Posted on Oct 27, 2013
What is the best advice you can give a Jr Officer?
41.1K
378
128
13
13
0
Mentorship
Officers
Junior Officers
Professional Development
Posted 12 y ago
Responses: 90
4
4
0
4
4
0
I think that sometimes Officers, NCOs and Warrants alike get too caught up in worrying about status or the eval.. My advice would start out very simple. 1) Take care of the troops; they will take care of you.2) Take care of the troops; they will take care of the mission. 3) Trust your troops.. you kinda have to.. or you will fail4) You can learn something from all ranks.. 5) Find a mentor.That would be the basis of my advice...
(4)
(0)
CH (CPT) Heather Davis
Know your regulations, take care of your unit and realize that Officers, NCOs and Warrants all go through a right of passage. Do what is right regardless!
(2)
(0)
4
4
0
When it comes to career progression and what your long term goals are, dont take no for an answer. No one will ever care about your career as much as you, so take it in to your own hands. Always achieve your best at the things you know you can control, often times those are the things most visible. As the O, you should be the best marksman, the most fit, and the quickest to formulate decisions. Those are the things you can control, so they better always be top notch. OERs and awards are subjective, do the best you can but dont let a bad OER or something less than a top block get you down. Be a good and honest person and good things will fall in place as long as you continue to seek them. Greatness wont just find you, you have to make it for yourself.
(4)
(0)
LTC Stephen Conway
I lived to tell about how to survive a bad OER....
Lessons I learned as an Officer:
1. Being unfairly 'relieved- for- cause' as a 1LT is not the end of the world especially if you give a fair and written rebuttal to your situation. I was relieved as S1 for not making the daily battle update briefs. I had no S1 PAC nco (he was on the main post and no cell phone coms either) and nobody was with me (not even the S4) at the CTCP at Yakima training range in 2002. The Bn XO said not to worry and he would inform the battalion commander and yet I had nobody there to give me a ride nor go in my place and the battalion commander fired me anyways. I had gotten screwed said my fomer company commander (at the time an Xo for an MP BN). My documentation did not prevent me from being approved for CPT by the Army Promotion board in 2003. I took my promotion delay letter for 3 years delay on taking my 0-3.
2. If you are in the ARNG: if you make 0-3 on the promotion board and you can't get promoted in your unit due to politics or no slots and you want your rank now instead of later, don't take the promotion delay letter from HRC but leave the unit and go into the IRR get your 0-3/CPT and go back in the ARNG or go in the USAR and find a slot.
3. Acting battalion Commander/Major can't be your Senior rater on an OER.This happened to me. The Brigade G3 made him rewrite it as the rater and write it more fairly than it was originally and the G3 became the Senior Rater.
4. Get your rater and senior rater's support form and try to see where you need to be with schools or experience to work on his job experience and qualifications and get promoted.
5. Be physically fit and maintain a 290+ or 300 on your apft. I was not the best officer in the past but my APFT score overcame alot of discrimination. When a 40 something officer could run under 14 minutes and go over the max on pushups and situps,it made the commanders think differently of me. Just my wisdom as an older soldier.
I look forward to reading your comments so I can continue to grow as well.
Lessons I learned as an Officer:
1. Being unfairly 'relieved- for- cause' as a 1LT is not the end of the world especially if you give a fair and written rebuttal to your situation. I was relieved as S1 for not making the daily battle update briefs. I had no S1 PAC nco (he was on the main post and no cell phone coms either) and nobody was with me (not even the S4) at the CTCP at Yakima training range in 2002. The Bn XO said not to worry and he would inform the battalion commander and yet I had nobody there to give me a ride nor go in my place and the battalion commander fired me anyways. I had gotten screwed said my fomer company commander (at the time an Xo for an MP BN). My documentation did not prevent me from being approved for CPT by the Army Promotion board in 2003. I took my promotion delay letter for 3 years delay on taking my 0-3.
