So last Halloween I enjoyed cow dung..let's take a step back for a sec.
We loaded our gear onto our respective charter buses aroun 1700 thursday night. It would be a 3-day training event for the ROTC cadets, spanning from Thursday night to Sunday morning (you came in with the breeeeeeeze).
We arrived at Camp San Luis Obispo around 2200, and proceeded to walk out to our FOB (magical area for sleeping). I couldn't make out anything even though the moon was nearly full, as there were massive hills surrounding our site.
When I woke up I realized that we were sleeping in a cow pasture (as evidenced from the cow dung everywhere) and was informed that the cattle located there were open-grazing (no fences).
I was assigned some low-ranking cadets and tasked with performing day/ night land navigation. I'm low ranking myself, as far as the ROTC cadet-land totem pole goes - but I'm prior service...and not with some BS unit, either.
I took my cadets around and eventually decided that we should scale a mountain to get to one of our land-nav points, instead of taking the winding roads up the mountain. They hated me at the time/ shortly after, but I'm sure after the fact they feel proud for having accomplished something so epic (862 feet).
The weekend was filled with angry screaming women who mistaked leadership for being loud. I took as much of it as I could before taking one of them to the side and gently explaining how they were doing it wrong. You don't have to yell to be a good leader, (unless of course you're in a firefight) you just have to know your shit and sound confident.
We did this Leadership-course thing where all of the hi-ranking cadets in my squad basically failed. I went up and got straight "E's" across the board (excellence). I only wish that I could've gone first so I could've shown them how to give short, effective, easy-to-understand commands. It's not their fault for not knowing what they're doing - they've never seen combat or as much as served before...it's the fault of their higher-ranking cadets for failing to grasp what it means to lead and thus failing everyone below them through their misinstruction.
I can't help all those cadets but I can work with my own school (CSUDH) to try and square them away. Hopefully they'll learn something and not go into the field screaming like idiots as the rest of the school's cadets do (CSULB/ USC).
oooh, also - I had some female cadet get in my face and tell me that nobody cares that I was a Ranger or that I've seen combat and that only my cadet rank matters. This is funny because:
1) Anyone that actually knows what Rangers are/ has seen Black Hawk Down cares that I was a Ranger (all of the actual enlisted/ officers at the camp were calling me "Ranger" or constantly referring to me as the authority on land-nav and Army-related stuff).
2) I was able to get away with not-shaving all weekend while other cadets got lit up.
3) I won "best cadet in my rank," beating out 60 or so others.
4) Army Rangers (1st, 2nd, 3rd BN/ 75th REGT - not some regular army gut with a tab) make up the top 1% of the Army. Elite. Not everyone can play Ranger - hell, out of my class of 200, under 50 graduated.
I'm not trying to come off as some arrogant prick, but I do believe in giving credit where credit is due. Emotions and feelings don't come into account in the Army. I believe that I deserve respect for what I did - I earned it. I don't enjoy being talked down to by some cadet that has no-fucking-clue what the real world is like, while she cites her cadet-rank (translates to "I'm about to graduate - I'm a senior so you should respect me") as the reason I should bow down to her. Not gonna happen.
All in all it was a good weekend - I showed my guys a lot and really gave them a boost of vitamin C for confidence.
We loaded our gear onto our respective charter buses aroun 1700 thursday night. It would be a 3-day training event for the ROTC cadets, spanning from Thursday night to Sunday morning (you came in with the breeeeeeeze).
We arrived at Camp San Luis Obispo around 2200, and proceeded to walk out to our FOB (magical area for sleeping). I couldn't make out anything even though the moon was nearly full, as there were massive hills surrounding our site.
When I woke up I realized that we were sleeping in a cow pasture (as evidenced from the cow dung everywhere) and was informed that the cattle located there were open-grazing (no fences).
I was assigned some low-ranking cadets and tasked with performing day/ night land navigation. I'm low ranking myself, as far as the ROTC cadet-land totem pole goes - but I'm prior service...and not with some BS unit, either.
I took my cadets around and eventually decided that we should scale a mountain to get to one of our land-nav points, instead of taking the winding roads up the mountain. They hated me at the time/ shortly after, but I'm sure after the fact they feel proud for having accomplished something so epic (862 feet).
The weekend was filled with angry screaming women who mistaked leadership for being loud. I took as much of it as I could before taking one of them to the side and gently explaining how they were doing it wrong. You don't have to yell to be a good leader, (unless of course you're in a firefight) you just have to know your shit and sound confident.
We did this Leadership-course thing where all of the hi-ranking cadets in my squad basically failed. I went up and got straight "E's" across the board (excellence). I only wish that I could've gone first so I could've shown them how to give short, effective, easy-to-understand commands. It's not their fault for not knowing what they're doing - they've never seen combat or as much as served before...it's the fault of their higher-ranking cadets for failing to grasp what it means to lead and thus failing everyone below them through their misinstruction.
I can't help all those cadets but I can work with my own school (CSUDH) to try and square them away. Hopefully they'll learn something and not go into the field screaming like idiots as the rest of the school's cadets do (CSULB/ USC).
oooh, also - I had some female cadet get in my face and tell me that nobody cares that I was a Ranger or that I've seen combat and that only my cadet rank matters. This is funny because:
1) Anyone that actually knows what Rangers are/ has seen Black Hawk Down cares that I was a Ranger (all of the actual enlisted/ officers at the camp were calling me "Ranger" or constantly referring to me as the authority on land-nav and Army-related stuff).
2) I was able to get away with not-shaving all weekend while other cadets got lit up.
3) I won "best cadet in my rank," beating out 60 or so others.
4) Army Rangers (1st, 2nd, 3rd BN/ 75th REGT - not some regular army gut with a tab) make up the top 1% of the Army. Elite. Not everyone can play Ranger - hell, out of my class of 200, under 50 graduated.
I'm not trying to come off as some arrogant prick, but I do believe in giving credit where credit is due. Emotions and feelings don't come into account in the Army. I believe that I deserve respect for what I did - I earned it. I don't enjoy being talked down to by some cadet that has no-fucking-clue what the real world is like, while she cites her cadet-rank (translates to "I'm about to graduate - I'm a senior so you should respect me") as the reason I should bow down to her. Not gonna happen.
All in all it was a good weekend - I showed my guys a lot and really gave them a boost of vitamin C for confidence.