Posted on Apr 25, 2017
SGT Charles Napierala
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I saw this post on reddit and I know there are a ton of military traditions and leaders that suffer from this syndrome. What situations have you found yourself in based off of the "that's the way it's always been done" mentality?
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Responses: 23
MAJ Operations Officer (S3)
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The first thing that comes to mind is the Military Driver's Licensing Process.

I'm licensed to drive an M1 Abrams main battle tank, 3 different variants of MRAPs, the LMTV platform, and a number of other vehicles. Despite this I apparently am still not qualified to drive the CUCV pickup. Really? It's a GM 1 ton pickup.
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SGT Squad Leader
SGT (Join to see)
7 y
As a master driver in my unit I'm completely agree with you Sir, not only that but the amount of paper and time reqiured to license one soldier on one model of vehicle. Its a complete headache. Especially since previous Master drivers didn't keep records and now I'm having to fix an entire company's paperwork and retrain them all
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MAJ Operations Officer (S3)
MAJ (Join to see)
7 y
That seems to be the underlying cause SGT (Join to see) for a lot of the frustration with driver's licenses. I know guys who have taken initial drivers training two and three times over lost paperwork.

A TTP that has worked well for me is Iperm'ing the DA 348. Even when the clerks lose my paperwork I can pull it out of Iperms and I'm good.
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Lt Col Jim Coe
Lt Col Jim Coe
7 y
AF was a little better when I was on active duty. If you held a valid state drivers license, you could drive most anything (non-tactical vehicles) that was street legal. You needed a special military license to drive a bus or tactical vehicles.
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SGT Team Chief
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>1 y
When I was master driver I made sure that the lawn mower and weed eater fell off of my license
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SFC Retention Operations Nco
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Platoon (or company) led PT. It's a complete waste of time, no one gets anything out of it, and it's painful to watch.
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SFC Retention Operations Nco
SFC (Join to see)
7 y
MSG (Anonymous) - having seen both sides, I saw more PT failures from company and platoon PT than squad and team run PT.
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SFC Retention Operations Nco
SFC (Join to see)
7 y
MSG Tom Earley - I agree. PT is NCO business. When it's small unit PT, the Senior NCOs should be out doing PT with the squads.
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PFC Bradley Campbell
PFC Bradley Campbell
7 y
based on the millions of dollars the military wastes, their is ample room for improvement. on and off base weight room access for those who pass PT test and for those who dont, they get some structure and assistance from NCO and professional trainers.
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PFC Infantryman
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>1 y
This is more a symptom of things like fitness credentials not being viewed as important to the same extent things like Ranger School, Jump Master, etc are.
Smaller elements are no more immune to shitty PT plans and awkward execution. I’ve had PT that was led by NCOs who knew how to run it and with NCOs who didn’t on dang near every level within the company.
If the Army taught NCOs genuinely good PR practices at the team or squad leader level, it would follow them up the chain.
If NCOs strived to learn from highly qualified joes within their element, they could better themselves for the future and help their joes grow.
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SGT Ron Egan
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Battalion Commander wants a 0700 formation of the troops. Company Commander passes on it's 0600 formation. Platoon LT. says 0500 formation, Platoon Sgt says 0400 formation and the Squad leader gets your nasty ass up at 0300.
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Lt Col Jim Coe
Lt Col Jim Coe
7 y
Similar in the Air Force for the airdrop aircrews. Show time is 3 to 3.5 hours prior to takeoff time. If you have to fly to where the troops are, say 1.5 hours, then you've been at work for at least 4.5 hours when you start the joint inspection/briefing with the Army. The Army folks have been there at least 4 hours early. No wonder everybody in yawning. The joint inspection briefing is about an hour prior to the takeoff for the personnel drop. Onload troops about 30 minutes prior. The C-130s takeoff and fly at least 20 minutes and sometimes over an hour to the drop zone. When the troops depart the aircraft, we've all been up working this airdrop for about 6 hours. (Doesn't count planning and breifings the day before, week before, and month before.) The C-130 crews fly back and do another cycle of troops. The second load of troops has probably been up for over 8 hours when they see the green light. Aircrews then fly back to home base, debrief maintenance and debrief the mission. Not sure how all this effects the troops on the ground, but I know the aircrews were tired puppies when the day was over.
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