I'm sure by now if you are in any way involved with the Army be it an officer, NCO, enlisted, future soldier, cadet, warrant officer, whatever you may be you know what LDRSHIP stands for. The Army Values: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, Personal Courage. We also all know what a leader is, both good and bad. I would like to give my perspective as a PFC to anyone who would like to listen.

As I said last week, I had drill this weekend and was sure I was going to have stories to tell. Many things happened over the weekend that are worth noting, but due to OPSEC, I'll try to stick to generalities. Ready? The primary focus of this weekend for my company was land navigation as part of our pre-deployment checklist. Yes, that scary word no one wants to say, deployment. Anyway, land nav is probably one of the easiest parts of being a soldier provided the right tools and a little common sense. However, missing either one of these makes things VERY interesting.

This is where the different forms of leadership come in to play. My company is fortunate to have multiple NCO's who have been on one or more deployments with each other and other companies, allowing each of them to bring unique experiences and life lessons to the table each drill. I believe this is what makes a good NCO from an enlisted point-of-view, someone who is confident but not cocky, self-aware, not afraid to admit when they are wrong, I could go on all day. Pretty much all good soldier skills, some confidence, some leadership experience, and of course common sense. The best example of leadership this weekend I saw was an E6 squad leader who after he sent his two teams on the course rounded up the pre-basic soldiers that were there to learn and get a jump start on soldiering before basic training and walked them through pace counts and actually accompanied them on the course teaching them about the landscape, shooting an azthmus, and just general terrain association. It was enlightening for me to see an NCO putting forth all this extra effort for a few kids who weren't even officially in the Army yet. He could have left them in the rear or just stood around with them, instead he took it as an opportunity to learn. That is good leadership if I have ever seen it.

So where does LDRSHIP fall into place? Being medic on-site gave me an opportunity to watch all three platoons go through the course and watch the way the different line leaders approached the situations, and some of it suprised me. I watched enlisted soldiers who knew what was going on more then their team and squad leaders- all corporals and above- get ignored because the NCO's were so determined to do it their way and I watched enlisted members who had no clue get left out to dry because they either didn't speak up or tried to speak up and were ignored.

Now in no way am I bashing anyone in my company, I believe my company is one of the best around with one of the best company commanders and first sergeants around. I am however trying to highlight one of the greatest faults there seems to be among the lower ranks. Now back to LDRSHIP. Each letter could easily have fallen into play this weekend on the course if it would have been given the opportunity. Loyalty to each member of your team and/or squad ensuring not only they knew what they were doing but could keep up physically as well, Duty for the same reasons, Respect for all members of the company utilizing an opportunity to train up the pre-basic soldiers and refresh the memories of some of the soldiers who haven't done this type of thing in awhile, Selfless Service for all the reasons listed above plus just regular desire to serve, Honor to the system, our fellow soldiers, and the country, Integrity is another good example I'll highlight in a minute, and the Personal Courage of the NCO's to admit that they were a little rusty and of the enlisted that knew what they were doing to speak up. Each of these did make or would have made the land navigation experience one everyone could have and did benefit from.

Integrity- Former Infantry Corporal getting ready to reclass to MP swore up and down he didn't need anyone's help on anything because he "did this all the time." Needless to say he and his team emerged from the woods about 30 minutes after everyone started on their courses completely lost because he read the map wrong. Even though he knew he had been to cocky and made a fool of himself he was not too cocky to admit he was wrong and promptly take his team back to the starting point to start again.

I guess if I had to sum up the above paragraphs in as few words as possible, they would run something along the line of "NCO's and all line leaders are to be respected and learned from. However if you know you have something to contribute and are afraid to speak up because your enlisted, IT DOESN'T MATTER! SPEAK UP! trust me, your team will thank you for it when you aren't the last team wandering in the woods."

Until next week, be strong, be safe, and be smart.