[Prodigal Son]

When I was a private, there would have been absolutely no way I would have said a word to my battalion commander unless he spoke to me directly.

Why?

[MP5SD]

Since bat-boy and I apparently grew up in the same house let me say this. Its was rare when I was a PFC to talk to anyone except my Team Leader, occasionally my Squad Leader, only when spoken to first, and never my Platoon Sergeant. If my Platoon Sergeant spoke to me it was usually not a good thing. We called it the Chain of Command - you are familiar with it I assume. It exsists for a reason. BTW - I didn't drink beer with my squad leader on Friday night like these knuckleheads do today. My Team Leader was the first person I saw in the morning and the last at night.

[dpa5923]

As a 1stSgt (and hopefully someday a SgtMaj) I would take the Commanding Officer aside and explain to him that he has an entire battalion of Marines (or in this case soliders) to worry about not just one PFC's toothache.

A PFC would have a fireteam leader, a squadldr, a plt cmdr, a Company GySgt (or whatever the army calls it), a 1stSgt, a Company Cmdr, a Bn XO, and a BnSgt Maj before he needed to speak to a LtCol. If these people can't handle a dental appointment that Bn is lost before it even has a chance to engage the enemy and the LtCol needs to start relieve a boat load of people!

A LtCol has bigger issues than a PFC dental appointment and if he told the kid to come back and talk to him about the dental care he recieved, the SgtMaj of that Battalion needs to quickly correct that problem.

[bat-boy]

Because anything other than the greeting of the day would have been inappropriate unless he decided to strike up a conversation. A battalion commander deals with personnel issues at a macrolevel. The companies and PAC deal with the microlevel issues.

It is jumping the chain of command for a private to go straight to a battalion commander for ANY issue. Even when using the open door policy you were supposed to attempt to resolve the issue with your company chain of command first. The first question that should come out of a BN CO's mouth should be: Have you spoken to your chain of command concerning this?