What are some of the little things your leadership has done to boost morale in everyday situations?

Being in the National Guard is challenging because you only see your Soldiers once a month. Our unit just came back from a deployment and we immediately went through a Change of Command at the company and battalion levels. We're also in a reset year but our OPTEMPO has increased ten fold which doesn't allow for any of our Soldiers to attend their respective leadership schools and get promoted. To say our morale is low is an understatement. Our new Company CDR asked for ways we can improve morale and it was not easy. We recently went to the rifle range at AP Hill VA and it rained the entire time. We had to conduct NBC and night qualification in addition to the normal pop up targets. There was a miscommunication amongst the leadership and our folks only had one night of how chow (it was a 3 day drill weekend) and boy did we hear about it. I came up with an idea of having hot chow for our Soldiers when we returned to our armory in MD and I started gathering money. I went to Mission BBQ and got food for everyone, had it delivered, and set up prior to the bus getting back to the armory. The Soldiers were cold, hungry, and tired but when they saw warm food, they were ecstatic. That was their highlight to a crappy weekend and a few of them even personally thanked the CDR prior to being released from drill. I always tell my leadership that it's the little things Soldiers remember and thus far, this had a positive impact on them. We plan on continuing to do these types of things in the future.

I use to send my soldiers to fly with the MEDEVAC helicopters. I inspected them for a Kevlar helmet, ID tags, and issued them a barf bag from the airlines. I have more examples if you want to message me.

Specifically for PFT, I did mine at the same time with all my guys and gals. Had a standing competition that anyone who could beat me in the run received an extra day of liberty.