What would you do if your Sergeant didn't know how to load a magazine?

She needs to be sent back and start over, it is a requirement of being a member of any military to know how to use your weapon. As for what I would do personally, hand her a unload weapon, point her in right direction and enjoy having a shield while I return fire.

I am a Range safety officer. And yeah I would have thrown her off he line. The Cheif is an ex sailor corpsman attached to Marines. He would have told her to go home get your head out of your ass and come back.

Maybe it's different now, but when I was in basic Reserves and National Guard went through the same training I did. IMO there is no excuse for a SGT to not be able to load a magazine.

Incompetence should never be tolerated except for "boots" . SGTs duties include teaching new recruits. It is inexcusable that someone promoted to the rank of SGt. Is this dumb. Not only would I kick her off the range she would be demoted. Dumbing down the military for gender incompetence is ludicrous. You want equality then treat them equally

Square that SGT away just like a Private. Shit happens, chew that SGT and keep it moving.

Her unit let her down - I was a female reservist and medical unit besides. We took people who did not have familiarity and reviewed and made sure hey had a chance to refamiliarize themselves. It's not fair to judge if you don't have the opportunity to review.

I have run into this numerous times in my career, but with all due deference to some of the SM's who needed help not everyone in every branch gets small arms training.

Now when it's your first sergeant who doesn't know how to adjust her sights, then the #$%& just got real. And yes, that really happened to me.

While it is shocking to know this I guess I would use a teaching moment. What MOS did she have? When I got to my active duty unit I had an assignment as new guy to be an aggressor to our field artillery units. The gave me the M-60 to fire blanks at but in loading it I could tell there was something wrong with the recoil spring. There was no tension that you should have when pulling the handle. I thought to myself this could not be true but then I was detailed to clean the M-60's off of the firing range in basic so I knew. As a new PFC they experienced SP4 and SGT did not believe me. They checked it for themselves only to find out my assessment was correct. I wondered how it was overlooked by the Battery Armorer. The good thing was I got to use my M-16 instead. So it is possible she never had the experience other than firing one in basic training. Be the better professional and provide remedial training.

You would be surprised how many soldiers are out there that do not know what many would consider basic. Under these circumstances patience is called for as fear of being made a fool of, could be part of the reason they never asked the correct question. Also unless you do something regularly it is easy to forget. So when the system fails, it is our responsibility to fix it. Did I tell you about my closing the top cover on an uncocked M-60? Thank goodness for my Tac Officer who was better than most.

Her whole chain of command failed. If you promote soldiers who cannot do basic soldier skills it is the leadership that failed. Not the soldier