2. If you are in the ARNG: if you make 0-3 on the promotion board and you can't get promoted in your unit due to politics or no slots and you want your rank now instead of later, don't take the promotion delay letter from HRC but leave the unit and go into the IRR get your 0-3/CPT and go back in the ARNG or go in the USAR and find a slot.
3. Acting battalion Commander/Major can't be your Senior rater on an OER.This happened to me. The Brigade G3 made him rewrite it as the rater and write it more fairly than it was originally and the G3 became the Senior Rater.
4. Get your rater and senior rater's support form and try to see where you need to be with schools or experience to work on his job experience and qualifications and get promoted.
5. Be physically fit and maintain a 290+ or 300 on your apft. I was not the best officer in the past but my APFT score overcame alot of discrimination. When a 40 something officer could run under 14 minutes and go over the max on pushups and situps,it made the commanders think differently of me. Just my wisdom as an older soldier.
I look forward to reading your comments so I can continue to grow as well.
(0)
(0)
3
3
0
1st: Don't see yourself as a "Junior" officer. As a commissioned officer, you have responsibilities, none of which are diminished due to being "not a senior" officer. Take the responsibility seriously from the start.
2nd: Everyone has "warts"; that is, everyone from subordinates, to peers, to senior to you have some aspect about them that you would change if you could. Get used to this, remember that you have "warts" too, and try to minimize yours.
3rd: Become familiar with, and understand all of Murphy's laws.
(3)
(0)
3
3
0
Take advantage of schooling opportunities to make yourself more marketable for when your military career is over.
(3)
(0)
3
3
0
LT,
Thought I recognized your picture. I remember sitting in AIT as a pair of Junior Soldiers in the same class. Very happy to see you moving up in your Army Career. Although I am not an officer I would say the best advice I could give is remain fair, Be approachable, and maintain a standard that may be hard to achieve but, is still achievable. None the less, Continue to work hard and you will accomplish whatever goals are put forth by the leaders above you. Good Luck to you in your Officer path and who know maybe one day soon Ill be making the jump to the other side of the pond too.
V/R
SPC Corwin
Thought I recognized your picture. I remember sitting in AIT as a pair of Junior Soldiers in the same class. Very happy to see you moving up in your Army Career. Although I am not an officer I would say the best advice I could give is remain fair, Be approachable, and maintain a standard that may be hard to achieve but, is still achievable. None the less, Continue to work hard and you will accomplish whatever goals are put forth by the leaders above you. Good Luck to you in your Officer path and who know maybe one day soon Ill be making the jump to the other side of the pond too.
V/R
SPC Corwin
(3)
(0)
3
3
0
Be patient with the rude person who may not outwardly convey disrespect but none the less, it is there. If you show respect to senior NCOs, the younger troops will have more trust for you.
I worked only with pilots, but being myself, being nice and competent I received a lot of compliments. One crew member, a Capt, was telling me about his father the General and the Colonel behind him rolled his eyes. Still, I gave the Capt his rank deserved and let the details work themselves out in the background.
(3)
(0)
3
3
0
3
3
0
I might be a little bit biased but listen to the NCOs you work with. The NCOs are the standard bearers and most of the NCOs you'll work with have been in for a decent amount of time. As a 2LT you'll probably be put on a lot of range details and other taskings with a Senior NCO. Listen to them and don't try to undermine everything they say. I've seen a lot of new 2LTs that try to reinvent the wheel with some of the taskings they are given instead of just listening to the NCOs they are tasked to work with that know the tried and true methods of doing stuff.
(3)
(0)
3
3
0
Education is for a perfect world and it needs to be tweaked with reality which is not perfect.
(3)
(0)
SSgt (Join to see)
I look at a lot of Meteorologists that are just beginning to over rely on what seems the easiest. Senior NCOs along with Senior Pilots have a wealth of information. So education of the quality kind comes from experience and the willingness to learn.
(0)
(0)
Read This Next
Continue with Facebook 
Continue with Google