How far as a Leader have you gone to help a Soldier?

When I was a squad leader in the 82nd Airborne Division there was a soldier in another squad who's wife was pregnant and she became preeclampsic. Her blood pressure was spiking and she was having seizures. She had to go into a medically induced coma in order to have an emergency c-section. The baby was dying as soon as she was born.
I'm not sure what the other squad leader, platoon sergeant, or platoon leader had against this guy, but they would not let him go to the hospital and be with his wife and child. Keep in mind that his wife is in a medically induced coma and his premature baby is dying in the hospital. He came to me with tears in his eyes and a cracking voice looking for advice. He explained his situation to me, and I was plumb damn mad. I knew that flying off the handle in an end of day platoon sergeant's would accomplish nothing but putting myself between a rock and a toxic leader. So, I did the only logical thing. I told him to call the hospital and have his wife's doctor put in a Red Cross message. I knew that it would be received by the brigade staff duty and disseminated down to the battalion staff duty. The company 1sg and commander would be informed. When the 1sg got notification of it, he stormed into the PLs office, reamed home out, and stomped over to the platoon office and reamed out the platoon sergeant. I kept the soldier with me that day to assist me with tastings. I got a call from the psg telling me to take the soldier to the 1sg's office immediately. When we got to his office the 1sg said that my platoon sergeant and platoon commander were both lucky he's not going to get the company commander to write them up on a relief for cause and remove them both. He told the soldier to take off and he didn't want to see him for at least 2 weeks.

Ok to specify. You, as a Leader, how far have you gone to help/assist a Soldier under your care?
I'll start. Being in the NG we don't have the assets readily available as AD to assist Soldiers in case of a Red Cross message i.e.: AER, etc. We were 3 days into our AT, and a Red Cross message came down for one of my Soldiers that his father passed away unexpectedly. Red Cross message came. We could get him back to TN (we were at Camp Shelby, MS.). Problem was Soldiers' father lived in Montana, and the funeral was in 2 days. The "mad pass the hat" began to get him a plane ticket out of MS on short notice ($1200.00 plane ticket). I had collected a little over $400.00 within a matter of a couple of hrs, and had a flight time of 0700 the following AM. I put the entire cost of plane ticket on my credit card, and gave him the $400 for incidentals etc.

I was CQ runner and PFC and one of my guys came in and was with his new son that was crying real bad (baby was squeaking cause his throat hurt)-to find out little one had Strep Throat and was fevered, messed on himself, so I threw the soldier MY room key and told him what to get and I helped get him calm. Baby finally fell asleep in my arms when LT came in and saw me with the baby. Luckily another called ATTENTION a few door away so baby didn't wake up and I didn't get trouble. When the SM explained, the LT understood that I was using what some of the others in my unit called "Grandma Perogative' and a few days later- NOT only was the Battery Quarantined cause the little guy gave me and the LT Strep Throat, but I was getting called 'Grandma' by command and everyone asked if i could help with the babies IF they got upset or sick and the parent needed time away,which was fine by me, and the bigger kids stayed close to me IF someone in Command scared them. Talk about feeling special. After that day, LT and everyone called me MOM and the CSM asked if I had grandkids yet (oldest at the time was 16) and treated me like a diamond when he saw me and they even created a cadence for me.

I had a Soldier with 19 years time in service that the ARNG was going to force out without a retirement. He's a great troop, but he had a huge break in service and was turning 60. Making matters more complicated is that the USAR had lost a bunch of his paperwork in the early 90's and he only had 15 "good" years towards retirement. The Soldier in question had apparently brought this issue up on numerous occasions, but his past leadership never pushed the issue.

While I didn't do it alone, I pushed the issue all the way to the National Guard Bureau level. I was downright annoying when I had to be to ensure paperwork went through. In the end we were not only able to get 3 out of the 4 years he was missing credited towards retirement, but also convinced our TAG to sign a two year waiver to allow him to finish his 20.

Next to bringing all of my troops home from Iraq it's probably one of the events I'm most proud of in my career.

