Snow Problem? Not Here..

2 in, 398 out.

The First Sergeant's guidance on Monday was pretty clear:

"As we all know, there's bad weather in the forecast. That's not an excuse for being late to formation...leave your house an hour early, or just stay here on post, but if you miss formation on Wednesday, you will be spending some quality time with me in my office."

That made my plan here simple -- bivouac here in the office tonight, avoid tonight's evening commute along with tomorrow morning's commute, and rule out any possibility of being *that guy.*

Inevitably, someone will miss first formation tomorrow, and he or she will blame the weather. If there are disciplinary consequences, the soldier will complain to any sympathetic ear that the leadership is just being so ridiculous, because the treacherous commute is clearly the reason for the infraction.

Conveniently, the offer made by the leadership to stay the night will be left out in the retelling.

That's almost always the case with stories like that.

Yes, things get screwed up in the Army, as they do in any other organization. Sometimes the regulations don't make sense, and oftentimes they're enforced arbitrarily.

But anytime you hear stories about the heartless First Sergeant who punished the poor Private for a rules infraction despite the obvious mitigating circumstances, it's always important to remember this:

You're only hearing half the story.