Posted on May 2, 2017
As a fairly new NCO, am I supposed to give my soldiers initial and monthly counsellings (PSG is asking for monthly)?
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Responses: 173
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Yes. Most definitely. For SPC and below, you are supposed to do an initial counseling - I believe within 30 days of receiving that soldier - and then monthly counseling. Do all NCOs counsel their soldiers monthly? No. My first NCOIC was a SFC. I think I got like two from him. They were horrible. It consisted of "Good job this month. Your uniform was good." That was it. When we deployed, my OIC took over my counseling because they took the NCOIC and the SSG and put them in S3. It was just me and her. She set my counseling like a NCOER on the 4856. (The old NCOER). She had Competence, Physical Fitness & Military Bearing, Leadership, Training, Responsibility and Accountability and each one had 2-3 bullets. Then at the bottom she had a summary of the counseling on what she would cover and then the Plan of Action. My 1SG loved those when he saw my promotion packet for SGT or when he did counseling packet reviews. That's how I have always counseled any soldiers I've ever had. Whenever I get back to an Army unit I'll have to adjust it to the new NCOER form but I think that's good. But there is no specific way to write one. You should be covering the things they did well, things they need to improve. Then make sure that you follow up with the plan of action.
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SGT George Smith
In 61-66 there was no council proceedings of any kind. NCOs supervised and u were to learn by working for them. Sad to say in 2 years at Ft Carson, 63-65, little to no real supervision took place. It was more “if you don’t have something to do I’ll find something for u too do”. Look busy but we really didn’t do shit reguarding training. Two 30 day exercises, Desert Strike in California and I don’t remember the others. All bullshit. Example. I was assigned radio operator for the CO one night. We rode a Jeep, on paved roads for over 2 hours. Never stopped or received any radio messages. Went back to company area and went to bed. As I said, bullshit. Okinawa and Vietnam we had supervision. I made Sgt in Vietnam.
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MSG Don H.
and they still do in a few units, but racism can go both ways; I had a black 1SG, Commander, CSM and Bn Cmdr in Iraq in 2005, despite out producing two other interrogation teams; one lead by a black male SFC and the other lead by an Asia SFC my leadership want to downgrade my award recommendation from a Bronze Star Medal to an ARCOM. My team and I did more interrogations, produced more intelligence reports and went on more missions outside the wire than the other two teams combined. Luckily my warrant threatened them with a EO complaint if they downgraded my award, but gave the other two team leaders theirs. They even denied my Combat Action Badge, their justification was that they weren't giving CABs to E-7s and above, but the black E-8 that worked in the S-3 , who never left the FOB, got one at the awards ceremony. My two Hispanic E-5s on my team did get theirs approved, we were all on the mission together when were ambushed. After that I was done with that unit and I was glad that I never saw that command team or that after that deployment.
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Yes. Council routinely. And nit just negative councilings. Positive ones too. You're "advised" to do so, and every junior enlisted hates the NCO that only councils you negatively
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SPC Kelly Grindstaff
SPC Fred Harrington - Spit Shined and all Uniforms Lightly Starched I even bought extra uniforms for if and when they were needed and ever one of them that was not in the laundry bag was squared away razor creases and lightly starched. PFC at 8 months, E-4 at 13 months, Promotion board at 24 months spent the rest of my time in the service waiting for the points to go below 1000 which only happened once a year and I still had 990 points. A lot of people were in the Ranks above just no slots..
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SGT Ronald Audas
Only counseling I remember in 66 was ,keep your head down and your ass lower.Worked for me.
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1SG Ernest Stull
Yes. And to help yourself please read and the FM. for counseling. And do not be afraid to ask questions about how to conduct counseling.
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Monthly counseling is the standard, whether is is done or not... SGT (Join to see)... Counseling seems to be a lost art of late.
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PFC Bradley Campbell
take a college level writing class. and on your own initiative make it your style to do it monthly whether anyone above you follows through or not, as you progress in rank and responsibility make this your way.FYI there are few things worse to read , whether by police officers or NCO's. both have terrible writing skills by the local culture and by limited writing skills and vocabulary. whether you move up to officer ranks or not, getting educated and learning to write better is a skill to help and enhance your career for the rest of your life. slackers and non hackers need not apply.
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SFC Charles McVey Sr.
PFC Bradley Campbell - Back in my early years in the Army they had a course called "Effective Military Writing," which amounted to the KISS principal (Keep It Simple Stupid). Worked great.
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