I have been helped and have helped. When I was a new SGT in fort Lewis Wa I came across a soldier from another platoon sitting in the day room in the dark. I was CQ and I asked the troop how was things and what not. He said that things were ok. I sensed that something was bothering him so I told my runner I was gonna be in the platoon office and took the troop in to the office closed the door and straight asked what's up. I let him unload everything to me. Turned out his father had just passed away and he didn't know how he was gonna make it home to Southern California. I called his platoon leadership and got the ball rolling for a emergency leave then I called a friend of mine who I knew was taking leave and going to Sacramento to visit family. In the end the Soldier got leave to attend the funeral, a ride all the way there and back courtesy of a buddy of mine and 300 in cash collected by some of the guys in the barracks

I had a soldier once who PCS'd with his family to Bragg enroute to school to re-class. He had adopted this "ladies" kids and had another with her. He was literally with me for about two days before reporting for school. I fought with housing to get the family in on post housing because at that time it was usually E-6 and above getting first priority for housing (don't ask me why). Then when he got to school finance screwed up and had him down as separating form service so he was getting NPD. He was literally eating ramen noodles 3 times a day and sending the rest of what little money he could get to Bragg for his wife and kids. I bought groceries, loaned pots and pans, tv, got furniture ect for the family because all their stuff was in transit.
At first his wife was talking about how great he was and how he was sacrificing for her and the kids. All of a sudden that changed over night. She met some dude and moved off post with the kids and when he got his back pay, you guessed it she wiped that out too. Well a couple months later she is calling the post CMS office making up a bunch of lies. She then turns around and leaves him voicemails about how she is going to ruin his career and how if that don't work "her boys are gonna take care of him" By this point he is done with school and is back with us. I made him save those VM's and sure enough he got called into the old mans office and I told him to hit play when they didn't want to believe him. She got barred from post.
Then after things calmed down she called him one day telling him his daughter needed diapers, post was closed due to a freaking snow storm and this guy calls me and says " I can't go over there without an NCO escort, will you go with me to get the diapers" He says "I can drive in this stuff because I am from Minnesota." So I say. "If you can drive to my house I will go with you" thinking he wouldn't make it. Well an hour later he is at my house and off we go. The roads wasn't too bad so we were able to get diapers. We go to her house and there she is shacked up with some kid who worked for a dude I went to PLDC with! I had just met a month earlier while visiting my buddy. So I click his heals and made a very strong suggestion that he move out. She gets an attitude and says "I would let your daughter stay with you but you can't have a kid in the barracks, sucks to be you" So I told him that my wife and I would be honored to allow his daughter to use our nursery we had just set up for our son who was to be born in two months and that he could use our guest room. So we allowed them to stay with us over the weekend. I am happy to report that young soldier is now a 1SG married to a good woman and doing great things!

Where to begin, I have arraigned child care, bought groceries, arraigned flights, attended a Navy Relief class on leave so I knew more of what was available for my sailors. Point is, as a leader, I am no better than those I lead. The better they do their jobs, the better I can do mine. Growing up in submarines, we take care of our own and it was ingrained me especially when I went through Chief's initiation. My most treasured comment from one of my guys, was I was the fairest division officer they had ever had. This also got me in trouble. When I took over my last division, one of my guys had been busted on an alcohol related incident and was going to Captain's Mast (NJP). I reviewed the case and found that he had actually done nothing wrong, so when it was my turn to speak, I informed the Captain (O6) of the inconsistencies of the charges. You would have thought I had committed an act of treason. The Captain jumped on me and dressed me down like a raw recruit, informing me that I was no one to question his policies. I have always thought it was my primary responsibility to take care of my troops, regardless of what it took.

You as a Leader do anything and everything. You do whatever it takes to care for your SM's.

I just got done writing in another post that I keep $250 in cash in my desk as my "Soldier Care" fund....

But it's more than that. I've taken an oath and have a responsibility.

All the above considered, I feel that I have an obligation to be in the know of as many resources as possible that I can tap into to assist.

17 years helping convicted veterans..as a Correctional Counselor with the C.D.C. Retired

If you mean outside of my military duties, I once drove five hours (each way) and stayed overnight in a hotel, losing a full day of work so that I could make a special appearance in court on behalf of a soldier who was deployed, in an area of law that I do not practice in.

I also once paid a soldier's government travel card when he couldn't and paid another soldier's rent for a month when he lost his job.