How would you react to an E2 who "smart mouths" you in formation?

Or write them up for "failure to adapt".. I was a ass my beginning years but I did my job.. but I had reason, I was literally the minority and constantly picked on.. lol I threatened my E-5 to kick his ass.. away from the platoon.. and that was the end of that.. I went on for ten years with no hickups.. just one dick E-5.. so think about your soldier.. try to figure out his problem and if he's just worthless.. article 15 failure to adapt

With today's rules... I'd say mass punishment.. let his friends get pissed and do the dirty work that you can't. Lol ever had soldiers doing push-ups, feet on a lmtv front bumper.. very effective

Myself a former USAF sergeant, air/ground crew rigger. 1964-10/1967 stateside...S.E. Asia 10/1967-10/1968, then my DD-214.
How WE did it...
First, the entire training squad is informed of DIPSHITS transgression, and need for an "attituse adjustment".
Then the squad gets "shit duty"...picking up, field stripping (separating the paper, tobacco, and filter if any) from the tossed cigarette butts from a LARGE area, OR...dandelion picking from a likewise large area, you get the idea.

Typically in turn, DIPSHIT gets a "blanket party" in the middle of the night, maybe the same night or relatively soon thereafter, as a "thank you" from the squad members he screwed with.

THIS...always corrected a DIPSHIT'S attitude...

How would I react?

NOT WELL AT ALL.

First and foremost. The issues here is obvious. #1, Respect & #2 Discipline.

Any one of my soldiers knew the ramifications of what would happen. And they would never would of acted out like that.

Getting to the issue, Pvt Loudmouth would of paid dearly. The next step would be standing on the carpet in front of the CO and receive punishment under the UCMJ. If it continues, then there are several ways to reach that soldiers attention. Peer pressure is one. Wall to Wall counseling, though illegal, is another way. Ultimately, the discipline issue can lead to dismissal from the Army. I never tolerated that behavior. Because my soldiers knew that I had zero tolerance for BS. And if left up to me, that soldier would regret ever doing it. And it would never happened again.

As a respectful E-5, I'd probably think about the E-2 response for a few seconds then I'd dismiss the platoon - except for the E-2 - and then I'd probably "shove it" somewhere the idiot E-2 wasn't expecting it to be shoved.

Lol when I first read this I immediately thought of a famous line in a movie, “I want him spitting blood.” Just recall a version of the same comment made to me in the military, “it ain’t training till your spitting blood.”

If I was an NCO life would become very difficult for that E2. Document and discipline until he or she developed military bearing or was out the door to civilian life. The choice is the soldiers in the end. One thing that helped me adjust in the military was telling myself “the NCO is not the enemy unless you make them the enemy.”

I would have Sergeant Major and myself discipline the young soldier, after explaining to him the code of conduct and after training there would be more training with the head NCO observing progress.

Pvt shitbird would be making the walls sweat after I got done with him for pulling a stunt like that.

The only reason a subordinate in today’s military would talk to a superior in that manner is because they realize that today’s military has become completely pansy ass. He knows there’s not much you can do about it. If you reprimand him he’ll pick up his cell phone and call his mommy. I’m sure it’s just in his back pocket. And God forbid the E2 is of color or is multi gendered. Because then you’ll be labeled a racist homophobe. That is after he calls his mother.

I refuse to answer that because it isn't my Army anymore. I wouldn't know what I was dealing with in today's Army. I suspect that in the near future, it may be Unionized. In the old days, the Sgt would have the E-2 dig a deep grave for a cigarette butt or march to and from the ranges with a rock filled knapsack and full battle gear. You won't see that in today's Army. Damn, they miss out of all the fun we were exposed to in the real days. LOL!!!!

Have him stand fast after plt is dismissed. Explain you are in the Army and will follow lawful orders. If he still mouth off, counseling or “special duties”.

