SSG Paul Mulvany - Out of ALL THE Comments you pick me? You obviously have no idea how to lead. Nor do you understand how the National Guard works. So let me break it down for you.

In the national guard the only time you are on active duty, unless deployed, is in a training environment. Training Environments are designed to stress you out, as they are designed to mimic being deployed. The Army and other services had an entire generation of leaders with no real combat experience, and thus the training could not ever mimic what a deployment was really like. This is further exacerbated by the fact that the reserves, do not know what to do on active duty as they are part time, and reserve NCO's and officers, do not have any full time leadership experience, unless they are good and decent parents, or manage in their civilian job. That coupled with the fact that prior to 2001, we had fully federalized commissioned officers, in the national gaurd, with only 2 years of college. The reason officers are required to have an education is that a liberal arts education MAKES YOU A BETTER LEADER, as it teaches you different ways to look at a problem. So the leadership style in the guard is: "Because i said so". And that is not leadership. Carrot first, stick as a last resort.

He clearly states, instead for being able to my job, which in the air force means he probably is some type of technician, so fixing shit, he has to mop the floor. FOR WHAT PURPOSE YOU GOING TO HAVE AN INSPECTION IN A MORTAR ATTACK?

I had a SGT Major who was in charge of our FOB. He had them bring in gravel, to help with the flooding that happens when it rains in southern Iraq. We parked the QRF trucks next to our tents. He would bitch that we were picking up the gravel with the trucks, and that he would have to have it redone. We explained the purpose of this was so that in case of a mortar attack we did not have to run to the trucks under fire, and we could react faster, to the attack. He bitched right up until his tent was hit wit a mortar, and then he finally fucking understood what combat was all about. RANK DOES NOT MAKE YOU SMART.

Everyone on of you, especially the assholes from the army, assume because I am a specialist I am stupid. I am not. I was then, and am now, smarter than 90% of the population in this country. I may have never made sgt in the guard, but that wasn't because I was stupid, it was because the regulations in the National Gard were stupid, a fact that has now been corrected, as the Guard and the army realized they were focusing on the wrong portion of what a soldier should be. as a reservists with a family, it was easy to ignore my physical fitness as I had other things going on, like a mother in law with fucking lung cancer, and a daughter born with only half a fucking heart.

I worked retail management while going to univeristy where i ran a store with 30 plus employees. Ave you ever had 30 employees under you? No, because the leadership pyramid in the service doesn't work that way. It is not the same to be a platoon sgt and have 30 soldiers under you, because you only lead the fucking squad leaders. But in a retail establishment the store manager is the end all be all of the store. Furthermore, you can not use the same negative reinforcement and threat of confinement that the military has when leading in the civilian work force, you have to use positive reinforcement or your people quit. I know how to fucking lead, i took an under performing store, and increased its output, over the course of the year i worked there, 30%. I did that by training my people to grab add on sales, and selling clearance items. I also always had their back, I never let an abusive customer, try and screw over one of my employees.

I don't think you meant to, but you brought up a very important point. The military is NOT the civilian world. Here on CivieSide people aren't normally (excepting cops) trying to KILL us on a daily basis.

I don’t see any issue with asking “why”. I was an asker specially for things I thought were dumb and ineffective. I still did what I was told but I always asked why. Down range I became a painter, grounds keeper, babysitter l, etc. You can’t tell people they can’t ask why specially if it’s a learning experience. That’s why there’s so much TOXIC leadership, because no one is leading anymore. Everyone is more concerned about how it will directly effect them. Grunt work sucks, so suck it up buttercup but you can always ask why.

I think he was asking about the tasks that don't have anything to do with doing his actual job (if I'm reading his question right). Like painting rocks, mopping during a rain storm, sweeping sand in the desert, etc.

Thank you for your comment, Sergeanr.

You had people kill themselves while on deployment? That must have been fucking horrible.

Most of the REMFS in my unit played xbox and PlayStation to kill time, that and eat. Most of the REMFS in my unit gained like 20 pounds while deployed.

In between missions I did the same thing. Don’t understand how people Gained weight though. yep

If this is pointless busy work, its being done to the detriment of the service. Young soldiers hate that shit. It's why they leave the service. They think their leadership is dumb. How hard is it to get some organized sports together? Or better yet develop these young guys. Make them start training each other on tasks that will help them get promoted or stay alive. Help resource the training, make them rehearse, and then teach their peers and juniors on a task. First Aid is always a great topic. Weapons are another. I agree that idle hands are not good, but if this young Airman has no idea why he is doing something message sent is message received.

MAJ Mark Wilson - Great response, and greta ideas. My leadership NCO's not officers, the officers in my NG were crap, i blame the NG on this all they do is train in admin, never get a chance to actually lead. When we had downtime, we would always be training on something, even if it was just a sand table, or some oral crap on oporders, etc. Just because we were deployed, did not mean we did not have to be productive when off mission.

We also had formal pt in my section, during downtime. One of the reasons why many of the guys in my unit who struggled with the pt test, passed it when we got back.

And old saying answers the prime question here. "An idle mind is the devil's workshop."

Learned something from you Captain. Great advice.