On Your First Day as a Platoon Leader

CCLKOW is a weekly conversation on military affairs jointly hosted by the Center for Company-Level Leaders (CCL) at the US Military Academy at West Point and the Kings of War (KOW), a blog of the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. The views expressed here are the author’s alone and do not reflect those of the US Army or the Department of Defense. Read the post and join the discussion on Twitter #CCLKOW

Each semester, on the first day of class, I have my Cadets fill out a notecard to help me get to know them better. I have them list their branch choices (or branch depending on the semester), their biggest leadership strength/weakness, and one thing they want to learn about being a platoon leader. Two of the most important courses we’’ll attend are very upfront with their intents. Basic Officer Leadership Courses (BOLC) aren’t meant to teach you how to be a platoon leader and the Captain’s Career Course isn’t meant to teach you how to be a Company Commander. Which is why there’s a dearth of instruction about how to administer Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) punishment, how to do a supply layout, and how to write awards without getting them kicked back by the friendly S1 a dozen times. For this very reason, it felt fitting to address some of these topics in my class about officership. The course isn’t meant to teach these things either, but I’ve since found that incorporating one of these topics into the first five to seven minutes of my lecture most days helps keep their attention for the rest of the class.

This semester we’ve spoken about a number of topics. We went line by line through the administrative requirements of an Non Commissioned Officer Evaluation Report (NCOER)-such as, what does the Primary Military Occupational Specialty (PMOS) block mean on the NCOER and what are each of the competencies that are being evaluated on the NCOER? We also covered awards-when should they be written, what does a downgraded award look like (I have two of my own), and who can approve awards. We covered topics pertaining to inventories such as what a platoon leader’s hand receipt looks like, where to find what an item is based on its National Stock Number (NSN) and nomenclature, and what basic issue items (BII) are. Lastly, we talked about the role of an investigating officer (IO) and a few of the basic essentials of serving as an IO, to include, when do you complete/read the rights warning form (DA 3881). I’ve covered these topics specifically based on feedback I’ve received from previous class’ cadets and the interests of the cadets in my class now. One topic that I haven’t covered yet is one that I’ve put a great amount of thought into. One of the cadets asked the age-old question, “what do I do on the first day?”

My first day as a platoon leader, December 28th, 2007, was one I won’t forget. Like so many units during the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, mine was forward deployed. I didn’t sleep well the night before. Not because it would be my first “rendezvous with destiny,” but because I didn’t want to fail. I stayed up most of the night on the platoonleader.army.mil and aisforarmy.com websites reading threads on their forums about what I needed to do to be a successful platoon leader. The question is timeless. Someone, somewhere, today is searching relentlessly like I was so many years ago for the answer to the same question. I remember reading, “be tough, make confident decisions, go in tough and then ease up, among other words of wisdom.” When I showed up, I was in awe of the magnitude of being responsible for the health and welfare of 76 of the Army’s finest transporters. Yes, there were 76 Soldiers in my platoon and the “know your Soldiers” nugget of advice seemed to be an ambitious goal. That first day I managed to talk to most of them and would take great strides throughout the year to know the rest. Knowing your Soldiers doesn’t mean you need to be their friend. You need to know what makes them your Soldier. Why’d they join the Army? Was it for college benefits? To get away from a life that was holding them back? To provide for their family? I made it a goal to know every single one of my Soldiers and, by the time I was done being a platoon leader, to flawlessly answer the questions that my Battalion Commander would come to the motorpool and ask me every Monday. So on the first day, I talked a lot (probably unsurprising to people who know me best), and listened a lot more.

So before I address the loaded question of “what do I do on the first day of being a platoon leader,” I want to know what YOU did. This week’s CCL/KOW question is simply and complicated at the same time:

1) What did you do on your first day as a platoon leader (whether that was as 2LT or 1LT)? Ideally, after collecting a full week of posts, I’m going to share these responses in my class. Please include your branch with your post. We’re FIRED UP! to hear your story.