I'm a recently commissioned 2LT in the Army.  I am soon heading to Ft. Benning for Armor BOLC and then to my first duty station as (hopefully) a cavalry platoon leader.  I was wondering what advice the ARFCOM community has for me?  I know everyone says listen to your NCO's, be humble, have a sense of humor, be a PT stud, and learn to take a joke.  Anything else I should know?

Volunteer for Ranger school/Jump School while at Benning....bonus points for a winter slot.

Lead from the front and lead by example.

You should have the state of mind that you would do anything you ask/direct others to do.

I graduate BOLC in may, and I definitely will try for a ranger slot, and airborne, but it looks like for armor officers, it's basically just where your follow-on assignment is that determines whether you get those slots.  If I get Bragg or Campell, I'm going to ranger.

Congratulations! I'm a year group 2013 Armor Officer. Im currently in 4-10 CAV deployed to a CENTCOM forward location.

First: Ensure you get a slot to ARC. If Mr jones still works there dont let him do the typical lazy government civilian thing where he says, "I'll take care of you later"

If you go to a heavy BDE, dont get set on tanks and brads. I was a bradley PL but the sister platoon had 10 trucks.

Dont let the whole IPB/MCOO/OPORD thing scare you. They want you to be thorough, even though everyone knows not all that info is useful. Embrace getting chosen to the the PL, trust me it will pay off.

Dont let the NCOs bully you around. Understand that the CO there may trust them more than you, but you are still a human and an Officer.

Dont believe everything an NCO tells you, and real talk: dont trust a Soldier who says "dont worry about it Sir, I got you..." TRUST, BUT VERIFY

Send me an email if you like and I can give you more info

Double tap

get your tank
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This is awesome and pertinent advice, thank you sir!

You better learn IPB -MCOO -OPORD thing. I disagree 100 percent with the above comment that it isn't important. All that info is important and you being a student of your profession and understanding it is more so.

Be a sponge at Benning- crack the books and learn.

The last place you want to be figuring shit out is at your first platoon. Then it's to late. Be a leader and remember as a leader you have to have a professional foundation.

Good luck you have the most important job in the world. Leading other men. As such you owe them the best you have.

I didnt mean to say it wasnt important... What I meant was, briefing the EENT and explaining how it relates to the mission shouldn't be harped on nearly as much as your scheme of maneuver and RXLs... New LTs often think that every single piece of the OPORD is equally important when it's clearly not. No doubt learnt it, but know how to prioritize the information you put out

Conduct inventories with the TM for each piece of equipment and for all components of end items...

Do not sign for anything that you haven't properly inventoried...

Reading recommendation: The Mission, The Men, And Me

NEVER let anyone in your Company know your birthday

This, to include that even though they are soldiers (i experience this Marine Corps side) they still have functioning brain housing groups so they arent stupid and can actually have good ideas and experience. Also even though a lot of them are treated like it they are not children.

Once An Eagle by Anton Myrer

Get your Tab and Lead by example





Listen to your PSG, be his team mate as you are both on the same team.





Never argue in front of your soldiers, or try to ridicule your PSG or your soldiers


He/they will let you fall on your face.





Treat your men like everyone of them are one of your children, parents/wives/kids are counting on you to keep


their loved one alive.





Take counsel with your PSG, you may disagree at times but work toward the same goal and take care of the boys.





Make sure you can handle your alcohol, never get drunk around the boys unless you have a plan to get home for you and your PSG


If you cant drink them under the table, don't even try.





Congrats and good luck Lieutenant.





RLTW!


 Free

 

I wanted to suck start my pistol when I had to read all 42 hours of that for a PME

Shut up and listen to the guy with all of the stripes.  You will likely live longer and so will those in you charge.  All of the book learning in the world isn't worth a hill of beans compared to the experience of a good NCO.

First part, yep, listen, trust, but then verify.  You can delegate authority, but not responsibility.

How do you know if it is a good NCO?

There are good SNCOs and bad SNCOs talk to your peers, Commander and other SNCOs if what your's tell you something that sounds funny.

Paraphrased from Nate Fick's "One Bullet Away".

I have this as a note on all my devices.

Become Technically & tactically proficient at your job.

Make sound & timely decisions. A hasty plan executed now is better than a great plan later.

Be decisive, act, and be ready to adapt.

Set the example, sloppiness begets sloppiness.

Know your men & look out for their welfare.

Train as a team, know each others jobs.

This is not about you.

And "properly inventoried" means "saw with your own eyes, and verified the SN."  Words to live by.

Take care of your troops before yourself - you've no doubt heard that before.

Yes.

Plenty of good or bad NCOs out there.

The battalion commander will tell you from his seat what he thinks of your PSG when he gives you the job.  Your company commander will tell you the same thing.  If he doesn't, ask.

What do your peers or the XO in the company say?  What does the 1SG say?  When you took it on yourself to spend 5 minutes to chat with the CSM, what did he say?

After all that, it's just more information to use and make your own decisions/build your own relationship.

QFirstly, congratulations! Fuck all the haters. The Cav is a good place.

Now up front, I'll tell you that I am very curt. It's a trait I picked up from a long line of goddamned good Cav NCO's. If you aren't used to a gruff blunt delivery with a "sir" thrown in there every now and then, then you'd better quit now and find a different branch to work in. It's nothing personal, it's just how business is conducted.

Now that that's out of the way. Don't ever mention Custer in a good light to any Scout. Nobody gives a fuck about how military history classes exonerated him of wrong doing. Under his leadership, the only one of his men who lived was his fucking horse. Custer was a fuck-up. Accept it. You will go nowhere fast in the Cav if you don't. (once you get to a Cav Squadron you'll see why I started off with this). If you want old-timey role models, check out Francis Marion, John S. Mosby (my personal favorite seeing as he was so boss that he and his guys conducted a raid and captured a garrison commander in Fairfax in his drawers), Mirabeau B Lamar, and of course Teddy Roosevelt.

