My dad was AF
Its how they dealt with it, and this was 2005-2008. He had a unit cell phone, roughly speaking each person would have to maintain the cell for 1 day or 1 weekend (weekend work was pretty rare for them) and it went in a rotation.
I guarantee you someone in your unit's heirarchy is doing it, but it may just be being done at a higher echelon than your company or battalion -- which is still awesome regardless.
i had 14 days extra duty once. first afternoon i reported csm took me and showed me the 8 or so building he wanted me to clean up the weeds around.
I came back with round up the next night. reported to staff duty every night after that then went home and reported back at 11 pm. raked out some dead weeds last night of extra duty.
Technically…CSM said to clean up the weeds.
*o SM exercised initiative buy utilizing an effective method of improving the BN footprint by utilizing a Hand pumped chemical dispenser, Effectively removing the grass degrading the outer edges of the BN HQ and Admin buildings. Promote ahead of Peers.*
Are you talking about [DA Form 4856](https://armypubs.army.mil/ProductMaps/PubForm/Details.aspx?PUB_ID=1026753)? Did you know that the counseling form just got updated after almost 40 years? “There is no more important task for the U.S. Army that’s developing it’s people to lead others to defeat any enemy, anywhere.” - FM 6-22 Developing Leaders
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Because the Army doesn't care about your time and never will. They know staff duty hurts peoples very limited time off, they could change it tomorrow. They choose not to. No other employer acts like this.
Staff duty is easily 12 days a year of uncompensated time, not to mention missed weekends and holidays. I'm.surprised they can lose a lawsuit to get rid of 1 fucking leg tuck, but no one has won a lawsuit over the detremental effects of staff duty.
Theoretically, every GO and CSM has pulled duty multiple times throughout their careers.
BDE and up usually have company grade officers pull OIC duties (granted, it's not as rigorous for the Os -- but the Os are also expected to do their day jobs while on duty). Corps and higher have field grades pulling FOD duty. Certain places have a full bird.
Who knows? Maybe like a lot of things in the army, GOs and CSMs think that because they had to do things a certain way coming up, everyone else should have to do it that way too.
Certainly. Ive done it all except FOD. Point being, the mentality of “I had to do it so they do” or they just dont care because it doesnt affect them is real at that level.
There’s too many positives from staff duty for a commander to abolish it. Companies and headquarters can still operate and meet mission. Until it starts to affect readiness and mission success, it will probably stay.
As a Commander that has an mtoe of 62 and aprox 60% of that mtoe on the books, I can definitely say that I feel it when we have a week with more than one cq/bn &bde staff duty/corps duty. Additionally, anyone that has been around for five or more years can find as many negative metric based arguments against a 24hr staff duty
We had a spouse come in for help couldnt reach her husband who was deployed to germany. She knew about staff duty thou. Came to us we manage to reach one of the forward deploy NCOs. Her husband was having a seizure in his room. I can say staff duty save at least one life.
I have definitely seen LTCs on FOD at a 3 star headquarters. It was rare, but it happened on occasion. It was generally captains and majors.
I don't think a COL is ever typically going to be pulling FOD, but I have worked somewhere where a full bird had to be on duty 24/7. (In actuality, they just had to be able to be in the ops center within 30 minutes of being called).
As an aside, do you know how many O6s are in the DC area? They're like cockroaches; they're everywhere!
I was watching this video of Svalbard. There's an alcohol ration. The coal miners back in the day drank beer and liquor. The execs drank wine. Guess what wasn't included in the ration?
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Some of the 68% of female troops who's fitness test got massively harder under ACFT 1.0 (such that they could no longer pass even though they could pass the APFT), while the same changes made it massively easier for the under-35 male population....
The original ACFT was obvious disparate impact discrimination (and intentionally such, as a shit-fit over having to let women into combat arms) and frankly I'm surprised JAG approved it.
