To all the QP's, i ask you kindly to share your memories of year 1 on a team

[Sdiver]

Originally Posted by Jack Moroney

Now I could fill in the blanks about both places, but that would take a novel that no one would really want to read

Not true sir......

I WOULD !!!!!

Originally Posted by Jack Moroney

and many would not understand because I am not skilled enough to paint the picture that pays the appropriate level of respect and honor I hold in my memories of some of the finest soldiers with whom I have ever served.

Sir,
No disrespect intended, but....

BRAVO SEIRRA on THAT !!!!

This "picture" you just sketched/painted, in your above post, is an excellent example of the "skill" that you have in painting that picture to those men that you served with.

I wish that you would put more thoughts down on paper/PS.com so that others may learn, as well.

[Jack Moroney (RIP)]

You know being a team leader you can really screw up a lot of things and decisions you make can have some really serious unintended consequences no matter how well you run them through your brain housing group. You not only have to do your thing with the team and fullfill your roles and responsibilities so that they can do their jobs but you can suddenly find yourself elevated to a level of uncomfortable importance because of actions that hold an unintended mystique over folks. As a result of series of ground attacks during the TET offensive in 68, I set up a village defense program for my out lying villages that would buy enough time for the villagers so that I could get a reaction force to them in time to beat down the attackers. It worked well, and we suddenly found ourselves as the problem solvers for anything and everything that could not be resolved before. In short we were looked to for minor miracles and folks started coming out of the jungle for treatment and providing intell of great value. The problem with that is, we could now not afford to fail at anything. Unfortunately I had one village 15 clicks north that was isolated from everyone else and while we could help them set up a program there was no way we could get to them in under 3 hours and that was pushing it through the rainforest. I was concerned about this village because I had heard rumors that the NVA had made contact with some of the folks surrounding the village and was looking to recruit some as guides. The village chief had heard about how we were able to help protect the villages close in to us and wanted to know why we could not do something for him. This was an opportunity to good to pass up, not only could we screw up the NVA's plans to recruit some of the northern folks but we could make inroads into this area and recruit more folks for our strikers. I had to work things out so that they would move their village closer to the A-camp so that I could use my "newly acquired" 105 mm howitzers. The problem with moving the camp was that it involved a human sacrifice of a child to appease the lightning god and was not really sure I wanted that on my conscience. So I called a meeting with the village chief and his cronies to discuss the matter. They arrived, we all sat down in appropriate garb around the ceremonial jug of rice wine and in lousy french, broken sedang, and one of my strikers as an interpreter I laid out a proposal. I asked them if I could allow them to see the area around their village at the darkest time of night would they agree to move the village closer to our camp so that I could support them with artillery fire until we could get ground troops up to help them. Also, would they do this without sacrificing a child. They agreed and I was on tap to do my magic that night. My weapons guys were out of camp, one on a search and destroy patrol and the other at the B-Team on a "midnight requisition mission". So I figured, what the hell this can't be too difficult(lesson number one for all 18Bs, never let your team leader play with your toys without supervision). It was simple trigonometery-max ordinance would be attained by placing the tube at 45 degrees elevation the shortest distance would be if the the gun--target line was dead on to the village. The round would never make it to the village because the range of the illumination round with the charges we had was only 11 clicks (lesson number two-officers might be college graduates but they sure as hell can be dumb asses when it comes to applying academic skills to real world situations) . I set the time on the fuze for the illumination rounds that I was going to use to illluminate the area, made commo with my team sergeant who was in the village with one of my medics and I jerked the lanyard and waited for a reply. I could see the round light up the sky and then the radio squelch broke. "Wicked Talons 6", said a shaken voice on the other end, "you need to shift that gun-target line to the right a couple of degrees. You almost took out the village chiefs hut." Well, hell, I had no idea that an illumination round had a solid metal plug that separated the parachute flare from the the explosive that expelled it from the cannister and neither did the damn MTT folks that gave us a quick run down on the guns. Seems that the metal plug continued along the gun-target line after expelling the illumination round and almost undid everything that I had worked out the day before.

[JMI]

Wow!! Great, great stories, gentlemen. Truly appreciated.

Colonel Moroney, Sir. You really need to write a book. I am sure we'd be more than grateful to proofread it for you right here on ps.com!

[NSDQ]

Originally Posted by JMI

Colonel Moroney, Sir. You really need to write a book. I am sure we'd be more than grateful to proofread it for you right here on ps.com!

I would buy one or 2 or 3. It always makes the story believeable when the storyteller tells the truth as he saw it even when he does'nt appear in the most favorable light.
Hopefully we will see a book soon. Great Story Colonel.

NSDQ

[uboat509]

I would love to help you out but after reading what the Col. wrote I'm not even interested in reading about my first year on an ODA.

SFC W

[CoLawman]

Great Posts gentleman.......encore......bravo!

