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

My first question is, "What team do we play for"? I played for the U.S. and all Military personnel within it. If someone above me didn't know how to do something, I would show them and move on. Not talk about how a soldier didn't know it. If you gave out instructions first on how and what to do and they still didn't know, then the question becomes, "did you read and practice the material you were given"? I remember coming back to the military after being out for almost ten years. I was a Specialist and had 13 years of service. When I left, we never had backpacks with frames, just a backpack with two straps that went over your shoulders. When I went to a formal school for my MOS, we were issued gear for the field which included a backpack and a frame that were separate. I didn't know how to put them together correctly. An E1, Pvt, came over to me and showed me how to do it. Was I a little embarrassed, yes, but very great full to them for showing me and teaching me something. I never forgot and later on, showed the Pvt some tricks to keep ribbons from having dimples behind them for their inspection. We all have strengths and weaknesses and we don't always get instruction on things that we may not have done in a long time. WE ARE THE SAME TEAM though and to teach and learn from each other only makes us stronger and puts us back down to earth when it's needed.

Units fault. If she didn’t know how to use her weapon, senior leadership failed this Sergeant. I would have done my best to retrain her as well.

First off I would let her know up front that regardless of her daily status today she is active and than I would do what any good leader would do, Train her. In the 20 some odd years active duty I have trained and been trained.

Whose baby making apparatus did she fraternize with at the board?
How did she get through BNOC if she couldn't make use of her weapon?...
So many questions... I'm running out of scalp to scratch!

After watching this video, it shows how poor management and leadership of her unit has; I'm willing to bet the unit decided to go do their qual and didn't even bother to make sure everyone received PMI prior to execution..sad sad day!

You can't always blame to Soldier for their short comings. Case being I was a 88M SSG got PCS'ed to Germany. Low and behold I never been in a unit with a truck and trailer. Needless to say I had privates actually helping me out because the first 8 to 10 years of my military career I we in support units. And to be honest there is no perfect Soldier. Reducing her in rank is not the answer. Maybe had the unit did some training prior to this she would have done better.

She was supposedly qualified with that weapon, even as a reservist.....and that means she was supposed to be knowlegeable about the nomenclature and function of every part. I wouldn't have let her anywhere near it unless I was sure she was thoroughly familiar with it.

Black Flag, recycle, this is just unacceptable no matter what the rank. Not only seeing the vid witch should have not been made public, seeing stuff like this just pisses me off to High Heaven. We are Professional soldiers and should be viewed by the public as such.

Take apart the weapon ten times and do magazine transitions twenty times.....that is UNSAT....Soldiers today do not have the Warrior mindset....Basic Soldiering skills must be reinforced from the 11B to the 42A....I had 68Ws that could Shoot-Move-Communicate just as well as my ground pounders....leaders lead by example.....

looks to me that is a beltfed weapon. I watched the news back when Srmy Units first landed at an airport in Iraq with no loaded mags most of those troops had big problems loading up, even with stripper clips.

Re-train her. Simple. Obviously no body showed her how to:do it.

How could the person get to the rank of Sgt. with our firing a rifle. Had to have had basic training

I would pull them off to the side and we would practice the basics and fundementals of weapons handling. Load, unload and clearing a weapon until they could do it proficiently.

I would teach them how to read...

The pic on your post won't allow me watch the video.

I can't see the video. Is she unable to load the actual rounds into the magazine, or the magazine into her rifle? Because, in her defense, I was NEVER taught how to load ammo into a magazine in basic training, I was in the Army for 6 years (Active duty AND Reserve) before I ever loaded ammo into a magazine. And at my discharge after 10 years in the Army, I STILL couldn't load the ammo individually by hand, I had to use the rapid loader (when I tried to load individual rounds, as I tried to push them in, they'd twist).

First I would have to ask “Really ?”

Then as the INSTRUCTOR, I or another capable individual would try to correct what has obviously been a huge hole in the soldier’s training. Follow that with a lot a very close supervision and further instruction as needed.

Almost everything we do outside actual combat is training for actual combat. It is our job to train. When in the instructor’s job, we often are saddled with people who are not nearly as competent or well trained as they should be. All too often, this is no fault of the individual, but the fault of those behind them that just kicked the can down the road for various reasons. That’s where we step in and see what we can do to correct the situation. We don’t always get the Soldiers/Marines/Airman/Sailors that we want. It’s up to the leaders to make them into what we need, to fit the mission and become part of your team.

During WW2, they were throwing Marines into combat so fast at the end of the war, they didn’t even know how to unpack a grenade from its canister. They would open the can, demove the grenade, pull the pin and throw it , leaving the safety clip and cardboard safety collar still on it. The Japanese would then finish taking off the safety devices and throw it back. Very thoughtful of them.

At the beginning of the Korean War, they shipped regular Marines and Reservists over together. Back then, the Reservists had little to no boot camp training. They didn’t know how to break down weapons and could barely load and fire their rifles much less machine guns. The Regulars at first treated then with disdain. The older veterans told them “you are going to be fighting shoulder to shoulder with these guys in about 20 days. You have until then to get them ready.

Coming across people with gaps in their training is still all too common. We hate to see it when they show up in our group as they take up a great deal of our time to bring them up to speed. This takes away from the time you would otherwise spend on others. We have all had to do it, we all hate it. But it is what it is.

Pulling the soldier off the line and out of the group doesn’t correct her problem. It only kicks the can down the road for someone else to correct and hope that they don’t find themselves in a forward operating base in some sandbox before then.

Let's be fair, I was an 11C and only fired an M60 once. I don't remember ever training with it, the 11B's did that. We were in the same Co. I wouldn't expect an 11B to know how to fire a mortar. Now if this were an M16, that would be different.

I think it falls onto the leadership. They need to get things more squared away and see to it quickly.

I ask myself other person became a sergeant