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

MANY liked you more for it..

Nice to see that there is still one or two of you out there CSM - but unfortunately - back in my day I still remember sitting through numerous NCODP's conducted by your fellow CSM'S instructing us as first line leaders, that it was our DUTY to develop our minds and under NO CIRCUMSTANCES was it ever acceptable to put hands on snuffy unless the nature of the situation was life threatening.

SGT Romanishan....I myself have given that NCOPD class....but it hurt me to do it!! As I stated earlier....that's why it's time for me to retire. This new "breed" of Soldier...if we can call them that....is hurting my Army and making us weak!! GRANTED...there are still a few "hooah, hooah's" out there....but few and far between. I do have a heart and there are a few (very few) Soldiers out there that need a good mentor. One's you would think that in garrison couldn't pour piss out of a boot with the directions written on the heal....BUT...end up in theatre as one of the best Soldiers you've ever seen.....AND VISE VERSA!!

I retired in 1997 and that was my 25 years in. I was for my whole career in combat arms and combat support units. I had my share of soldiers that did not want to act right and the only time I ever had to put my hands on one is if they got to the place where they wanted to challenge me and attack, and that never happened. I find the most effective tool was taking a soldiers time. We even had school of the soldier where the soldier and his immediate supervisor was there with him and he had to graduate and it was a bear to graduate. Let me tell you one time through that and no more problems. Why was the supervisor there? Because I wanted that supervisor to be right there with his soldier and it reinforced with that supervisor that they were also a part of the solution and not passing their soldier on to someone else. They were also used as cadre and learned themselves which created and even more professional corp. Art 15 meant for me I have given up on you and it is time for you to go. I have done all the corrective training and mentoring that I could do and it was just a hopeless case. Chapter, nope, I had them thinking about Court Martial and jail time. It is one thing for a soldier to respect the office, but when they respect the person and the office, then you have a winning situation! Did I ever want to rip the lips right off of a troop darn tooten, but one has to understand that physical altercations can go real wrong and not turn out like one expects and can cause a very toxic environment. When I was coming up through the ranks I learned from the good leaders as they showed me what to do and I learned from the bad leaders as they showed me what not to do.