[Jack Moroney (RIP)]

To preclude this from becoming the “Jack Show”, I’d like to conclude my contribution to this thread with some observations for those who are getting ready to experience their first year on a team. The day you walk through that team room door your life as you knew it has changed for ever and how it will change is up to you. You are going to be measured and tested; if you are found able you will be molded and validated, if you are found wanting you will become history. What you do from your first day and everyday thereafter will follow you for however long your career in SF lasts. This is not an amorphous mass of Jell-O where you are going to be absorbed and lose your identity, quite the contrary your identity is just beginning to be built into something with which you are going to have to deal until you take off your ruck. There is no anonymity within this community, even among the black units into and out of which you may move on various assignments someone in the gaining unit will know you and everything about you. As you grow and mature your reputation will precede you and so will the perceptions about who you are and what you are likely to do. There are no second chances; there is only this one shot. Make it a good one and make it count. While the community is tight, it is also very unforgiving in those matters that reflect poorly on your ability to do your job to standard and function as a team member subjugating everything, and I mean everything, else to second place. You are walking into an OPTEMPO that we have not known since the 60s and you have to be a fully capable SF troop in a very target rich environment.

Also remember that the accounts that I shared with you are from a team leader’s perspective. Officers in SF are a different breed of folks and successful SF officers do not fit the cookie cutter standard of what most folks think of when they think of Officers. We are also sort of in a no man’s land on the team. The team sergeant runs the team while the officer commands it and does everything he can to enable the team to succeed by interceding with higher headquarters, civilians, host-national, and some of the dreaded US government agencies with single focus agendas. Consequently they are often considered outsiders by the Army in general, sometimes their headquarters if they appear to be getting “to close” to the team, and even by the team because they are normally the first to move on which can create great turmoil and real ‘baby sitting” challenges for the team sergeant when the new guy comes in who may be that cookie cutter model out of the Officer’s Guide. A SF Officer also faces some real professional and personal challenges when it comes to doing his job right or doing the right job. Officer’s may get selected for promotion by other officers but it is the SF soldiers in that officer’s unit that really determine if that officer attains that level of success worthy of moving on. So take what I have written from the limited context in which it was presented and remember that SF officers are only successful because of the caliber of the soldiers that they have been given the charge to lead.

[Gypsy]

Originally Posted by Jack Moroney

To preclude this from becoming the “Jack Show”, I’d like to conclude my contribution to this thread with some observations for those who are getting ready to experience their first year on a team.

I hope you will reconsider at some point in the future, Sir....and that others will contribute as well.

Truly a great thread, and an honor to read the words of the Men who've defended our Country...past and present. My thanks.

[lksteve]

Originally Posted by Jack Moroney

To preclude this from becoming the “Jack Show”, I’d like to conclude my contribution...

hmmm....a thread called "The Jack Show..."
hmmm....i'll quit before i wind up in front of his desk in the leaning rest...

[NousDefionsDoc]

Originally Posted by lksteve

hmmm....a thread called "The Jack Show..."
hmmm....i'll quit before i wind up in front of his desk in the leaning rest...

SGM Jake trained The Colonel - I think the leaning rest might be the least of your worries...

[Slantwire]

Originally Posted by NousDefionsDoc

SGM Jake trained The Colonel - I think the leaning rest might be the least of your worries...

The great Russian mountain?

[Jack Moroney (RIP)]

Originally Posted by Pinhead

The great Russian mountain?

I know you meant Ukranian

[BMT (RIP)]

Our Tm:
Tm Sgt
Intel Sgt
Lt Wpns
Hvy Wpns

And we didn't do anything as a TM.

BMT

[Slantwire]

Originally Posted by Jack Moroney

I know you meant Ukranian

My mistake, sir. I've only heard stories and have never met the man himself.

At least I knew not to label him a Soviet. I think he could be dead six years and still kill me if I said so, if the stories are half true.

[Firebeef]

To the kid, Doc22584 that started this thread and anyone else in the pipeline, wondering what life on an ODA will be like:

1. You only have one chance at a first impression.

2. You will only have 1 first year.

3. The Team will have it's own personality before you arrive, as do you. Each time a new member arrives, if you are to be succesful, you will to an extent, meld your personality and morph into the personality that is the team's. As time goes on, traits of you own personality, however slight will be manifested as part of the Team personality, and vice versa.

4. I arrived at home station, bag and baggage in a jock strap and a light coat of oil, ready for what they were gonna throw at me. 2 guys I had known all the way back from SFAS and AIMC landed in the same Company. The team I ended up on, luck o the draw, was a "go" team. Both of my classmates were smart, motivated guys. One of them, ETS'ed as soon as his time had been served. He left somewhat bitter and abused. The other one ended up on a Team that was doin some Experimental stuff.....I'm on the edge of an OPSEC violation, so leave it at that. None of the "FOGs" on that team were happy with their status as guinea pigs, and therefore my buddy, who had sat next to me all the way through AIMC, and is an excellent soldier and Green Beret, was pissed off on a pissed off Team. I don't believe his experience in his first year has a whole lot of positive superlatives he'd be willing to share.

5. If any of this above babble makes sense, or more importantly, if any of it doesn't, see lines 1 and 2 above, and that's how you should enter your first year on an ODA.

my .02 worth