There are More Important Missions the Sgt Major Sez
November 2nd, 2006 by xformed
As we all know, it’s the officers who have to spin the sotiry, but if you want the real gouge, get a senior “Non Comm” and you’ll get the unvarished thruth.
My experience was the Master Chief Petty Officers could deliver a factual, yet blistering report, when necessary, knowing they were in that “place” where the thruth couldn’t be avoided. Sonar Technician Master Chief Petty Officer (Surface Warfare) David Frey was one of those men who I learned early in my career to trust and rely on for straight answers. Later in my service time, I served with him again, with Dave being on many of the inspections I was tasked to run on ships all up and down the East Coast. I watched Dave, on several occassions, resolutely bring the message to officers from the division level, up to ship captains, and also to admirals with various numbers of stars on their collar.
He was polite, yet “professionally insistent” in making sure they got the story right. He was a remarkable shipmate.
This brings me to the words of an Army blogger, one of the early ones, a man of great discernment and one who can tell a story. He’s a Sargent Major now, but his blog is “Sgt Hook.” He’s been there and done it and got a drawer full of t-shirts to prove it all, and most likely has done much more he hasn’t gotten a t for. Listen to him.
He linked this site to his post, but his post, in the post-John Kerry ridiculous remarks era, is worth your careful read, for he says it best in “More Important Missions:”
I went to work this morning more than a little hot under the collar at the implication, whether by botching a joke or not, that your Soldiers were stuck defending freedom because they had somehow failed to work hard in school so I decided to get out of the office and check on my Soldiers. It has gotten quite cold here lately and I thought the crisp air combined with talking to Soldiers would help calm me down and focus on what really matters.
Stopping in the motor pool I came upon a group of mechanics, dressed in coveralls streaked with grease stains, working inside an open bay. The large bay had tall sliding doors on both the front and back of the building and were both wide open. Several mechanics were working on a 40 foot trailer parked in the middle of the chilly bay, while others were attending to a second trailer outside, waiting to be pulled in, and still a third set were atop another trailer outside, on the opposite end having just been pulled out of the bay. When I asked one of them why both sets of doors were open causing them to freeze their asses off. The young mechanic enthusiastically explained that they had devised a system whereby one team worked on the electrical and air systems of the trailer as it waited outside the bay, while another team worked on a trailer that had been pulled into the bay completing services on the undercarriage and wheels, then a third trailer had been pulled out of the bay where another team finished up work on the topside of the trailer. “Kind of like an assembly line?†I asked. “Yes sergeant major, exactly!†he replied going on to explain that they were able to knock out full services on five times as many trailers in this manner than by the three individual teams doing everything on one trailer independently. Pretty smart, I thought. Telling the mechanics to get back to work and stop waisting time talking to the sergeant major, I went in search of more Soldiers.
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Read the entire thing, if you know what’s good for your soul, in these pre-election negative on everything news days.
Category: Army, Leadership, Military, Supporting the Troops | Comments Off on There are More Important Missions the Sgt Major Sez
