As the military changes, rapidly as of late, would you say that it is better, worse, or the same as it was when you served?

So true. Just like how everyone was in the last hard class at (fill in the blank) school.

This is the only correct answer

I totally agree with you. I was in a unit that was once the crown jewel in the BN. Why because we had innovative and creative leadership. We thought outside the box. We probably even bent a few regulations but never broke any. Then we get what I call a Cookie Cutter Commanding Officer. Who frowns on innovation and creativity. Case in point lower enlisted get promotion points for weapons qualifications. The range requirement was soft cap. When the new commander comes in oh no we have to wear full battle rattle. I get it to some extent, but the "range requirement" was soft cap. It is a medical unit hard enough to get Nurses and Doctors Qualified wearing a soft cap. What really got me was the command decision that EVERY ONE would qualify with the M16. He forgot we only drew enough ammunition for the enlisted and by regulations we have one M16 for every three medics. So zeroing was a pain in the rear.
So needless to say some lower enlisted didn't get to qualify on that Reserve Weekend Battle Assembly. To add insult to injury. All the officers had to qualify with was the M9 their was more ammunition and some of the NCO's could have qualified with the M9 but No. According to the Commander at that time "the M9 was an Officers Weapon." It was like common sense left the building. In a reserve unit It can take up to a year to get your ammunition for the range especially if you are a medical unit. The following year, we had a Range Reserved, We had Weapons we had to barrow from another unit, But the commander forgot to put in our Ammunition Request!!!!. In other words the ammo wasn't ordered either because they forgot to put in the request or forgot to sign the form to get the ammo.

Here is how we would have solved the problem. Before we got a cookie cutter Commander, Infantry and Engineers get plenty of ammo to qualify and each person is assigned their own weapon. We called an Engineer Unit and told them we had Medics that needed to qualify. We had about eight. The Engineers said no problem they had problems get a Medic to cover the range. So each medic was paired up with an Engineer. After the Engineer Qualified The medic would zero his weapon and qualify. If you weren't qualifying then you were the medic on the Range. Cookie Cutter Commander could not grasp that idea. For some reason he didn't like the idea that his people would be doing a battle assembly with another unit. We tried to tell him It got people qualified. Infantry Units and Engineer Units always had a larger allotment for ammunition. Let alone they had 8 Medics. If something happened their was more than enough medical coverage to keep the range going. Cookie Cutter Commander insisted a request be sent to our Headquarters for any Medical Range Coverage. All that was needed was a simple RST Request!!!! From each medic to attend the Engineer's Battle Assembly. Cookie Cutter Commander wanted to make sure the Engineer Unit Paid for any Medical Supplies they might need. The Commander of the Engineer Company asked a medic, what do you need for Range Coverage? He then called the Cookie Cutter Commander and insisted that all the required Medical supplies were acquired. It was like Cookie Cutter Commander was looking for a problem to solve a solution.