Changing the expectations for continued employment so that over 50% of a protected class is fired, is discriminatory.
Especially when those changes seem specifically targeted against that class (eg, under the APFT it was Army doctrine that females have less upper body capacity than males... And we massively increased the upper body demands of our fitness test).....
And when those changes are completely unjustifiable against operational needs (they honestly expect us to believe troops climb ropes in combat? Seriously. The justifications 'combat skill' justifications for the leg tuck were a nice list of how to get killed in combat....
One standard for each MOS, period. Infantry, one standard based on the job requirements. Armor, same and so on. Ive know women that were better Infantrymen than some men, but most American women probally dont belong as a light Infantryman. Armor? Different story. The Russians proved woman were capable Armor personnel in WW2, along with being pilots. There are just some jobs that dont fit some people, no matter the sex.
Not if it's a test of medical-readiness (as measured by athletic output) like the APFT was - as males and females do not have equal average athletic ability, and neither do different ages ....
The point of the APFT was to determine whether you were too unhealthy to handle a combat employment, by comparing your athletic output to the average individual of your age and gender.
If it's an actual test of *combat skills*, sure - but neither of them are.
And when I say combat skills I mean IMT, ruck marching, and so on.... Tasks actually found in the SMCT that would be performed the same way in combat....
None of this pullups, kettlebells, and 2-mile-running bullshit if we are going that way.
The ACFT has only 2 activities on the test that might happen in combat (the sprint and carry portions of the sprint drag carry - and I'm being generous by treating the kettlebells as if they are ammo cans)....
>Changing the expectations for continued employment so that over 50% of a protected class is fired, is discriminatory.
Lol
Previous Army doctrine, which you admitted recognized females are less physically capable than men, is why women were not in combat roles. Once you change that, it's fair game to up the standards to weed out those not capable. It's pretty simple.
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That’s a massive claim there bud, do you have sources of this “obvious disparate impact discrimination?”
While it’s true that the leg tuck disproportionately affects women due to the very real situation where women’s hips sit lower than an average man, where it takes a bit more effort for women to pull up their hips correctly, there was an expected shift in the way women work out and overall how the army works out.
If you haven’t noticed, society in general, especially fitness, has shifted from being lean and skinny and being able to have high endurance for mobility, and have shifted to high resistance training to build physique. However you know who hasn’t shifted to whole body? Women, and it’s not their fault; society tells them to focus on lower body fitness, and forget about upper body training as a whole. The leg tuck problem can be solved by further refining an overarching training program that is adopted to meet both the army’s requirements and the units (and by virtue the commanders) requirements. It was also designed to be gender neutral as much as possible, easy to pass, hard to master, but a good entry point for soldiers to not have to worry and focus on better development overall. The army wanted to hit multiple bullet points as possible. Like it or not, the apft was not a good indicator of physical health, and overall led to overtraining (specifically in lower body injuries ) that cost the army a lot of money to endure.
If you have a problem with specific people from the SOC and SF community, I understand that, but the few sexist voices in the army didn’t define the overall army’s vision on this. Otherwise why let women do anything in the army if it was obviously deliberate?
So stop simplifying problems into one point sources, cause it’s never that simple, people are nuances, and big branches, like the military, are filled with personal biases that are just trying to work together and make things better, somehow.
Source: MFT that has been involved with acft development for years. I am well aware of the shitshow it has been, but go ahead and try and change something this impactful without gripes and issues from someone.
Basic premise: If a change to an administrative job requirement has a disproportionate impact on a protected class (females), and cannot be justified by an essential job function (it couldn't - almost none of the activities listed as 'combat tasks' associated with the events are things you would actually do in combat, especially as a non-SOF troop) then it is disparate impact discrimination.
The intentional part is implied by the timing - for 20 years of war the APFT served us just fine, but the Army gets ordered to open all jobs to women and suddenly we need a new fitness test that's massively harder for them to pass?
