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re: How do commands work in the military
Posted on 1/16/19 at 8:00 pm to jlovel7
Posted on 1/16/19 at 8:00 pm to jlovel7
quote:
I’m just curious if say a corporal can order a private around
When a junior officer gives an order to a senior enlisted, it is usually done in a respectful manner but they absolutely do it.
0
Posted on 1/16/19 at 8:05 pm to greygoose
quote:
E-3 is an NCO?
They are not. However, if they are filling an NCO’s position they will be expected to act like one and issue orders to their fire team.
Posted on 1/16/19 at 8:10 pm to AA77
quote:
Warrant Officer are the best kept secret in the Army
Yes
Posted on 1/16/19 at 8:14 pm to Jim Rockford
quote:My favorite Army joke:
Never piss off a warrant officer. They can frick your shite up.
Three times you should get nervous:
1) When a lieutenant says, "Based on my experience. . ."
2) When an aviator says, "Whoops!"
3) When a warrant officer says, "Check this shite out."
Posted on 1/16/19 at 8:16 pm to greygoose
quote:
E-3 is an NCO?
No
quote:
I guess the USN is different.
Thats what we hear
quote:
No E-3 is ordering E-2 and E-1 around.
In the Marines, an E-2 can tell E-1s what to do. Thats the structure.
Posted on 1/16/19 at 8:17 pm to ABearsFanNMS
quote:
They are not. However, if they are filling an NCO’s position they will be expected to act like one and issue orders to their fire team.
Never seen this in the Army. I was only in CAV and INF units but I have never seen an E3 in charge of a fire team nor an E3 serve as a gunner on an Abrams.
I have seen E4s in those positions, either awaiting promotion and frocked or a temporary position until an E5 fills that slot.
This post was edited on 1/16/19 at 8:25 pm
Posted on 1/16/19 at 8:21 pm to Doosh606
quote:
In the air force world, nobody below E4 is really giving anyone orders, and even then they're not really in charge until they hit sergeant (E5). Junior officers can technically give orders to NCOs but from my experience they avoid it as much as they can because they are generally less experienced. And there's no captains giving orders to SNCOs haha generally they're treated as advisors to the officer corps.
How long ago were you in the AF? That's not how things work today. There are E-4s in positions where they supervise E-1s thru E-3s. And yes, you will see Captains and even Lieutenants giving orders to SNCOs. Now, I'm not talking about orders like "drop and give me 25" orders, but they do make decisions that then are carried out as orders.
Posted on 1/16/19 at 8:22 pm to Doosh606
quote:
And there's no captains giving orders to SNCOs haha generally they're treated as advisors to the officer corps.
I would disagree with that. A good company-level commander is getting his orders followed pretty much without hesitation by everyone up to and including about E-7.
A good First Sergeant will have the gravitas and authority to push back and maaaaayyyybeee a senior platoon sergeant or senior platoon leader, but that's about it. Again, that's assuming that the CO isn't an incompetent and has the respect of his soldiers.
At least, that's how it was in the infantry.
Probably makes a difference that infantry NCO's tend to be a little on the young side and the organizations are pretty flat - saw a lot of 23 year old Staff Sergeants and 28 year old Sergeants First Class walking around infantry units. A lot of the time, the mid-level NCO's aren't any older and not much more experienced than some of the junior officers they're around.
Posted on 1/16/19 at 8:24 pm to jlovel7
quote:
I do know it is basically career suicide for lower ranking officers to give orders to some of the highest ranked enlisted men and there’s sort of a balancing act between the two.
In the officer ranks you have General Officers O7-O10 , Field Grade Officers O4-O6, and Junior Officers O1-O3.
Senior NCO's are E7-E9, Junior NCO's are E-4(Corp)-E6, and lower enlisted is E1-E4.
Warrants are CW1-CW5. These are technical officers and CW3-CW5 can assume command of a company.
The lowest ranking Commissioned Officer and Warrant Officer outranks any Enlisted Personnel. Now typically a Junior Officer O1-O2 and Warrant Officer CW3 and below will not dare tell a Senior NCO what to do or chew them out. I have only seen it once and it was an O2 who was previously an E7 and he chewed out another E7 who was jacked up. That is rare and don't happen often though ,but some of the enlisted guys that go officer will have the balls to do it ,because they know what they are doing. Company Commanders usually don't mix with CSM'S. I was in aviation so the Battalion I was in usually had a decent amount of officers and at a change of command ceremony our incoming Battalion Commander declared that our Battalion CSM only answered to him and his word was the word of the Battalion Commander ,basically saying he is number 2 in this Battalion and don't challenge him even if you outrank him. This also usually applies up the ladder with Brigade, Division ,and Corps. Like a Major that is a Battalion XO will not try to dig into Brigade CSM ,because he/she is the top enlisted adviser for the Brigade Commander which is usually a Colonel. So sometimes it is more about the position rather than the rank ,because of who that CSM works directly with.
Posted on 1/16/19 at 8:26 pm to kilo
quote:
Never seen this in the Army. I was only in CAV and INF units but I have never seen an E3 in charge of a fire team nor an E3 serve as a gunner on an Abrams.
Saw it overseas a couple of times when units were stretched thin (think a squad occupying a little OP for 72 hours or something) but never saw it in training back in the U.S.
