This is a very special blog, very special. I swore up and down that I would never write anything about my personal life but some things just have to be said regardless of the consequences.
As I keep saying over and over again in my postings, I am a soldier in the United States ARMY, as such I am bound to a code of honor and within that code I can not speak ill of anyone higher ranking then myself. I am a Specialist (E-4 pay grade) and a certain Sergeant (E-5 pay grade) is who lead me to write this entry and is the reason for the title of this column. This is something that should not go unnoticed because it is becoming the downfall of the military as a whole, that, and it’s pissing me off!
One thing that you are told when you get ready to go to the promotion board to become a Sergeant is that a Sergeant is the backbone of the ARMY and everyone should strive to become just like their Sergeant, and that should be one of the main reasons that you need to pass the board so lesser soldiers can look up to and strive to be just like you. With the lot of Sergeants that are currently in the US ARMY, particularly the one that unnerved me (trying to stay semi respectful here, trying.) has reminded me why I will never strive to be like him.
The backbone, IE Sergeants, that was established a long time ago on loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage has broken! Hell, it’s BEEN broken. With the exception of a very few (I can count all of the ones in my unit on one hand, literally) and I will now tell you why. I have been keeping my mouth shut on this for a very, VERY, long time, but no longer. The above list, loyalty, duty, respect and so on make an acronym that spells Leadership and I can say right now that leadership in the ARMY is crap! Here is a nice little nifty list to show you how, using the acronym.
Loyalty: In my ten years in the military the only loyalty I have seen a Sergeant give is loyalty to whom ever has their lips closest to his ass, their called brown noses for a reason.
Duty: The last time I witnessed a Sergeant dutifully fulfilling their role AS a Sergeant to NOT fulfill a personal need and shit on their soldiers, well, that was at least 5 years ago.
Respect: I have yet to come across a single NCO (Non commissioned officer, ie, Sergeant) that agrees that respect is a two way street. Pretty much every single one of them thinks flat out that they are the NCO so you should automatically respect them and to hell with giving any in return. After all, their a higher rank then you.
Selfless Service: Well, I pretty much covered this one so far, keep reading for more examples that will fit in this category.
Honor: I don’t even know where to begin on this one, instead I will make a quote that pretty much sums it up, it’s from the Lord Of The Rings “There is no honor left in the lives of men”, but in this case it’s NCO’s.
Integrity: Well, if they had any I wouldn’t be writing this.
Personal Courage: Most have reinterpreted this as I can do whatever the hell I want.
I will not go into specifics as to what happened this morning as that issue is currently being dealt with. What I will say however is the fact that once again I will NEVER consider joining the ranks of hypocrites that have nothing more on their minds then doing whatever they can to ruin the lives of lower enlisted soldiers, for the majority of them that seems to be their goal, and some of them are doing a damn good job at it. Something MUST be done about this.
SCREW MICHAEL JACKSON, THEIR ARE MORE IMPORTANT ISSUES HAPPENING!
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