I would have Private Turd Bird and his Squad Leader remain in place while I dismissed the rest of the platoon. Then I would explain to the Squad Leader and Private Turd Bird that ALL LAWFUL ORDERS MUST BE OBEYED INSTANTLY WITHOUT HESITATION. I would reiterate that we are in the Army not the Boy Scouts and that ALL things we do are training for our one and only purpose and that is to fight a war. Then I would send the Squad Leader on his merry way to do Squad Leader things. Then I would explain to Private Turd Bird that in combat you don't have time to think you only have time to act on orders you are given. Hesitation or refusal means either you die or someone else dies.
Then I would ask Private Turd Bird if he has ever heard of the Grass Drill? It teaches instantaneous compliance with orders! Start by running in place. "Attention, in place forward march, hup, ho, your left, Right, At the double in place forward march, Hup, Ho, Left, Right" "Now while you are running listen carefully to me, when I say on your face, you hit the Front leaning rest position and start doing pushups, when I say on your back, you flip onto your back and start doing set ups, when I say on your feet you regain your feet and continue running in place" Do you understand? Good! Ready, on your face, hup, ho, hup, ho, hup, ho, hup, ho. On your back, hup, ho, hup, ho, hup, ho, hup, ho. On your Feet. Hup,ho, hup, ho, hup, ho ---------------------- ON your Face---------------------on your back --------------------- on your face-------------------------------- on your feet ------------------------------ on your face----------------------------------, on your back --------------------------- on you face, ------------------------ on your feet--------------------------------- Halt. At Ease, I am going to give you a two minute break don't waste it by trying to talk to me or anyone else. After two minutes back to running in place then on your face. and so on. After about 10 minutes of this I would ask him if he would rather do this all day or go get after the job I sent him on in the first place.

I am at a total loss of words here. Who was doing what to who's chickens? "Here's the background. You're a senior E5." Okay but what is your position in the chain of command?
"Your troops are in formation and you're handing out work for the day." ASSUMPTION at this point your working as a Platoon Sgt.? If this part is true, Why are you talking to a E-2 directly at all? You would pass the assignments out by Squad to the Squad leader the squad leader picks the Soldier for the task. Other wise you have a total loss of the COC.
So as a Squad Leader "You hand out an assignment to a fresh E2 with less than a year in and only a few months at your command." So it is you and the Squad and the rest of the Platoon has moved on. I don't care if the PVT. Has two years as an E-2 this is not important at this point. I tag said PVT. with the task any refusal at this point is refusal for following a lawful order.
They blatantly complain and tell you to choose someone else. My statement Assistant Squad leader meet me with said Pvt after work call and we can discuss this, At that meeting anything Said PVT says and anything i say is a matter of record, noted by the Assistant Squad leader.
"You calmly tell them they will do this task and they tell you to shove it and give it to someone else." Now at this Point the PVT will have some education coming at my expense and pleasure. Everything from on the spot correction up to NJP. JMT

If ur handing out assignments for the day then to me that is like giving them a Direct Order. I would ask them what rank they are and what rank I am. And Who out ranks who and who is in charge of doing this. If they come up with the right answer then I would tell them u were given a Direct order to do a job and u Will Do it and do it properly and in a timely manner or u will be having several LONG days and have class time as a refresher on Rank, What Orders Are and when given an order how u will react, period. And then given a test on it all that they better pass at 100%. The extra duty would be 2 wks long 1st time.

If it continues then I would give them an ART-15 if poss. and be restricted to barracks and extra details out the wahzoo and if they are married I would still want them in the Barracks. And then its time to get the whole team in some drill that they have to work together and work hard to complete and have a different one each day so the people he works with get tired of it and they put pressure on the kid messing up cause they know he is the reason for it. This would be a month long this time and after this I would be looking to put them down to a slick sleeve and they would be getting the dirtiest jobs every day for as long as in allowed and they would be given the min. time allowed to get cleaned up enough to eat and have a bag meals.

Hopefully this person or persons will fall in line and u do not have to do more.

E5 should take a course in "How to win friends and influence people" BULL SHI7 put E2 aSSS in front of the First Sarg and his squad. Lets see what happens E2's assss would not see any day light above the 6 x 5 x 8 grave that he'd be digging till next Sunday. Also, loss of a weekend pass and or PX privileges. MAKE an example of him for any future insubordinate issues with the E2 and the rest of troops. Dale Carnegie book was not for GI's East Texas old goat.

