HIGHWAY BEAUTIFICATION
Most enlisted men have perfectly good reasons for disliking officers. Many officers have good reasons for disliking officers. It often boils down to them having a sense of entitlement due to their ‘exalted’ rank.A few years ago, when I was still a Lieutenant, one of our Battalions demonstrated a perfect example of behavior that leads to officer dislike.
At Annual Training in Central California, they had spent the entire preceding 12 days in the field, with 9 of them engaged in a field training exercise. Following a day of cleaning up the training area, (including areas they hadn’t been in) the troops were ready to relax a little bit before heading home the next day. They were looking forward to the barbecue promised to them by the Battalion Command Sergeant Major and an early evening for rest. The officers of the Battalion were going into town for a dinner in a restaurant. Nice end to a strenuous AT.
Then the disappointments started. The CSM had promised a barbecue but he hadn’t bothered to actually arrange anything. Since there was supposed to be a barbecue, the Mess people hadn’t ordered the normal food for the troops. Fortunately, each Company maintained a couple of days worth of MREs, just in case. Kind of a morale buster.
Then, the word came down that the Battalion had ‘volunteered’ to go out and spend ‘however long it took’ to clean the sides several miles of one of the California highways that bordered the training area. Seems someone had the idea that we’d get a good name by beautifying the highways.
About the time the trucks showed up to haul the soldiers out for their clean up job, a bus also showed up. To take the officers into town. No MREs for them! And no highway cleaning, either!
Out of about 35 officers, only one Lieutenant held back at this obvious injustice. Everyone else was trooping onto the bus.(The CSM was with the officers.)
The Lieutenant’s boss, a Captain, hopped off the bus to collect his errant underling and was told, quietly but in no uncertain terms, what would happen if the Captain made the mistake of issuing an order to board the bus. The Lieutenant then boarded a truck and went with the troops instead.
It took years for Officers to be trusted much in that Battalion. Those that were there never got any trust back. They’d showed their colors.