After you are gone from a unit: their performance your legacy or no?

2014-07-14T22:59:37-04:00

I was told once that your unit will function just fine without you so ensure to take leave and take care of yourself. Then I was told that you should ensure that the unit can do things when you are gone, as in do not make yourself the be all do all of the unit. Now being in the S3 for all of my AGR career there are times that the S1 or S4 or another part of the S3 did not complete their portion of the job so it came down to either having to explain that the mission failed because they did not do their job and I let it fail and take the heat, or do their job and watch the mission succeed.

My question is when you leave a unit does its success or failures reflect how you were as a leader: able to train those there to function after you left OR does it reflect poorly if they fail and it demonstrate that you ran everything and made missions succeed and they failed to learn or did not want to learn? Where is that line of successful tour and complete failure?

I want to set any unit I am with up for success and leave it better than I found it (learned that in the Boy Scouts), but how do I determine if I was successful there? Based on how successful we were while I was there or their success after I am gone?

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Jul 14 at 2014 11:11 PM

2014-07-14T23:11:17-04:00

I would say so. But I would also consider the position. Some positions may not be the same. I don't want to seem belittling but some roles just won't meet this. If you are a mail handler you might not leave much of a legacy behind. If you are a 1SG or a CSM you will affect the way of life of hundreds or many even thousands. I can say have have had some great leaders that I try to live up to their legacy and hope I would be doing them service by how I am leading my soldiers. You hear stories of people like GEN Mattis and you will see how much of a legacy he leave behind. I can say that there are those out there that have made the military a better place.

One of the worst feelings that I could ever imagine is leaving a platoon worse off than when I got there.

Response by CPT Jacob Swartout made Jul 14 at 2014 11:25 PM

2014-07-14T23:25:32-04:00

It may be how others see it. Everyone has their own methods to get the job done. I trained up the next HHT XO for 3 weeks to take over. Once I left HHT XO to become the S4, he didn't do what I set him up for him to complete the transition. The staff sections came up to me for 2 months to get help fixing the reports, battle rhythm, etc. that I had in place. Once again I retrained the XO and he was back to his old ways a week later.

After I completed 18 months as S4, I had a great 1LT take over for me. He continued the duties without any issues. I did have to become the asst HHT XO again for 3 weeks to help rework the battle rhythm that the same LT who replaced me as HHT XO forgot how to do. I then restarted the battle rhythm back on track and trained up their new HHT XO prior to PCSing.

I did it because I knew the new CDR needed help. I won't allow a unit to fail if it means for me to work late to resolve the problems.

Response by MSG(P) Michael Warrick made Jul 14 at 2014 11:29 PM

2014-07-14T23:29:12-04:00

Yes sir, the your legacy can be continue if you have a good person that takes over.

Response by MAJ Robert (Bob) Petrarca made Aug 2 at 2014 12:02 PM

2014-08-02T12:02:51-04:00

Great question LTC Private RallyPoint Member! Yes, you need to try to leave the unit in the same (if its performing to standard) and hopefully better shape than you found it. I think there are a lot of variables involved, even more so in a USAR/NG unit. As an M-Day commander, you set the style, pace and tone of the command but you rely heavily on your full timers to keep things running but they have their full-time CoC to satisfy as well. A lot of times the success or failure of you as a commander relies on how well you work with and within the full time system to make your mark on the unit.

I had a totally 8up full time supply sergeant - a guy I new as an M-Day who somehow weaseled a state technician job from somewhere. The guy couldn't tell me how many vehicles I had in the motor pool on a given day w/o counting them let alone maintaining paperwork. I was given a choice this guy or no supply sergeant - some choice?! My other 2 full-timers had to do their jobs plus keep their eyes on him, which meant I was at the armory 3 nights a week helping them keep up with their stuff because not having any supply sergeant was the worst of the options. Finally after about 7 months of me and my full timers trying to DX this guy, we got a new kid in and this guy was gone. In this case, either way, it would have been a reflection on me but I only had so much I could do to affect the necessary change. Had I left the situation as is it would have been up to the next guy to fix the problem and I'd still be paying off the statement of charges from his mess.

Another battle is getting individuals to put in the time to make things successful when they aren't getting paid to do it. You can ask your M-Day section leaders to go the extra mile but they have full-time jobs and lives so you're only going to get so much out of them. If you care enough as a commander, unfortunately you do take a lot more on than you need to, to pick up the slack. If the next commander isn't willing to do that, I don't think they're going to come back to you and say, "Hey, Petrarca, how'd you let this happen?" because you did what you needed to do to keep things running. There were so many times I wanted to say "F--k this" because you can only get so much blood out of stone, and in some cases, things had to slide to keep my sanity. In the end, no one died, got shot on a range, vapor-locked during a PT test or got booted due to a family care plan or a pi$$ test on my watch so that was that.