How do you address any challenges with getting young soldiers involved and having pride in your unit?

Millennial Military is a scary and depressing thought...

Keep em in the field

It starts at recruiting. Honestly, some of these people should have never arrived at reception or contracted as a cadet.

Was lucky to have served in some great units during the cold war still talk to people from 11th ACR from 30 years ago

I’ve alway said personnel equipment and then mission. Lead by example and take care of you personnel in return they take care of the equipment and you will have no problem completing mission. Get down in the pits work side by side with your men.

It's easy to get your young soldiers to have pride in your unit, just get your E5s and E6s invested. Everyone in the Army has a competitive personality, if you just get your low level leaders invested in the unit they'll build the moral fine. The problem most units face is that the first line leader wants to tell you how ate up the unit is and how his last one treated him so much better.

Always strive for the best and be the best!! Soldiers like to be on a good team so build that team. Empower your lieutenants and junior NCOs to do their jobs and reward those who do well and remove those who don’t. Get your 1SG fully involved along with advice from the BN CSM. Build a strong OPD and NCOPD program to teach the standards. Read 600-3 and use those examples for yourself.

I can only comment on my time in the army as a lowly specialist (I know the title says CPL, spec not an option). I agree a bit with the knowledge of were your unit came from would help a little. I was in Korea in 2 ID 74th brigade 74th battalion, to this day I don't know what that means.
The biggest thing that except for the last 2 weeks out of 5 years there were no promotions To E 5 or 6 whatsoever. Mandatory fun was there only to benefit upper ranks. We would get to do the mandatory fun then clean up after upper ranks after, yeppee sign me up. We had a shortage in Korea and was working 16 hour days 7 days a week and our readiness went down to 85%. The army shipped in some people from the states to catch us up and within 2 weeks were back up about 95% after a month there the help got medals for there support. We got nothing but the ability to only work 12 hour days after.
When I got back to the States I had a master sheet ask me to go to soldier of the year boards. When I said I was not interested the master Sargent tried to kick me out or the army. Even though I had less than a year left. Thank God for a sgt first class and a staff sgt told the master Sargent to just order me to the boards. I of course went and won many awards but with these awards and $5 I could get a cup of coffee. But the master sgt got something out of it to further their career.

So the one thing that’s always worked for me and to this day and in corporate America is get to know your people. What makes each tick. Make them feel their contribution is valid and needed. Hold all accountable fairly! Even your best when they screw up. Once you know what the individual’s motivations are then you can develop plans on how maximize their potential. This guy likes OT, this gal likes time off....utilize that. But as a team...as long as you have complete disclosure on expectations, mission, goal, end state and you are fair and upfront....you’ll have buy in on the team as a whole! Maybe not everyone...always have the outliers....but most!

Take away the cell phones. Throw away powerpoint! Bring back the old school SGTs time. Inter unit softball games,flag football etc. Get rid of individual PT. Conduct PT once a week in a unit t shirt instead of the army t. There are lots of little things that can easily be done.. stop...also..leaders need to be just as miserable as the troops before they can understand how to fix it....get those leaders to all the mandatory fun and crack of dawn pt....