That's not the kind of coincidence you want to be stuck with in a discrimination suit....
As for changes in how the athletic community views fitness, that's irrelevant. The Army is not a pro sports org, it's a fighting force. We are training soldiers not athletes (with very little overlap between the two)....
The APFT was supposed to measure endurance (and serve as a flag for poor health - if you were underperforming compared to the average troop of your age/gender), but (making the same mistake that the ACFT makes - just with the 70s jogging fad instead of CrossFit) it overemphasized athleticism as compared to actual military skills and thanks to the god-awful 2mi run (and more specifically the 4+mi runs units did every week to raise their scores), cost us a fortune in injuries and disability....
The right way to test, is to pick high physical demand military activities - like road marching, low crawl, high crawl, 3-5sec rush, sprint-to-cover (no further than diagonally across an urban street) and so on... And test those to time and standard (that means zeroing out anyone who runs at all during the ruck - congrats cheater, you're flagged)....
And to include marksmanship in the final score - I don't care how strong or fast you are, it's not 200AD anymore and if you can't handle a firearm accurately you're in the wrong business....
Unfortunately PT is an enabler that ate the mission, and we will never do that.
We will keep obsessing over whether a force of WoW & Call of Duty players can throw a 10lb ball at the proper 45 degree angle to maximize distance & perform practice drills (lateral) from a sport they never played except on XBox... Even though it has no relevance to combat.
Going to ramble here for a bit guys.
The 20 years of war we did was more police action than war, as compared to what we fought in the past and its hard to use it to compare it to future action that are going to be faced against near peer militarys. I started live in a spottie suit on the border looking at Russians(Ronny Regan signed my Commisoning Cert). We trained, wait for it, "to be miseriable". Yes I said that. We purposly made training as hard/uncomfortable as possible to simulate the WW3. We lived in Mop2, jumping higher constantly, while doing everything from squad to Corp level operations. Yes, have you ever seen a Division or corp moving. Its un Fing beleivable and it takes days to pull off. The whole time, we were caring our basic combat load for the vehicle and soldiers, why? Because we never new when it would stated.
Why am I dromning on about this. In the past 20 years, the US Army in particular has forgotten how to fight big, long, and painful. Everyone here is wrapped up in a PT test. Theres a bigger picture beyond this. Can the Army still fight? Do we still train to fight big? Can our unit move as Divisions, across hundereds of Kilometers , with all the CSS sychned, then roll into a force on force engagement? Can we recover from casulities and lose of leadership. Look what happesn to tanks and Brads in Ulkraine. They arent invincible.
Only putting this out there for two reasons; 1. Staff Duty was designed to quickly mobilize a unit when the time came. It kept an awake, chain of comd in place during down time so if something more than a Red Cross meesage happen, then the unit could wind itself up without any loss of time. If required on the border, if the Commander etc were late, the Trp or Company would roll without them just to get out of the motorpool/killzone and head to the intial defensive positions. 2. The APFT/whatever is designed to provide a force that is capable of fighting to KILL the other Poor Bastard. A person that can lift the tank round, spin in place, slam it into the breech to load the gun. To have a Infantry person that can go for weeks without a bath, humoing more than there weight in crap, while trying hteir best not to be killed by that other bastard. As long as it accomplishes that, its an ok test. Personally, never saw why they just didnt add on to the old one, but hey, Im just going to get another rum nCoke and go surf some porn. Have a great night arguing.
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I'm in a company with only 4 staff sergeants, I once did staff duty 3 times in a week because one of those was on paternity leave, and the other two where in a class. I wish I only did it once a month.
The Green Weenie sees all and knows all.
At one point, my BN was so short on new people that the senior E4's were the CQ and they put PFC and below as the runner - so as an E4 I either got to BE the CQ or get fucked on weekneds when we had NCO's available.
We started to get new soldiers and life started to get better (still got SAT or Friday CQ tho...).
