Take Initiative, or Don't; You're Getting It Either Way

One axiom of enlisted life in the Army is the idea that you are to take initiative at whatever level you're at. From buck private all the way to command sergeant major, Army leadership impresses upon you the idea that you, the dedicated individual combat killer (DICK), are what makes things happen in the Army. Relying on other people is a time-honored tradition and esprit-de-corps is something that we should all strive to attain and push, but at the end of the day, it's down to you. That's why you need to know your job, the job of the guy a rank above you, and understand the job of the guy two ranks over you. If you push yourself and come up with new and inventive ways to accomplish the mission, you will achieve that elusive goal of "doing the right thing."

So it should come as no surprise that taking initiative is simultaneously the most criticized and the most encouraged behavior in the Airborne Army. In the 82nd by-God Airborne, standard rules don't apply. There, you can't find middle ground; it doesn't exist. In the Airborne, either you're taking too much initiative or you're not taking enough. Either way, you're wrong, and we're going to fix it. Don't worry, soldier; we'll get there together. Half-right FACE!

Many times it doesn't end up taking the form of corrective punishment. Most of the time it's just being told that you'll never amount to anything in your Army career (and you want to have a career, don't you, hero?) and that all the cool-guy schools are going to be closed. "We aren't going to promote someone to sergeant that doesn't take initiative" is about as common a refrain as "everyone outside for PT formation." Admittedly, I never pushed all that hard to take initiative; I completed tasks that were assigned to me, but even there, I invested time and effort to figure out how each of those tasks could be better completed to serve the overall mission, or if there was a way to save time and complete my tasks faster.

I know a lot of guys that did the same. Of course, this didn't matter. If I wasn't going around to all of the shops in squadron HQ and asking if they had anything to push down to our unit and our platoon, I clearly wasn't trying very hard. On the flip side of that, I saw more than a few NCOs and officers who tried and tried and tried, figuring out new ways to improve the unit or just ways to increase morale. They were either ignored or talked down to by higher command for trying to do something that didn't fit into the neat 3x5 index card of what we were supposed to be doing.

Preemptive layouts are my favorite example of this. In the 82nd, we had to lay equipment out for inventory all the freaking time. Lay out your lockers. Lay out the truck lockers. Lay out the conexes. Lay out other people's conexes. Lay out stuff for people you don't even know. The Airborne was the land of layouts, where everywhere you looked you could find someone laying out something, and chances are it was the fourth time they were doing that particular layout?

Why did we do so many layouts? It wasn't for mission readiness, although that is why a fraction of those layouts ended up being scheduled. No, we did layout after layout because officers and NCOs took initiative prior to those readiness layouts and had us all do practice layouts. And practice layouts for the practice layouts. And initial layouts for the practice layouts that preceded the practice layouts, ostensibly so that we would have all of our ducks in a row come the day we actually did the layouts. There was one day I remember very clearly where we laid out truck equipment four times in one day.

Were the officers and NCOs that thought ahead and took initiative like that rewarded? No. If something was missing, even if it was denoted in the property book (thanks to all those preemptory layouts), they still got chewed out. No "well, stuff is missing, but thanks for being so prompt about having that answer." No, sir, but God help them if they hadn't done those nine billion layouts. Then it became a real shitstorm about accountability and initiative.

What's the moral of the story? You are why we can't have nice things, because you don't take/take too much initiative.

Andrei Chira is a vaper, voluntaryist, and all-around cool dude. Formerly a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division, he now spends his time between working at VapEscape in Montgomery County, Alabama, contributing to Seeds of Liberty on Facebook and Steemit, and expanding his understanding of...well, everything, with an eye on obtaining a law degree in the future.