"D. Strang" wrote in message
news:0C38c.473$zc1.37@okepread03...
"Ed Rasimus" wrote

One of the first things I learned (it wasn't obvious), was that you end
up mothering your men. The object is to get them through their tour.
There's always one guy who has the IQ of a turd, and these guys are
always popular. You have to really brow-beat the men and find ways
to get their attention. Especially after losing five or six guys in one
battle. They are either very depressed, or very ****ed off, and it takes
constant commands to focus the battle. If you're lucky you have at
least one NCO, who is meaner than you could ever be.

My experience as an enlisted man was very bad (outside of combat).
When you are in the states or some overseas cesspool, just putting in
time, then everyone wants a piece of you for slave labor. I was once
grabbed off the street, and found myself unloading railroad cars. We
had a couple radar troops with us. They felt they were just slaves.
You would never find officers doing that kind of work. But you
would find college graduate highly technical specialists just cannabolized
for the body count. We broke a lot of stuff just to get even.

My experience, at many bases between 1976 and 1997, was completely
different.

Or, is it possible that there are some
officers (I'll contend a lot of them,) who respect their subordinates,
depend upon them for support and value their expertise?

It all makes sense until you see the daily detail list. E-7's driving
bus,
E-8 inventory the clothing store, E-5 waxing the bowling alley, etc.
Then you go to your real job.

Amazingly, in 20 years, I never did (or saw) anything remotely like that.

Details?
Extra duty and training for EDM (RAF Upper Heyford)
Veterans Day parade in Albany NY (Griffiss AFB)
Extra standby duty to unload cargo A/C (Hill AFB)
Tutor for a marginal airman who was failing his CDC/OJT requirements
(Ramstein AB)
Volunteered to outprocess and drive to the airport an airman who was getting
kicked out (Ramstein AB)
Cleanup and final lookaround after the airshow crash at Ramstein

Never did anything like what you report, nor did anyone else I worked with.
I guess flightline personnel were already too overworked to be tasked for
bowling alley waxing.

Of course, other career fields did have other, weird, extra duties. Finance
and CBPO personnel tasked as aux SP's, for instance. Dangerous fools.

But...
The bowling alley had their own civilians for waxing.
The clothing store had their own civilians for inventory.
Transpotation SQ handled the bus driving duties.

Now...if you were at a remote base somewhere, with limited civilian
personnel...things may be different.

During my commanders welcome meeting in his office, we all sat at
his table and told him he had a terrible moral problem. I wasn't there
a week, and I found the place a disaster. He looked us square in the
face and said he will make sure all of us would wish we were never
born, jumped-up and yelled to get the hell out of his office. He
lasted another month before the Colonel got rid of him, but the
damage was done, and we were just enlisted people, so suck it up.

Bad commanders exist. Eventually, they either leave or change. Bad managers
in cubeland exist. And they are harder to get rid of.


Let's acknowledge first, that most C.O.s deal through chain of
command. Their attitudes, information, and reactions are filtered
through levels of junior officers and NCOs. There are some
organizations in which the C.O. does deal with the lowest ranks, but
in most units, there are several levels. Or, maybe you didn't mean
C.O., but rather simply meant "supervisor"--then you've still got to
deal with different ages, levels of maturity, and degrees of technical
expertise.

In my example above, the higher enlisted ranks were almost never to
be found. The commander had no eyes and ears. I agree with you
on this.

"I need 5 guys for ...."
Are you, as the NCOIC or OIC going to go? Or do you get 5 airmen?


All I have to do is go into a squadron and look at the detail list, or
watch
all the enlisted troops picking up trash with their garbage bags dragging
behind them to know that nothing has changed.

Sure, some guys get tasked to police up an area. But it isn't nearly as
common (in recent years) as you make it out to be.

Pete