What do you do when a soldier refuses to listen to your directions?

LOVE IT !!!

1SG Irvin Collins TOP, This post, this question is scary to me. You guys seem like your raising children not building soldiers. I’m reading posts of soldiers complaining about doing PT on 4-5 hours of sleep, we have NCO’s asking what if my soldiers don’t obey me? What is going on? So now they reach out to social media instead of their chain of command and the hands on NCO mentoring them? I don’t know, it just seems like the Army is now about “Management”, not Leadership! If that is accurate, I certainly would want nothing to do with Administrators playing soldier, so there’s no way I would even join a Military like that! Why? They’d get me killed for sure. The Army babying these men doesn’t help them, it’s making you all look weak because it is weak. My concern is that The Army has become a culture of weakness that’s being implemented by administrators! Hopefully I’ve totally missed it and my concerns are not valid.

SGT Michael Raymond - I stayed in the military for five years after I was injured in Afghanistan. I was Infantry. I spent seven years in and got to take a medical discharge. I could probably have pushed and stayed longer, reclassed. I was a late-life entry. I was about 37 when I went in as a E-1 fuzzy. I expected the Army to be hard and I got pretty much what I expected. The Army life isn't nearly as hard as most would have you believe, but it definitely has it's difficulties.
It's not nearly as bad as kids today believe. I took my discharge because I just saw the complaints from the marshmallow soldiers as getting worse the further out I would have gone. They need to be "managed" for sure. The unbelievable amount they are NOT taught is astounding! The building of soldiers is sacrificed to the management and is draining. I've held the belief for a while that in the next major war we get into, that civilian parents will wonder why so many of their kids are being shipped back in boxes. Or that so many experienced soldiers are dying out there when we'll all know it's because we couldn't properly train them.
But will someone have the boldness to stand against the grain and tell them in a "no-s**t" fashion that's it's because society has forced us to walk on eggshells around their kids? How many of us that will be physically able will be called upon to come back in to offer instruction and be rougher on them to get the point across? It doesn't have to be the (arguably) hazing-style rituals, but there should be something memorable about the lessons being taught. Traditional ceremonies like blood badges shouldn't be banned, but the use of a sledgehammer resulting in a broken collar bone should always be considered carefully! Pushups aren't necessarily the remedy for all screw-ups, but it can be the form of corrective training for many things.
A kid I knew screwed up for not securing the Humvee correctly one night. Nothing was stolen, but could have been. The corrective action was him locking and unlocking it x number of times in order to remember to lock and secure it in the future. Tailor corrective action to fit the desired outcome. Yell when you need to yell, because, like any kid could tell you, the embarrassment of being seen to be yelled at in public is worse than the yelling. Making the action memorable is the key. Doing physical fitness as punishment or yelling at someone as the universal panacea turns it into: "Do you know how many times that happened to me? I can't even remember why most times they made me do it for."

SGT Michael Raymond - ....
It's A New Military. I Served During The Days Of The Dinosaur, 1961 - 1965, And That's When Only MEN Were Allowed To Serve.
Today's A Sad Excuse Of "Well Trained Soldiers"; Too Few TRUE Men In An Entire Squadron Any More & Everyone Has Their "Rights"..,
It Sure Wasn't Even CONSIDERED a Few Decades Ago.
During My Enlistment, You DID As You Were Damned Well TOLD.
What A Bunch Of Woosie Bull Shit Artists Today.

This is a simple question really. You escalate the situation until compliance is gained. If that means axe handle to the head on the next field problem so be it. Then find a leader to show you where you went wrong. Hate me all you want, but attitude reflects leadership. This situation is on the NCO.

Totally agree. Such insubordination/lack of discipline can lead to torturing prisoners and murdering civilians.

Perfecto! Bravo!

SSgt Joseph Baptist - Normally corrective is way better. Sometimes the actions of the troop as so egregious and so known to others that to not take a course of action that recommends punitive action will lead to erosion of good order and discipline.

SGT Robert Martin - That is not necessarily on you. There is always going to be a soldier that is going to buck authority for whatever reason. The command structure is there to support you, especially in the 21st century. Had this been in the Vietnam Era, you could have stomped his guts out, and there may have been no more to it. Too many of these brats think they can do whatever they desire, because they have been trained that way their entire life. The command structure is needed more than ever for these seemingly minor things. Protect yourself by using it.

A solder who refuses an order, no matter how small, is someone who will question authority and get himself or someone else killed. I I tell you to duck, you duck. You do not turn around and ask why as the bullets rip through your insubordinate body. Unauthorized eye wear is "UNAUTHORIZED" for a reason. Not to bust your chops, because there is a reason we do as we are told. If you do not agree, take it up later in private, unless you wish to REMAIN a Private.

hey, Captain Dumbass. it actually IS four consecutive hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. after 24 hours the cognitive effect is similar to chugging three beers at once, and it's an effect that doesn't diminish, only worsens. literally any medic or brigade surgeon (that, duh, the medics work for) will tell you this. I would absolutely LOVE to watch you stand at attention while the bird colonel in charge of the hospital tears you apart with your BN commander standing by you getting the same as a result of your actions.

you have options to effectively correct the problem. that aint one, fix yourself.

Doc Out.

I lost a stripe because I flat out refused to suck hot engine oil out of an M48A5's engine that had been overfilled the day before when my tank was driven by someone who obviously had no clue how to read a dipstick, (I had been on head count). we were at Camp Roberts, Ca. and we were at a fully equipped tank maintenance / repair facility, they're supposed to have a little pump for that very purpose available and they didn't and the SFC handed me a length of hose and ORDERED me to suck that hot motor oil out, I respectfully refused, this event and losing a stripe over it has been bugging me for the last 39 YEARS and the thing is, IF it had been a combat situation, I would've done pretty much ANYTHING to get that oil out of the crankcase rather than risk damage to that tank's engine, because our mobility IS LIFE but we were in a full service maintenance facility that is supposed to have that pump ON HAND. I didn't think that I deserved that Article 15 and loss of a stripe. That event also soured my attitude toward remaining in the service and since I already had my 6 year obligation done I did not re-up like I had been planning on.