Good Article

[Yanni]

You guys might have already read this but its a good article that gives me a hell of a lot of motovation.
http://www.dcmilitary.com/marines/hendersonhall/9_31/commentary/30632-1.html

 

[Slammer2]

nice article. Just curious, do any guys who are prior enlisted and now and officer agree with the author's POV?

 

[phrogpilot73]

nice article. Just curious, do any guys who are prior enlisted and now and officer agree with the author's POV?

Great article! His description of a Lt checking in hit the nail on the head. The description of the "Gunny" is exact, if the Lt is smart he should be asking questions... Additionally, any officer worth his salt realizes that SNCOs run the Marine Corps. Officers are there as oversight, and to use their rank to look after their Marines.

 

[Slammer2]

Though not always the case, it seems to me that all the enlisted people who I know (plus all the stories I hear about others) regard officers as someone who does not know anything. Then, it seems like if the officer has been serving for quite a while, they are not looked at the same way as the salty NCO guy who has been in for the same amount of time or even less - but instead as some A-hole who just yells at people and is more concerned with political stuff than the welfare of the men, etc.

I was wondering how much of this stuff is true. Meaning, do you guys often see enlisted men disrespecting officers behind their backs, or do they just play it up for the movies and tv shows and stories? When I hear my one friend say that out of the roughly 100 officers he's worked for the past several years, he can immediately think of 20 that he hated and 3 that he liked, it makes me wonder if this is truely how the enlisted men view the officers, or if its just a case of "us versus them". Kinda like how a fan of one football team will "hate" the players of the rival team, even if they happen to be good.

 

[Gatordev]

I think it's a little bit of both, depending on your situation. There's this leadership theory where the subordinates go through 4 stages w/ their leader. I can't remember the name of it, but it's taught in conjunction w/ "12 o'clock High" in the Naval Leadership curriculum. When learning about it, I thought it was a big waste of time (as is a lot of that leadership stuff). Theory is great, but I always was one for just jumping in and learning as you go when it comes to that stuff. Once I got to the fleet and started having more and more people work for me, I started thinking back to how accurate that whole theory was. You can especially see it when you start workups and then finish a deployment. I guess what I'm saying is that you will have to earn the guys' trust. You should (in theory) already have their respect by positional leadership, but if you're good, you'll also earn their trust and they will work hard/shoot straight/lead well/etc because they want to better the team, not because it's just a job.

On my second cruise, I had a guy who would sport a major attitude towards just about anybody. It wasn't personal, it was just his demeanor. However, he was one hell of a maintainer, so while he pissed off the first classes on my det, my chief saw that he could get more out of him by working w/ him than just squashing him. As the cruise continued, he got into trouble. Once for a pretty major thing, and then a couple of other small time things as a result of disobeying his NJP. When he would get caught, and my chief or I would talk w/ him, he would come out and say he understood we had to do what we had to do. He probably didn't "like" us for doing it, but he respected that there had to be retribution for his actions.

I had a point to all this, but now I've forgotten. Sorry for the rambling, but the short of it is there's a difference between being liked by your juniors because you're nice to them and don't make it hard on them, and being respected because you take care of them, and hold everybody accountable for their responsibilities.

 

[Brett327]

The distinction is, at least for most of the aviator types in the Navy, officers don't show up to their first command fresh out of OCS, so that "wet behind the ears" effect is lessened somewhat, and you've usually ben in the squadron for a while and are an O-3 before you have a division to run. Hopefully by that time you've got some experience and developed a rapport with people, so when it comes time to be in more of a leadership role, it comes more naturally.

Brett

 

[zab1001]

...When I hear my one friend say that out of the roughly 100 officers he's worked for the past several years, he can immediately think of 20 that he hated and 3 that he liked, it makes me wonder if this is truely how the enlisted men view the officers, or if its just a case of "us versus them"...

How many civilians do you know who hate their boss/manager/foreman/supervisor? People are people, the mil is just a reflection of society.

 

[Sundown]

How many civilians do you know who hate their boss/manager/foreman/supervisor? People are people, the mil is just a reflection of society.

Excellent analogy. I don't think it could be said any better.

 

[The Chief]

Though not always the case, it seems to me that all the enlisted people who I know (plus all the stories I hear about others) regard officers as someone who does not know anything.

I might be out of line here, the article was about Marines. My experience is not about Marines and somewhat dated. Know not a lot about the Marine Corps, but my observations are that Marine Officers hit the ground running, as the article seem to say. My observations were that all Marine Officers seem to have always been a Marine, not an OCS Marine, nor USNA Marine nor NROTC Marine.

If you would permit, I will change the article segue to a CPO with a group of Sailors involved in some "evolution" setting aboard ship. The Ensign appears in the hatch and asks for directions, he was reporting aboard. I would invite him into the compartment, introduce him to each and every one of my "evolution" party, giving him a brief, positive profile of each Sailor there. No personal data, just rate, rating and general duties and his function in the "evolution". I would then assign one of the Sailors to escort him to his destination, to include any other brief assistance he may request. I would invite the Ensign back.

Never, ever would I permit any display of disrecpect to any officer, at any time. Seldom did I ever encounter it, short of some good natured chuckles about how tall, how short, and other such trivial attributes one may have. I know they would call me "Chief Spot" because of the mole on my forehead. Pretended to be offended when I needed an "excuse" but bothered me not in the least, and in my book not at all disrepectful.

Other than an occasional Sailor that needed some attitude adjustment training, even the most junior JO had the respect of everyone in my division and in my belief most all in the Navy. Not always wine and roses but the system works.

My pet peeve was the occasional JO that wanted to be my "buddy". First name basis off duty. My approach, okay, if you would prefer me to call you LT instead of LT Smith, fine with me, sir. You can call me Master.

Old Navy

P.S: Oh, him because in my Navy we did not allow women on ships, it was bad luck. Honest.

 

[highlyrandom]

"How many civilians do you know who hate their boss/manager/foreman/supervisor? People are people, the mil is just a reflection of society."

Except that few supervisors have the legal duty to wade in, take the hits, die trying, and hold the blame if suddenly promoted to CEO.

I'm inclined to feel that thousands of years of warfare would have rendered the concept of officers obsolete if the job description merely involved "oversight" or even "looking after Marines..." (no dig on ya phrogpilot, just expanding this a little) It's really too bad that everyone junior and senior wants first and foremost to know what kind of naval officer I am, Academy, ROTC, OCS, useless, etc...the Marines seem to discuss this as a humorous bit of trivia, but inconsequential to the mission; for us, the Navy JOs, it's a way to peg somebody in a hole without having to personally evaluate someone's leadership. Especially in NavAir, where we spend the formative years in "what would you do if your plane did X" situations, and not "how will you lead these men."

The problem with the "manager with rank" theory I hear a lot of these days is that save for SpecOps and VBSS teams, few Navy JOs have had to make those tough calls (life and death in wartime), so our culture has devolved slightly into discussing minutiae of the internet, real estate, what we did on liberty, our wives, whether to call the Chief anything other than "Chief."

There would have been no question in the old British Navy or the army of Sparta, since the consequences of improper rank relationships were made immediately clear whilst leading hundreds of amped-up, scared, armed-to-the-teeth fighters into battle.

In conclusion, we need to bring back AOCS for all new Navy officers, but now as two months of obstacle courses, API flight theory, SERE-type ground leadership, and maintenance school. Hey, it would free up the A-pool a little...