Originally posted by: theblackbox
Originally posted by: TallBill
Originally posted by: datalink7
Originally posted by: TallBill
Originally posted by: theblackbox
specialists, uh oh. i remember a few of those, a travesty to the rank of e4. corporals are the backbone of the army regardless of what any nco says. at least the fighting army...
Nawh, it's the squad leader now. It seems like 90% of the missions in Iraq are squad sized with a squad leader running them. I ran missions as an E5 for about 3 weeks while my squad leader was on leave, but the E6 runs the show these days.
Depends where you are at. Every one of my missions were platoon sized. Sometimes we would split sections, but typically I would take one section and my platoon sergeant would take the other in those instances.
Even when we ran platoon sized or larger missions, the squad leaders were the mission leaders. Hell, on one of the missions that I ran my first sergeant, commander, and 2 LTC's were all in trucks. Granted, it wasn't an amazing mission...
We were always used to a three man team.
We'd have an buck or staff sergeant , and either 2 e4s or another buck and an e4. Most of the time though, our e4s were corporals. very rare to see a spec. on one of the teams. most of the e4 specialists were either on print teams or broadcast teams, and not on a loudspeaker team.
On a side note, i would like to add my dismay to seeing the army move to a change in uniform that allows the beret as standard issue.
I took pride being able to wear my beret and flash, and tucking my damn dress greens into my shiny as glass boots, and what my tab and wings meant.
the time i spent cutting out that stupid lining, then shaving it with a razor, shaping it, and making it into a statement of my service, now to see everyone with one. breaks my heart. i'm thankful i didn't make a career out of the service, as i don't think i would have gotten over that change.