ADCON vs OPCON

2015-02-11T13:34:01-05:00

What's your experience when an organization has ADCON of you, but not OPCON?

Response by Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS made Feb 11 at 2015 1:48 PM

2015-02-11T13:48:04-05:00

Staff PoG here.

Almost every organization I have ever belonged to, there has been an ADCON/OPCON "fun." It's always a balancing act. Especially when there are a variety of ranks in the mix.

I remember my boss, the Intel Officer (a Capt) saying once "I'm not getting my leave signed by the Company Commander (a much junior Capt), I work for the XO (a Maj)." It wasn't directed at me, and I doubt he even realized I was in the room. But it highlighted an issue that the H&S Company Commander faced. He didn't actually have any "troops" however he still got his "fair share" of taskings from up high, for whatever the training schedule was. He in turn got a lot of push back from everyone.

What it boils down to is that the folks who have OPCON look at the guys who have ADCON as a "necessary evil," but also generally as a "distraction from the mission." They don't understand what we do, and they want us to drop everything so they can do their mission. Of course, their mission is to make sure OUR paperwork is squared away.

The relationship is about halfway between parasitic & symbiotic.

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 11 at 2015 9:31 PM

2015-02-11T21:31:27-05:00

I never really knew the difference or even what ADCON and OPCON were until a few months ago. I am deployed with a small group of 18 guys and we got attached to an SF Headquarters as support. We had a soldier who had an ND with his weapon. The command wanted to process UCMJ internally, and the soldiers parent unit (also deployed, in a different area) said that they still retained UCMJ authority over the soldier. There was a big debate about if we were ADCON or OPCON to this SF unit. It ended up that we were OPCON and our parent unit still had UCMJ, however they authorized the SF command to process the UCMJ and allowed the soldier to serve his punishment were he currently was instead of flying to where our parent unit was for UCMJ processing and to serve his punishment.

All of this was very eye opening, as I have never been "attached" to a different unit. I never realized that there would be so many issues that would arise from a situation like this.