Also, don't ever say "Well, Sergeant, in my experience....." You have no experience. Not yet. You'll get there, but as a butter bar you have none.
I had a MICH when I first got to the 82nd as a SPC. By the time I retired that helmet and got a new one, it had been on my head through 27 months in combat, 4 LT's, 23jumps, 2 trips to JRTC, one to NTC, RSLC, PRC, God knows how many other field problems, ranges, got a CAB a few times over, you get the picture.
When one of your Staff Sergeants says "Sir, my [piece of kit] has more time in the Army than you do" that is what they mean.

Your job isn't to be the best PL the Army has ever seen, and you will get zero points from anyone for your "brilliant" ideas that are basically re-inventing the wheel. Your job as an LT is to listen to your CO and the NCO's around you, and figure out this whole army thing so that you can become a good COMPANY COMMANDER. You will never earn your mens' trust through "innovation," you'll earn their trust by listening to NCO's and making sound decisions when it counts.

If you end up with shitty NCO's, shoot me a PM and I'll be glad to help you out. Or bounce what they say off of other PL's. Don't let yourself flounder alone.



And for the love of God, don't show up like my one PL did and espouse the virtues of abstinence and maintaining your virginity (at the ripe old age of 25). The men would literally respect you more if you came in and talked about jack-hammering a bunch of dudes over the weekend, as they'd know that at least you were alpha enough to be fucking SOMEONE. That PL never recovered from that. It was by no means whatsoever his only transgression, but long story (and believe me it is a LOOONG story) short, he now rides a desk at Ft Hood in an Ops dungeon somewhere.

suck up to the officers, especially you CO and XO and keep a distance between you and your staff NCOs and NCOs.  There's nothing more certain than familiarity breeds comptempt.

None need know much about you but for your service record.  There's little in your background that you might share that won't be subject to ridicule or bombast.by some jackass in your command to your detriment.

The legend of the "Shitbird" still exists.  And, most everyone is looking for someone else to highlight his deficiencies so that those faults become widely known and to the unending delight of those who play up your deficiencies so other won't notice their own deficiencies so much.

LF

You're supposed to be surprised that a lowly Grunt knows that book.

Thank you all for the helpful replies.

Lots of good advice here already. I'll reiterate, don't be a pushover.  I had an NCOIC with an attitude who was shit hot when it came to performing the duties within his MOS, but he couldn't mentor for shit (myself or my junior Soldiers). I gave the perception of being a push over because I'm laid back and wasn't as authoritative as he was used to experiencing. That changed quickly but it was difficult getting him to come around.

If (God forbid) you are assigned to Bliss when you graduate look me up.

I would also recommend "Outlaw Platoon" as a great read if you haven't read it already. I can't add anything else that hasn't been said already. Good luck Lieutenant!

True story I tell all new Butterbars:

The teams in my platoon all had a single paged board where information could be easily written down and erased when finished.  One board and about a dozen or so lines where critical information could quickly be updated. Just a couple of minutes to code/decode and your done.

In comes a new EllTee.  The update board goes to Four Pages and I forget how many lines.

We were in Graf at the time.  The next day we were scheduled to practice radio procedures, coding, decoding, reporting things we saw and the like.  Just go out in the bushes a bit and get radio practice done.  Nothing tactical at all.  Just code what you see and report in.  The fun we had with insects and other flying things.

Now, it took about 30 minutes of work to decode One Message back then, going through the CEOI, group by group by page.

Us NCO's did a naughty, naughty on him.  Cliff Notes: We overloaded him with short coded messages.  Before he could finish decoding one he had another coming in.  Then another.  And Another.  A couple of minutes after one team finished he'd get another.  And it didn't include the four pages of updates he requested.  Top of the hour and here come the Updates, all properly coded.

As we headed back to Vicenza we were back to out original one page board.

Two lessons:
What Works, Works.  If your platoon is doing something a Certain way it is because that Certain way has been proven in the past.  Change at your own peril.  Experimenting is fine, just be ready to go back if it falls flatter a worms belly button.

KISS: If you don't need it, don't bring it.  While it is sound advice to carry around small sets of tools or equipment: It is better to have and not need than to not have and need, bringing snowshoes into the desert is rather stupid.  The more stuff you bring means the more stuff that will fail.

Totally different experience on my end.  I'm just about to pin on Capt in the AF, aviation background.  Lot's of good advice here.  Just from a general point of view, not service-specific: never think that a job is too shitty for you to do because you're an officer ("E-work" is not a thing) and never pass up an opportunity to shut up and listen to people with more experience than you.  Also, do not be a yes man (that's more of a personal preference, but the military has  plenty of those already).  One final thing: do what you can to stay focused on the mission.  In the AF, at least, we've kind of lost our focus on the mission and have misprioritized things on a macro level.  You may not be able to really affect too much as a CGO, but never let queepy administrative bullshit and CBTs get in the way of doing your actual job.  You probably won't have any issues with this, but, if you stay in long enough to actually affect change, make the mission the priority.  Try to espouse that mission focus to everyone.  Hopefully, it'll stick.

This. Stick with your senior NCOs and work as a team... Get trained (Airborne, Ranger) and be a true leader. Don't be a dick with a bar and definitely don't let your rank go to your head. Good luck out there.


PS - and watch out for grumpy old Rangers like Freefalle7; he'll tear you a new one if you get on his bad side.