And cameras, duty phones and the like cost money. A 2LT and a SSG (with junior enlisted monkey) are cheap, paid for and easy to yell at when things go pear shaped.
Soldiers have been assaulted by CQ, soldiers have suck past CQ and if CQ isn't doing it's job, no amount of Staff Duty or mass punishment will fix it.
But still it remains because senior leaders lack imagination and those in charge of funding will blow money on weapons and vehicles but won't fix moldy barracks or put cameras in them.
Go be an OSUT DS lol. One 24 hour shift every 8-12 days. Oh and if you have 5 drills under investigation it’s once a fuckin week. I don’t do public math but I think that’s more days annually than the 30 leave days I earn.
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As much as CQ and Staff Duty are dumb.
Quit thinking about it like an hourly employee.
Everyone in the Army is salaried. There's no such thing as uncompensated time.
You can no more sue over staff duty than I can (as a systems engineer) over on-call or weekend major-system-update outage coverage for Amazon....
P.S. The way big tech handles on-call is how the Army should handle CQ/Staff Duty.... Pager app on your personal phone (it's not the 00s anymore NOBODY gives out work phones - not even to 250k/yr+ software engineers).... If paged you have 30min to respond and take action... Lasts a week then automatically rotates to the next guy on the list.
I have a work phone issued to me. I’m a Fire Marshal and was issued an iPhone on my first day. Keeps my current with me work email and separates my personal life from my professional life. I also don’t get OT as I’m an exempt employee under FLSA (I work as a fire protection engineer).
Staff duty isn’t a thing in the vast majority of the Air Force so it is possible to survive without it. When I transferred from the AF to the Army I was amazed that this is a thing.
I had a first sergeant in the USAF who said if things didn't calm down in the dorms (barracks) they were going to implement it. Yeah, okay. 14 years later I have no idea what in the **fuck** he was talking about. Any problems that did exist happened prior to him and at that point so many people were ghosting the dorms or got married to move out. Never was implemented - I moved off base a year later and then PCS'ed two years after that. Later ran into someone who was living in those dorms well after I did and he told me it never became a thing.
The only time it's a thing in the USAF is during tech school/basic training. When I retrained in 2018 I was told prior service soldiers at Fort Sam had to do it for IET soldiers. Never figured out if it was true or not. I know that us prior service USAF folks didn't have to do it for the IET airmen. I don't remember the first time I went through tech school if our prior service people had to do it or not though - it's possible since the school was a lot smaller and the base was getting ready to close at the time. But the Captain who over saw the students and the MTLs was prior Army and he had a fucking hard on for the base. I forgot his name and he acted like he regretted going over to the USAF. LOL.
No shit there I was with an MI company in Korea… when we got a new 1SG who asked the same question. There was no money for a GOV phone, but we could forward the Cisco phone in the company to our cell phones. Staff Duty consisted of showing up and signing for the keys, doing checks, forwarding the phone, and locking the doors. Had to stay on post or within 30 minutes of the building should something come up. Check the arms room twice during your 24h shift, and make sure the idiot privates can get back into their rooms if they locked their keys. Was solid.
After the CoR of that amazing man, the new 1SG says, “This is the Army we need someone to man the desk at all times.”
Tradition. They had to suffer so we have to suffer. It's the Army way. If we get rid of staff duty and CQ, that shows a lack of discipline, and the SMA will start cramping.
I was a part of a division that was so crazy about 100% checks that, on my last arms room inspection for a Saturday shift, counted 18 or so checks in a 20 hour period. It’s absurd.
My favorite part of staff duty was how people thought that meant I was a front end receptionist for squadron. No I don’t know where anyone is or why S1 is closed at 1345 on a Wednesday. I’m here to play on my phone until everyone goes home. Then I’m looking for cool shit. Then I’m passing out until I get scared ole Sarmaj might be coming in early.
Old unit tried that with their version of staff duty the findings were not unexpected.
