[lksteve]

i guess my experience and background is different from what Go for Broke and what optactical experienced...i was an NCO on an A-detachment for several years before OCS...(some of that time i was a candy-striper on an A-detachment...a truly humbling experience)...the Group CSM is the one that pushed me toward OCS, and i had a good deal of encouragement from senior NCOs at all levels (to the point that i thought they didn't want me around)...

i was a 2LT XO on an A-detachment (after a year indenture in an airborne battalion in Italy)...the team sergeant had been my faculty advisor in Phase II, the radio operator and i had gone through Phase I and III together and the intel sergeant and i had been jumpmaster instructors together, as well as EIB lane graders...i had the chance to learn what being an SF officer was like as an XO, not as a commander...as the XO, i got to deal with paperwork, training plans, ammunition forecasts and every pain in the ass thing that SF (and other) officers deal with...i got to drive a 2 1/2 ton truck because i had a license from my enlisted days, i pulled alot of DZSO and MACO, airland safety and any thing else my NCO background qualified me for, including teaching MOS classes during cross training...it was a good experience for me, a bridge between being one of the guys on the team and transitioning to becoming a detachment commander...

when i commanded a detachment as a senior first lieutenant, junior captain, i had more time in SF than everyone other than the team sergeant and senior medic...i had more time in the army than anyone other than the team sergeant...i was older than anyone except the team sergeant...(yes, i was a thirty year old first lieutenant for awhile)...

in one sense, i acknowledge that the team tech position has added experience to the detachments...but i wonder if i'm the only one that wonders if being able to groom a lieutenant wasn't another way of doing business?