Free Duty First by Ed Ruggero Page B

an important issue. More than that, the platoon sergeants would be experienced enough to know that the first sergeant carried heavy responsibilities; they would do everything they could to help. But Gilliam and the platoon sergeants and squad leaders, all the cadet NCOs, are classmates, all of them second class cadets. Olson is fond of saying that leading peers is one of the toughest leadership challenges. And so it is. Gilliam’s feet are being held to the fire, with this captain breathing down his neck, with darkness coming on, with new cadets and some cadre members wandering around the bivouac, some with weapons, some without.
    Turner says later that he came closest to losing his temper at that moment, when Gilliam started balancing his own “comfort” with something as important as weapons accountability. But he didn’t. Instead, he reminded Gilliam about the chain of command, about who works for whom and what the priorities are.
    “If you’re not sure of the technique to use, ask Sergeant Bingham or Sergeant Mercier,” Turner says, naming the two regular Army NCOs who are on board to train the cadet sergeants.
    “But get accountability,” he adds firmly.
    In a few minutes, Gilliam has his report: All the new cadets and all the weapons are accounted for. Olson and Turner, whose reputations and careers were most at risk as darkness fell and the weapons remained uncounted, had been remarkably patient as they let Gilliam figure out how to do his job.
    At the bottom of the hill, Master Sergeant Don MacLean, the senior Regular Army NCO in cadet basic training, watches as the last cadets pack up the chow line. MacLean, who is put together like one of the Abrams tanks he has commanded, is concerned that CBT isn’t difficult enough, that the cadre are too close to being new cadets themselves. The cadre can get too buddy-buddy in the interest of being an “inspirational leader.”
    “Cadets aren’t used to thinking in terms of ‘I outrank this person,’ and so can’t keep that distance,” MacLean says.
    This is not peculiar to West Point. Many soldiers experience this same conflict when they first pin on sergeant’s stripes.
Yesterday I was one of the boys; today I’m in charge.
    A few days earlier MacLean came upon a cadet squad leader sitting on the floor with his new cadets, chatting as they shined shoes together. “I pulled him aside and said, ‘They don’t need your war stories right now. Tomorrow you’re going to have to inspect, and if those shoes are screwed up—you’re not going to be able to say anything about it.’”
    A new cadet comes out of the nearby latrine, just visible in the fading light; he is not carrying his weapon. MacLean takes hold of the new cadet’s suspender.
    “Get your weapon and don’t ever leave it behind again. Understand?”
    The new cadet sputters his understanding. This is an epiphany. No yelling, no threats, no histrionics, just a big man stepping out of the darkness with a fixed idea that a soldier needs to keep his weapon at arm’s reach.
    Josh Gilliam’s lecture from the Tac NCOs about weaponsaccountability probably sounded a lot like what MacLean said to the new cadet he encountered. The Regular Army officers and NCOs assigned to Alpha Company know the score; the challenge is that the experienced leaders have to give the inexperienced leaders time to catch on. They have to say it, let it sink in, reinforce it when necessary, and stay out of the way.
    Like a lot of Army training, the next day’s mountaineering begins with a demonstration of how these skills might be used in combat.
    The new cadets sit on huge boulders near the bottom of a sheer rock face, turning the open space into an amphitheater. Four soldiers—men from the 10th Mountain Division, a regular-Army unit that has been sent to help with this summer’s training—sit on the rocks directly beneath the cliff. They wear their BDU shirts inside out and keep a sloppy watch on what’s going on in