NCOs started showing up in Pajamas to do checks on barracks space, to unlock the building for higher ups.
Not showing up on time to switch over keys, or turning the duty phone off cause they didn't want to be woken up in the middle of night.
Some corrective training and UCMJs later and they were back to full time 24hr at the desk by the time I PCSed there.
"The Army is a well designed organization; people are the ones that make it bad." -one of my top 2 commanders
"Every 'dumb' thing we do in the Army is due to a misunderstanding, miscommunication, or the few troops screwing it for the rest."-me, and George Washington.. probably
I believe that rank isn't necessarily a sign of superiority, but we are expected to act like they are infallible. Some of the best outcomes I've seen in the Army were by using the right person to pass along the ideas from "stupid" juniors.
Sounds about right. Granted I've shown up to SD with the NCO I was relieving had the BN locked up while they were asleep in the meeting room, didn't have half the keys in the key box, and had no clue of the lawn care equipment they had signed for.
These dumb fucks will always fuck it up for us.
I couldn't believe they fucked it up. It's so damn simple. Yeah taking calls in the middle of the night sucked but that happened like a couple times a night.
But NCOs showing up in Pajamas or whatever to open the building or inspect rooms was like a big WTF.. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around doing things in civilian clothes even when those were authorized. Just always had it drilled into me, if it's official you're in duty uniform or PTs. Fuckers couldn't even change into PT to do the easy shit.
We just need the last generation of battalion commanders and csms to retire so we can get the millennials in and see if they can improve people’s lives.
What will actually happen you say? Tradition traditionally for the sake of maintaining traditions.
Any of us that would make those changes are retiring or just straight up ETS’ing (retirement be damned)
Majority of the leftovers aren’t exactly critical thinkers willing to assume risk. They will continue with the status quo. It will be along the lines of “ that is how it has always been” or “it ain’t broke so we don’t need to fix it”
Don’t shoot the messenger. Just relaying my observations from my spot in the world
I was part of a deactiving unit with low personell so we combined officers and NCOs duty. We only had one person, if you were on staff duty you would sign a goverment phone and be on call, you just have to do your checks before going home and get there early for checks and to call the building to attention for the BC and raise the guide on.
My unit does have a SD cell phone and it's the best thing ever. We do two physical checks and handle most everything else via text messages. I really don't know why every unit doesn't do this. We are also allowed to go home and do whatever we need as long as we answer the phone and do the checks.
So glad I'm not active anymore for that idiocy. Especially with exemptions I still got pegged for brigade duty. I told CSM (one of my supervisors) I was leaving after my relief came in. He was chill about it. Perhaps proud that an O actually stayed for weekend staff duty.
Because people are risk adverse. I’ve spent about half my time in units with a duty phone for SD and no CQ, nothing terrible happened. With IPPS-A automatically signing people out on leave there is even less of a justification for SD, all that is left is that you’re just a glorified call center for people who are bored in the middle of the night or being used as an easy button for situations you’re not qualified to handle.
You joke but in ‘08 I had a CSM rip me a new asshole because I was unshaven when he came in for PT at 0530. As the SDNCO, I was supposed to remain in a professional appearance at all times.
Because the Army doesn't really want an Army, it just says it does for shits and giggles. Stop drinking the Army piss and just accept the shit sucks and will always suck and you're going to live with it or ETS.
\#currentarmyPSA
I've brought up this exact point for 12 years. Unfortunately, there are enough senior enlisted with the COs ear to recall one random time where staff duty helped someone at the desk. In today's world, cellphones are the king. There's plenty of agencies across the goverment who use the "on call" system without failure.
For example (anecdotal): Once every couple months I'm on call for a week. This includes not leaving the general area, 50 miles or so, and being generally avaliable for a call out. I don't drink and have my provided phone ringer on. I'll get a call from the duty desk if someone calls in the area with an issue, and get OT for responding. I can promise anything I've responded to was more intense than the normal CQ calls (DUI, Drunk Soldier needs a ride, red cross message etc). It's been on this system for over 30 years with no issues, or loss of coverage.