Take up 3/4 of their Saturday police call the entire motor pool. Saturday Morning PT and Afternoon PT... Then PFC dirtbag does it again repeat until The Squad gets pissed and handles dirtbag

First I was the senior E-5 petty officer in my command with 4 junior E-5 it was not easy . But with every person under my authority I found it beneficial to know their back story ,they were all good Men but each had a different driving force pushing them to do their job an duty . Understand the person an you will not have major problems.

Look at all you so-called leaders acting like your word is god, sorry to tell you your word means jack sht and jack just left the building. All you wanna be hardasses talking about laying the smackdown via paperwork. So glad I don't have to work with egocentric pos. Quick to throw out paperwork or "if it was me" bullshit. Take that soldier to the side and smoke the living piss out of him and if he refuses then why bother start chapter paperwork.
look at all you S on your chest zeros acting all hard on the internet. some of yall sound like your spouse wears the pants in the family and since you can't chew her out you go to work and chew out someone thinking is your dependa. get rid of him plain and simple, now try to figure out what is wrong with the troop first see wtf is going on. don't give me this we have too many soldiers bs. It's garbage leadership toxic like you that ruin the military. "look at me" I'm sarnt so and so and I beat Chuck Norris so listen to me bs.
hem up the smart mouth pos troop simple, but if you think your cool chewing him out in front of your fellow NCOs to get cool points then you are a real pos blue falcon cheese dck. just send the troop packing drive him to the main gate and head back to you troops.

Unfortunately, some people have to learn things the hard way. That was me at 19 years old, an E2 in the Army. I learned. Things might have gone easier for me if I had learned a little bit faster. There are ways to get one's attention that don't require putting him in front of the commander for an Article 15. When I was on active duty, there were a couple of terms like "motivational counseling" and "corrective training."

Finish up the briefing, dismiss everyone else to their tasks and then correct the E2. After the correction, send them to complete the assignment

Shitbird would be on every nasty cleaning detail in my command, plus his original Lawful order assignment. If he mouths further or slacks off he'd get additional lawful assignments that would etract from as much sleep time as allowed. After that the Brigg followed with circular file of his career.

Give work assignment to the most influential squad member that didn't have an assignment. He will take care of his peer. Make a note of the situation. When PVT SB's
up for promotion kick him out under AR 635-200, General But Honorable Discharge.
Did this 100 times in my career.

Re-assign the duty to another squad member.
Make note of the situation.
When PVT SB's up for promotion to E3 give copies of your notes to Platoon SGT.

Lol....There are several ways to handle this situation, I'm going to assume this the new generation of Soldiers. Once I release everyone that Soldier will standfast, it's obvious this Soldier is going through something and it's my job as a leader to find out. Once the issue is identified and some type of resolution is given. Then I would have a conversation with the Soldier anotating everything on a DA Form 4856 explaining where he/she went wrong and the consequences of his wrong doing. Once the dust clear he/she would no longer be a fresh E2 with less than a year in, he/she would be a newly demoted E1 with less than a year in.

In the old days he would be picking himself up off the deck but this is the kindler, gentler military.
Before you beat me up for that view Google Chinese/Russian military training

Possible Article 15 or counseling session, advising them that such behavior is not tolearted in the civilian sector either.

There was a time when there was no question as to what to do.

E2 smart mouthing? He'd be an E1 really fast

Wow!! I would write them up (counsel them) for disrespecting an NCO and disobeying orders and give them correctional duties that would take away much of their time and that are physically taxing. For example, before PT (around 5:30 a.m.) they would have to report to duty in ACUs and perform police call around the battalion or battery/company area and when they were finished they would have to change into PTs and still do PT. Before they go home in the evening, they would have to clean up some kind of cleaning details. If after all that or during that, they were still disrespectful then it’s time to start recommending for punishment

I have been out for a long time, so this might not be acceptable in today's US Army. My answer would be "RUTHLESSLY" and all that entails The mere fact that one of your troops had the balls to do such a thing... well there is obviously an issue within the unit that needs to be dealt with ASAP. I would likely make an example of the soldier in question if for no other reason than to show the rest of the unit what happens when you "step on your dick" personally, professionally, and PUBLICLY!

