[HardRoad]

If you make it to a team, and you still want to go the commissioned route, take full advantage of the chance you have of being on a team as an enlisted guy - and not only by being the best SF NCO you can be (although that goes without saying.)

Getting to see how an SF team works before taking one over is an invaluable opportunity - don't let it detract from doing your job, but take every opportunity to learn how a team works: learn MDMP and get involved with the planning process, even if you just become the expert on how to do graphics in whatever system SF is using that day to get your foot in the door. Keep your mouth shut until you know what you're doing, but watch and learn how to plan. Not only will it set you up for success down the road, it will make you a better SF soldier in the short term. It's easy (especially if you're the 18E, D or C) to spend so much time working your specialty that you don't step back and learn the bigger picture.

Ditto for the intel process. Get to be friends with the 18F and help him out. Intel-ops fusion is hard, and it's harder if you don't know intel. Usually, the Fox goes into a dark room and only comes up for TIPs and to play the threat during COA war-gaming, and it's easy to be on a team for years and not know how any of that works. If you do take command of a team, you'll be making the "develop to strike or strike to develop" decisions, and your intent will direct where the Fox focuses. (You'll hear throughout your career that intel drives ops - true to a degree - but what no-one explains to you is that commander's intent drives intel.)

Learn how the team manages itself and its relationships with the Co and Bn. staffs. Offer to help the WO plan the next JCET - knowing how the budgeting process works, and the timeline for all the minutiae that has to happen when you're going somewhere not to fight a war (country clearances, OpFund requests, training plans, shipping, ammo requests (both kinds) etc.) will be invaluable. Same for training management - help the warrant with FUOPS and the tm sgt with current ops training planning. Understanding the details of ranges, training schedules, mandatory training, METL, training CONOPs, etc. will not only make you a better SF NCO, but it will be invaluable if you ever command a team. There’s a limited pool of training dollars and opportunities, and being the guy who can jump on a CONOP to make it happen for your team can’t hurt your career.

Last, but definitely not least, learn accountability and property management from the 18C, and help him out where you can. You'll appreciate having had some experience the first time you find yourself signing off on a team property book (forward), a team property book (rear det), a house property book, and an OIF/OEF/ONR/Operation Whatever property book, all stuffed with hand receipts and sub-hand receipts. As a commander, you won't have to know how to do it yourself, but you absolutely have to know what it looks like when it's done right.

All that, without neglecting your day job, and while learning about the rest of the team's day jobs, and while developing the tact and people skills to work on the bigger picture without alienating your peers or the team leadership. It could be the shortest four years of your life.

Good luck!