Imagine meeting a person that brought back memories of the worst time in life. Today I met a man named Derek. Derek had a very horrible attitude, so much so it reminded me of a leader that I used to work for a long time ago.
In 2005 I was assigned to the United States Army Technical Escort Unit. The unit was undergoing change. My 1SG came to me and asked if I would like to go on Special Duty as a Drill Sergeant, Recruiter and Instructor. I personally felt that I did not qualify as a Recruiter because I was a single parent. I did not feel that I had the personality to be a Drill Sergeant, so I chose Instructor. The transition process went very quick. I think from the moment I made the decision I was in Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.
When I arrived
…show more content…
I had enrolled my daughter in the School Aged Services. This facility allowed me to be able to drop my daughter off at 0530 and pick her up no later than 1730. Those are the hours that I had to drop her off. I was expected to do Physical Fitness Training in the morning at 0600 and I did not get off work in most cases until 1700.
Once the in processing period was over, reality hit me very hard. I was in more of an observation phase, just trying to take everything in slowly. I only knew two of the instructors, there had been a large turnover of personnel within the last year. One of the instructors was an instructor when I attended the training and the other I had met on his way out of my unit, the same unit I had previously been assigned.
Everything happened so fast. I had only worked for SFC Joe Smith for a little over three months. The first incident had occurred when I was updating the computers prior to the opening of the facility to students. SFC Joe Smith had given me a warning that he only wanted me to update the computers at the end of the duty day. The problem with that was I did not know how long it would take to update the computers and I had to pick up my daughter before the daycare closed at 5:30 P.M. I attempted to update the computers when they took the students out to conduct an exercise. SFC Joe Smith came into the classroom where I was conducting the computer updates cussing and screaming. I tried to explain to him that if I conducted the updates as he requested I would be late picking up my daughter from the daycare. He did not