Leadership

The military is interesting.  Everything is done by rank, except when it is not.  An incident happened, and a lot of the leadership was reorganized.  Leadership was slack, and sleeping on post had become pandemic. Several dog handlers, friends of the leadership, were caught sleeping on post.  They were court-martialed and sent to prison, followed by dishonorable discharge from the service.  How the flight chiefs survived this I do not know, but the assistants and the squad leaders did not. Clearly, a lack of leadership led to the court-martials and dishonorable discharges.

There were more problems than sleeping on post that got all of the squad leaders and assistant flight chiefs relieved of duty. One night our armorer accepted a weapon from a handler, went to put the CAR-15 away and put a bullet through the roof of the armory when he closed the bolt and pulled the trigger.  The weapons are stored after pulling the trigger, releasing the stored energy and relaxing the spring.

Let me explain why that should not have happened. First, while on post, the handler was supposed to show the squad leader that the chamber of his gun was clear, close the bolt and pull the trigger. Then, when the dog handler got to the armory, he was supposed to pull back the bolt, show that the chamber was clear to the squad leader assigned to the clearing box, pull the trigger in the clearing box, pull back the bolt and pass the gun to the armorer. The armorer was then supposed to check the chamber, close the bolt and pull the trigger. If all the steps were followed, there could not possibly be a round left in the chamber. In my mind, the armorer was as much at fault for the accidental discharge as was the squad leader and the dog handler, but he shared no responsibility.

Several dog handlers, who outranked me, turned down the position of Assistant Flight Chief.  I did not.  I began my leadership role by refusing to treat the troops like they were two-year-olds.  The order was that I was to take my flashlight and check that their chambers were empty before they could get on the truck when relieved of duty.  Instead, I required that the dog handler point his gun skyward, away from the base and pull the trigger before I would relieve him of duty and allow him to get on the truck.  More than once a shot was fired into the night.  That dog handler got to give the weapon safety briefing for the next week at guard mount. Everyone knew why he was giving the weapons safety briefing, instead of me.  No one I relieved of duty handed a weapon to the armorer with a round in the chamber.

This is my management style.  Empower those whom I supervise to become the best at what they do. None of those dog handlers ever forgot how they let me down when they accidentally discharged a round out into the darkness of the night.  They never made that mistake again and their peers learned from the mistakes of others.