Posted on 1/16/19 at 8:29 pm to AbuTheMonkey
Nothing is more entertaining than watching a cherry 2LT walk into a platoon and butt heads with a crusty E7 platoon sergeant.
Comedy ensues for everyone.
Comedy ensues for everyone.
This post was edited on 1/16/19 at 8:30 pm
Posted on 1/16/19 at 8:31 pm to jlovel7
Technically even if your the same rank but have more time in service or time in rank (can’t remember which now) you can order the other dude to do something. For example an E-3 with 2 yrs can order an E3 with 1 year and the 1 year dude better do it.
Posted on 1/16/19 at 8:33 pm to greygoose
quote:
E-3 is an NCO?
No ,but an E3 can fill the role of an NCO. I was a PFC who was certified and filled a shift supervisors spot and had to train people who outranked me before. I assumed that role ,because I was the highest ranking member at the time who was fully certified. Now that doesn't mean you are an NCO and even though you are training someone who outranks you military customs and courtesies still apply.
Posted on 1/16/19 at 8:34 pm to stelly1025
quote:
I was in aviation
quote:
Warrants are CW1-CW5
I know whatcha meant, though 
Posted on 1/16/19 at 8:34 pm to AbuTheMonkey
quote:
Saw it overseas a couple of times when units were stretched thin (think a squad occupying a little OP for 72 hours or something) but never saw it in training back in the U.S.
I was deployed twice to Iraq. Never seen that ever. There is always a glut of E4s waiting to get promoted/watching points to come down so they could get promoted. I can't imagine a combat arms unit stretched so thin that it needed to fill NCO slots with a PFC downrange. Not saying you're lying or anything but that's a real head scratcher there.
Posted on 1/16/19 at 8:41 pm to kilo
quote:
Nothing is more entertaining than watching a cherry 2LT walk into a platoon and but heads with a crusty E7 platoon sergeant.
It is certainly entertaining. From my experience, good battalion leaderships teams will work hard to mix and match LT's with the right platoon sergeant based on personality, experience, etc., so I admittedly didn't see it too often.
I was very fortunate in my situation - I was very cherry and was matched up with a PSG who was on his second stint as a PSG and had a SS and a BSM-V to his name. He saved my arse many, many times.
My squad leaders, on the other hand, were all pretty young (around my age or just a few years older). They were my generational peers, and the relationship was different. shite, I had as much or more time in country by the end of the deployment as 90% of my platoon, so I had no problem giving orders and needling people (and chewing a couple of them out, if necessary) by the second half of the deployment.
Just gotta be able reasonably competent and be able to read the room.
Posted on 1/16/19 at 8:42 pm to DeafJam73
Sobel got them in shape for the war.
Also, read some about the real life Sobel. Guy had a pretty sad life. He tried to kill himself, but he shot himself through the temple which didn't kill him. It just severed his optic nerve and left him blind for the last 17 years of his life. He spent that time having to live in assisted living. Feel kind of bad for him.
Also, read some about the real life Sobel. Guy had a pretty sad life. He tried to kill himself, but he shot himself through the temple which didn't kill him. It just severed his optic nerve and left him blind for the last 17 years of his life. He spent that time having to live in assisted living. Feel kind of bad for him.
This post was edited on 1/16/19 at 8:43 pm
Posted on 1/16/19 at 8:45 pm to kilo
quote:
Nothing is more entertaining than watching a cherry 2LT walk into a platoon and butt heads with a crusty E7 platoon sergeant.
Posted on 1/16/19 at 8:53 pm to kilo
quote:
I was deployed twice to Iraq. Never seen that ever. There is always a glut of E4s waiting to get promoted/watching points to come down so they could get promoted. I can't imagine a combat arms unit stretched so thin that it needed to fill NCO slots with a PFC downrange. Not saying you're lying or anything but that's a real head scratcher there.
Don't get me wrong - it was pretty rare, but necessity is the mother of innovation and all that.
Picture: a single company trying to cover about a 60 square kilometer of villages with probably 50,000 - 100,000 Iraqis living in it and about a battalion's worth of Iraqi soldiers with you. All three line platoons are on different COPs. One platoon's got overwatch on a major MSR for like a week in addition to normal stuff. Everyone is running outside the wire at least 60% of the time every single day because the area's pretty kinetic, so you're rotating squads nightly to take that MSR overwatch. One of your squads is down to 7 guys - one SGT is back at Victory getting an eye infection taken care of, and an E-4 is back home on leave; the rest of the squad has an E-6 SL, a promotable E-4 as one TL, and a regular E-4 - who is also the only guy qualified on the Raven - as the other filling in for the guy back at Victory. On that squad's night, if they need to go check something out, it might be an E-3 (whom we would trust) leading around a little fire team if they had to go check something out if the other two E-4s were otherwise occupied.
You could augment the squad with an E-4 from elsewhere for the night, but those guys are getting absolutely run into the ground night after night, and they're fried and need what little rest they could get. Plus, half of them are doing guard duty on the COP, anyway.
This post was edited on 1/16/19 at 8:57 pm
Posted on 1/16/19 at 9:04 pm to Peazey
quote:
Also, read some about the real life Sobel. Guy had a pretty sad life. He tried to kill himself, but he shot himself through the temple which didn't kill him. It just severed his optic nerve and left him blind for the last 17 years of his life. He spent that time having to live in assisted living. Feel kind of bad for him.
Wow. I feel bad for him. That’s rough.
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