Just some stuff

This is pretty much going to be stream of conciousness (only with better grammar and spelling... I am not that pretentious) so if you have, I don't know, standards, and only want to read something with a central theme and structure, you should probably navigate away now.

So basically, here's the update. It's only about 95 degrees now, so still mild. I am not anxious for the next three weeks, since I predict the weather is going to get crappy. Camp Slappy is getting another 400-500 Soldiers, so now we all have to move around. I have now gone from two other roommates who I really get along with well, to four roommates who I don't know how I'm going to get along with. We'll see how this goes.

I did have to pull rank, though. I did some math- see if you can follow along: Two people per bunk bed X three bunk beds = six people. But I only have four roommates. Meaning that there is a bunk with only one person in it. And that one, friends, is MINE. I very seldom do things like that, because I very seldom need to. But I broke the news to the guys last night in anticipation of the move, and got pouty lips in return. Oh, well.

The pulling rank thing is interesting- generally when I say that something should happen, it happens. Which means I almost never tell people what to do. And I really enjoy the "participative" leadership style, where I get a lot of input and then make a decision. It works well in the communications field, where there are multiple right answers and a broad range of skills and experience to draw from. So I seldom if ever find myself in a position where I issue orders peremptorily. But I've had to do it now twice in the past two weeks, and I think that maybe I have gotten too nice with people, and they've forgotten that the Army has rank for a reason? I don't know. Your thoughts?

Back to the bunk thing. I've slept in 60-man bays, in the back, on the hood of, and under HMMWV's (hum-vees), on the ground, on a cot, in planes, standing up leaning on a machine gun, and once in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. I have also gone for up to 50 hours at a time with no sleep. I've deployed, gone to college (the deployment was easier-I hate school) , gone through a lot of nonsense in ROTC, and worked my butt off to be a Captain in the Army. I feel that I have earned the right to sleep in my own bed.

Back to pulling rank- the other time I had to do it was with my direct subordinate, a Lieutenant, who did not see the need for something I wanted him to do and was also feeling lazy about doing it, as it was going to involve a lot of labor for him (he thought). So we talked about it, because I feel that I don't have a monopoly on smart ideas and a lot of times, my guys have better ways to do things. At the end of the discussion, we still disagreed, he wasn't happy, so I told him "Check this out- you will do this." And he shut up. I think he was surprised.

OK, so I guess there was kind of a theme here. I think the next couple of blogs I do are going to be examinations of leadership styles. Unless I get bored or something else comes up. What are your thoughts on leadership? I am interested to hear about them.