When an E-4 calls me "hey" or "hey man" knowing that I am an officer, should I bother to correct him?

Damn right you had better correct him. Discipline must be maintained, even though Milley/Austin turned military into Kum-by-yah lets all just get along military. There must be a red line that cannot be crossed not even by NCO's concerning superior officers. See to it that you repromand this E-4 and if happens again, punishment.

897 responses to this query... Most of them spot on! You don't need to come across as a butt head but, you do need to correct the behavior in a positive way. A lot of responses attempt to differentiate the situation by saying it is okay to be somewhat disrespectiful if you are off duty... Not so, when I worked for major corporations in the civilian arena, I still would refer to the CEO as sir if I saw him in a off work situation. Calling him "hey" or "hey man" may have ended my career... You can't switch off an on the earned respect for a peer, senior, or subordinate!

Absolutely!!!! There is no room in the military for lack of respect to the rank. It doesn't matter if you are friends outside of the military. I have retired and to this day I still address some of my officer friends by their rank. Kids (let's face it that's what they are) need to be taught respect. Somewhere along the way this has been lost and is lacking in a lot the younger generation.

Disrespect unchallenged is disrespect unleashed. Not only SHOULD you challenge the SPC, you MUST challenge the SPC. Lock his/her heels, make the correction and then tell him/her to "Carry on."

disrespect needs to be discussed without becoming violent verbally and physically and becoming disagreeable

I am appalled that as a Captain you even thought about this, let alone asked about it on a public forum. Military discipline is the one essential for military success. Without a strong culture of discipline and order, the miitary falls apart. In wartime, it is not unusual for an officer to have to order his men into a situation where undoubtedly some or all will be killed or injured. The unit may have been selected for a reconnaisance in force against a well dug in enemy of unknown size. The culture has to be such that the men ordered to move forward do not even hesitate to obey their orders, even if they sense the futility of their effort. Allowing an enlisted man to address you as anything except "Sir", or "Captain" needs to result in an immediate and forceful correction. The individual should be told that military discipline and order does not end with the normal duty day, nor by location, nor by whether or not one or both involved are in unifiorm and that any reoocurrence of such behavior will be treated as a serious disciplinary breach and will be punished harshly.

Then again, maybe the Army that I served in no longer exists. When one must be thinking about "preferred pronouns", or whether or not a remark might hurt the feelings of some mentally ill soldier who doesn't even know what gender he is, and where the top leadership says the biggest security threats to the nation are so-called "climate change" and "White supremacy", maybe I am expecting too much from a "woke" military.

If you don’t correct him, you need to resign your commission. Immediately.

When a standard exists, it is usually there for a reason, if you don’t uphold that standard it will begin to slide. If it slides at all, the standard could fall. When standards fall, it is like a domino effect; its fall will not only affect that discipline, other standards risk being effected! Stand it up and hold it up. Example: one big standard felk; now tecruiters cannot get enough people to join the service, respect has fallen!

Before I got out, I was in a reserve unit where the brigade commander was a gentleman from my hometown, whose family I knew. When he was promoted to Brigadier General and took over his division commander, I never saw him that much anymore, but when I did, he was always after me to transfer up to division because he thought I was such a good NCO. His words not mine!

It has been about 20 years since my ETS.. Even still, if I’m in my hometown, and I happen to run into him I still call him General, and he tells me, you don’t have to call me that. I tell him, with all due respect, General ,I can’t call you anything else!

Definitely!