I know what my NCO’s did. That was the day I found out what “ain’t no rank behind the tank meant. But nowadays I’m sure you’re not allowed to take him behind the tank and give him a wall to wall Counsiling so I guess ask him nicely not to do it again? I don’t know.

I had this BS with an E3 that refused to make morning coffee after having section duty the previous day. I told him I would talk to him after morning quarters, I made the coffee. Even after a private discussion he still refused so I wrote him up. He refused the CPO, Div Officer, and XO. He went to captain mast, lost his E4 promotion, and was busted to E2. I then left the ship as I was getting out. He ended up getting written up for another offense during Ops in Vietnam and ended up in the brig on the carrier.

Today he is a priest... go figure

I, an E4, told a E2 to do something (we all had a long, and bad duty period,) he asked why, I told him because everyone else had other stuff to handle before we could get liberty. He then said "but why do I have to do this?" Me, wanting to go home and upset he is questioning my order said sternly "Because you are a non-rate and I am a petty officer, and I just gave you an order to do it." He reluctantly completed the task, but then told my superiors about the incident, both my fellow MK3 (he was also there,) and I were called to the rec deck, they asked what happened, we both said exactly what happened, then they asked which one of us said to do it because the E2 "was a non-rate" and "I'm a petty officer?" They thought my fellow MK3 was the one who said it because he seems like the type to say something like that, but I owned up to it and said I did. They were both surprised, but none the less, I got chewed out about it. Looking back I should have phrased my order differently, without using my frustration, but I didn't. I did end up apologizing to the E2, because yes he was questioning a lawful order, but given the overall circumstances, I was a little bit out of line by pulling rank to get him to fall in line.

We were all having a bad day, and I should have held my tongue and explained why he was given that task differently. If you are a new leader, take my experience as an example of what not to do in such a situation. Yes I could have argued that I was in the right, and the E2 was in violation of UCMJ for his actions, but at the end of the day, we are all humans. We all still have bad days, and that's not a hill I was willing to die on, I just wanted to swallow my pride and make things right with the E2. I still have a lot to learn about leading others, and therefore I would appreciate any constructive feedback anyone has on this incident.

All my 21 years of service I had my fare share of this and it was corrected on the spot. However on my 21st year I had one to buck up and he said "You can't order me to do that task" I replied "I asked you first and you reject, then I ordered you to do it and you still rejected to do it. So I gave a Lawful Order to do the task" He went to the area where the task was to be done and he wasn't there. Then I got called to the 1st SGT's office. 1st SGT said I can't do that after I explained the situation and my self. 1st said "Don't let it happen again. I said "It won't" and went directly to Personnel Office and submitted my Retirement Papers. Not dealing with these snot nosed snowflakes that is still tied to Mommy's Apron Strings. I even had a WOC Packet in at that time.

I forgot to mention sometimes people fight back because of health concerns but usually it's just a dominance competition and they are fully able to compete.

Make him do crossfit while you tell him how he is supposed to behave and why he needs to be that way. That's how I learned. I never purposely messed up ever again. I still got smoked though because I was still in the process of becoming a soldier and that's how it works...made no room for error. Tight ship.

Is say as an NCO and now with over 20 years experience and a “Lieutenant” in a paramilitary organization, calm and cool is unequivocally how is react. I’ve seen way too much and have maybe an “ol’ man” attitude toward this. My reaction would be something like this, PFC So and So, if you would be so kind to accompany me after formation, I would love to hear your concerns on this matter in a private setting, ( never showing any overreacting emotion). If Mr PFC discussed this manner rationally, I would calmly and assertively inform him that he will suffer punishment befitting his insubordination and also make 100% clear he will never, not ever have a similar issue in the future! This is the Ol’ Man approach, being Old and having the utmost respect of the rest of the formation, this will almost always be “enough”. If the PFC reacts very emotionally he will see a dark side he will never want to see again, but it will be done in private, (this is also the confidence that comes with leading men for over 25 years in both the military and paramilitary organizations.

The only one that did that to me, spent three days on bread and water in the brig.