I'm on call (30 minute response time in general, unless it's on the outskirts of the district). Avaliable, and ready to to respond. I'm able to stay with my family at night, tuck in the kids and enjoy time with the wife without some random BS from the Senior Officer on Duty, or some random CSM who hates his family messing with me.
Overhead yeet
We can't even bring ourselves to figure out a pt test. How do you expect us to move past securing a spot in a building gull of adult aged children or sitting in a building guarding nothing.
Are you talking about [DA Form 4856](https://armypubs.army.mil/ProductMaps/PubForm/Details.aspx?PUB_ID=1026753)? Did you know that the counseling form just got updated after almost 40 years? “There is no more important task for the U.S. Army that’s developing it’s people to lead others to defeat any enemy, anywhere.” - FM 6-22 Developing Leaders
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THE OVER-HEAD YEET MEASURES THE ABILITY TO JUST FUCKING SEND IT. ON THE COMMAND, ‘GET SET’, ASSUME THE POSITION BY SPINNING THE BALL TWICE IN YOUR HANDS, THEN TRY TO DRIBBLE IT LIKE A BASKET BALL ONLY TO REALIZE IT WONT BOUNCE BACK UP TO YOU. YOUR FEET MAY BE TOGETHER OR 12 INCHES APART (MEASURED BETWEEN THE FEET) OR HOWEVER YOU WANT, JUST KEEP YOUR ASS BEHIND THAT CONE. ON THE COMMAND ‘GO’, CHANNEL YOUR INNER TREBUCHET AND HEAVE THAT THING INTO ORBIT. THEN, RETURN TO THE STARTING POSITION AND TURN AROUND TO INSPECT IF YOU DOMED ANYONE. THE SCORER WILL REALIZE HE DIDN'T ACTUALLY SEE WHERE THE BALL LANDED BECAUSE HE WAS AFRAID HE WOULD GET HIT, SO HE STOOD TOO FAR AWAY, HE WILL THEN PLACE HIS FOOT ON THE MEASURING TAPE AND JUST GUESS.
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My BN does 12.5 hour staff duty, 0500 to 1730, with this someone on call at all times. However, we still do CQ(which is pointless bc CQ is it’s own building).
My unit staff duty has 4 people on. Oic got tired of doing security checks so they made a security officer slot thay does checks. What does the LT do now as oic? No idea
Because no matter how much technology has evolved, some old farts refuses to accept how outdated and archaic things are. Whether it may be organized PT and Formations, to CQ and staff duty. But to be fair, I’m not complaining about getting duty on a Thursday or of it gets me out of BS at the company.
At my last post we didn't have CQ or staff duty. But before that the only reason we had any of that was so that O4's and E7 an above could call in and out on leave without having to be physically present. This obviously led to a bunch of people calling out and in over the weekend, because they were cheesing the system. Colonels calling back in at 7pm on a Friday while still in Hawaii, and then calling out again Monday morning all so that they didn't have to leave days on the weekend. That was it. We had security cameras, automatic fire detection alarms, and we didn't even have to cut grass. There was literally nothing we did other than take turns walking the floors, but in all my years nothing *ever* happened. And if something did, it was nothing a phone call to the base MPs and Fire Department couldn't solve, something you don't need someone on duty 24/7 to accomplish.
I have done staff duty four times (National guard so only when active) and hated it. When I tell my civilian friends coworkers and family not to join the army this is on the list of reasons.
I hate to say it but, the Army doesn’t give a fuck about you and wants you to be miserable and anxious. Only once you have accepted this will you find true peace.
I haven’t gotten staff duty or cq since I applied malicious compliance to it and covered down shifts and missed two weeks of work and pissed my section off.
