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There were XOs at battery level in ADA. Good thing, because too many great staff officers were made battery commanders, when they should have remained commanding a desk.

I was a casualty of the ADA motto, "we eat our young." lol

During that ARTEP I mentioned, I overrode the BC on the second day of the 3 day evaluation. He was catatonic after a disastrous day, which included him encoding coordinates for one platoon's mission, and he was never challenged.

When I got back to the CP, our First Sergeant was sitting on a tree stump, muttering "it's over"...this from a man who had 3 tours in Nam as an Infantry First Sergeant. After that, I put an end to the bull, and started issuing orders to right the ship.

That evening, I lit into the 4 platoon leaders for their lack of leadership. I knew their jobs better than they did, as I'd taken 3 platoons through their evaluations, more than they had combined. I laid out, step by step, what each of their soldiers would do the next day. That was the deal with ARTEPs, you pass as long as you're showing improvement.

As I stormed out of the CP, I almost bumped into the Chief Evaluator...lol, I thought, "I'm screwed, he heard everything." Instead, he said with a big grin, "that was beautiful, LT". We passed, barely, and was rewarded with the worst OER of my career. It rolled off my back like water, my Trump card was that I had no intentions of making it a career.

Funny thing was, the Group Commander made his remarks, stating basically that the Battery Commander and Battalion Commander were full of ... He liked to visit his outlying batteries on Friday afternoons, and I got a lot of face time with him, as I was usually the only officer on site.