In the midst of my normally chaotic duties as the Commander, I was approached this morning by a young tenacious Staff Sergeant that I did not recognize. This is not completely out of the ordinary as, even though I’ve been here a year now, I don’t know all my soldiers on a personal level, yet.
We run continuous operations here – operations that I can’t halt simply to declare that I want to see all my soldiers in one place at one time. So, as things continue on normally, I meet and get to know them one at a time, starting with the ones most geographically close to me, first and working out… then working on meeting those with those same duties but operating on other daily shifts. Finally I’ve been trying to identify, by roster, those people, through sheer chance (or otherwise), have not drilled on the same weekend as our main body since the time I assumed command.
In any event, I made what fate would eventually prove to be a mistake and made eye contact with the Staff Sergeant. Accepting the slight rise in my eyebrows as an invitation to a monologue, she began to speak. To some, speaking is a chore… to some a task… yet others it is an activity. But to her it was a state of being.