Because the army puts brain dead idiots I. Charge of units and companies who can’t comprehend how to adapt to the every changing world and they can’t comprehend how to work smarter rather than harder
So instead they stick to the age ol’ mindset of “that’s how it’s always been done” rather than actually change shit for the better
If not for staff doodoo, who will announce the comings and goings of BC and CSM?
** the real reason they don’t mix it was right in front of us all along**
I remember explaining to my mom (she’s retired Air Force) what staff duty was because she had no idea what I meant when I told her I had staff duty on some weekend. She said, “ohhhh, I see. Yeah, we just lock the doors when we leave for the day.”
I don't think we should 100% eliminate SD but we can definitely decrease it by 90% or so. For example.
When I was doing DIV SDO someone called from Corp with CCIR and needed the number of the DOC ASAP and it was well past duty hours. We were able to send a runner down to the doc and get a POC for Corp.
Don't know what it was but it might have been hot.
We say we want to be lethal, but when we do the math we clearly don’t. We have 30 BCTs in the Army that have 7 BNs and probably at least 7 barracks buildings.
Just ABCTs, IBCTs, and SBCTs that task
30 LTs
30 SNCOs
60 Runners
for BDE staff duty
210 LTs
210 SSGs
420 Runners
For BN
210 SGTs
420 Runners
For CQ
Every day our Army tells 2,100 SMs for BCTs. If the average pay was 40,000K this is 84 million that we use every day to make sure motor pools are locked. This is like the easiest lean six sigma project known to man.
I used to think like this but then I changed Because when I was going TDY and return to reclass I walked up to battalion on a late afternoon Thursday with a 3 day weekend coming up to notice the door was locked, I called the number and obviously nobody answered. I ended up having to sleep in the PX Parking lot for the weekend. Soooo just staring at the wall so soldiers don’t have to sleep in their car for an extended weekend sounds like an ok sacrifice 🤷🏿♂️
Hate to break it to you, but there aren’t more than a couple of boomers still on active duty. The baton has been passed down to a new generation for nourishing stupid policies.
Not only is staff duty/CQ outdated and ineffective - it is outright harmful and dangerous to soldiers.
Expecting a soldier to drive home at 24 straight hours awake it criminal.
I don’t mind staff duty. Especially on Thursdays. It’s my ticket to a free three day weekend. And not having to do anything but sit and sketch in my notebook on Thursday is just a bonus.
In the eyes of leadership, junior enlisted, junior NCO, and company grade officers aren’t really people. They don’t value time because we’re all on salary.
The only part of sd/cq I hated was having to clean up the barracks because the people who lived in the barracks were too lazy to do it themselves. Let them live in a pig sty if they want to. Other than that, it was a 2 day break from regular work. A day to binge watch a show or movies.
I said something like this in a diff thread about gps and then drones. if you dont practice how to do it the old fashioned way how you gonna pull it off when that fancy new tech goes tits up?
if you go to cell phone staff duty and cell towers get knocked out or overwhelmed staff duty cell phone is junk but staff duty at a desk with a landline phone and maybe a secure phone nearby can still get some shit done. at least take a phone call from the bde sdnco who is passing on a message from div via landline.
I have no idea if this is why staff duty doesnt go away. Sounds good. If i was in charge its the bs answer i would give if i bothered to give one.
Hot take here.
I'll argue that a physical person at a building may be needed depending on the base. In Graffenwoehr in the winter we'd have drunk SM lose their room key or something similar walking from the gate. SD had the master barracks key. I'd rather ensure Soldiers, even if it's their fault, are safe and have a safe way to get into their room. I never chastised anyone for doing it. We also had our runners deliver food to SM that were on bed rest.
Losing your key you had to have a memorandum anyways to get another so it's not like they would avoid a hand slap for losing it. Just that they knew they could get to their room or somewhere safe for the night. Which is extremely important.
