I held them back for small unit tactical training, as we were air defense artillery, not infantry.
At the outbriefing, the team chief, in front of the entire chain of command for our sister battery, up through battalion to group to 32nd AADCOM, that he "advised me" to respond more rapidly in the even of a real situation.
When the team left, the DCG went to the podium to offer his congratulatory remarks. First thing he did was point his finger at me, and said, "LT NHN, I'll take that hit for you. Anytime you want to give your soldiers extra training, you have my permission."
One of the highlights of an otherwise undistinguished military career (lol) is no one was ever injured or discharged their weapon during the six ARFs I commanded.