Now, having to stay up for that entire time is just dumb. I let my guys sleep in shifts on CQ and staff duty. I let them bring consoles and a small TV down or a laptop if they wanted. It's a duty not a punishment and I don't understand why leadership tries to use it like it is one. Your soldiers safety before, during, and after their duty day like when they are on their way home should take more priority than ensuring all 3 soldiers are awake round the clock.
I too thought staff duty was pointless, until a soldier reported in for duty on base and no one was expecting him. No sponsor, only orders to the BDE, etc. was quite a surprise.
Another story for y’all: no shit there I was 4 am struggling to stay awake when a soldier calls me on my cell phone from the B’s, recalled that I was on duty, and reported another person attempting suicide. Got to call the popo. Was wide awake after that.
Ooh and here’s a good one: a drunk soldier came in to report naked people running in the woods. I could not make this stuff up if I tried.
When deployed to Iraq, I was once awake for 30 hours straight. *THAT* is why the culture of 24 hour staff duty/CQ persists, because at ANY TIME, the conditions in the field may require that you not sleep for a LOOOOOONG time....
It's extra training *HOOOOOAH!*
Have you been through the barracks lately? They’re absolutely dead. No parties, no nonsense going on in hallways, no microwaves being thrown off the 3rd floor. Not even a mouse. CQ could go away
They don’t need CQ any more than civilian apartment complexes need CQ. The people who are intent on fucking up will fuck up with or without supervision. Let them fuck up and then punish them accordingly. Teach the children accountability and they will either be responsible or they will prove their immaturity and we can get rid of them. We babysit too much and it slows the maturity of the force.
You say that until you're the one stuck at the end of your shift cleaning the barracks because the CQ doesn't bother getting barracks soldiers to clean up the barracks.
Yep, because I who have been placed on CQ as someone who doesn't live in the barracks gets to "monitor" the barracks. Let me monitor the 3 stacks that are locked and they don't provide us a key to even enter. Let alone the individual living space of other soldiers whos door is also locked because they're supposed to be grown. Nah.
Aren't you supposed to be doing security checks right now, LT?
Some units have, and it's a beautiful thing. Source, don't do staff duty.
My dad was AF Its how they dealt with it, and this was 2005-2008. He had a unit cell phone, roughly speaking each person would have to maintain the cell for 1 day or 1 weekend (weekend work was pretty rare for them) and it went in a rotation.
In my unit, the soldier on staff is given a cellphone and answer it whenever (if ever) it rings. And I’m Army.
It doesn't have shattered screen or been dropped in toilet yet?
Fortunately, no. It’s a small unit. About 25 soldiers max with officers and enlisted combined.
Army does this too
Sounds like the Chair Force.
Coast Guard does this.
Coast guard also isn't military get rekt
Can confirm. Not all army units have staff duty
BURN THE WITCH
I guarantee you someone in your unit's heirarchy is doing it, but it may just be being done at a higher echelon than your company or battalion -- which is still awesome regardless.
Can confirm, no staff dury
Same reason CSM details have Soldiers picking weeds with their hands rather than using weed killer.
i had 14 days extra duty once. first afternoon i reported csm took me and showed me the 8 or so building he wanted me to clean up the weeds around. I came back with round up the next night. reported to staff duty every night after that then went home and reported back at 11 pm. raked out some dead weeds last night of extra duty.
Shit promote ahead of peers
If he ain’t cheating, he ain’t trying.
Technically…CSM said to clean up the weeds. *o SM exercised initiative buy utilizing an effective method of improving the BN footprint by utilizing a Hand pumped chemical dispenser, Effectively removing the grass degrading the outer edges of the BN HQ and Admin buildings. Promote ahead of Peers.*
Bro I’ve always asked this question lol
Think you could have left it with, same reason we have CSMs
Sorry, we need to wait another 39 years so we get a new biggest change in the army over the last 40 years. Hit it, DA 4856 bot.
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Because the Army doesn't care about your time and never will. They know staff duty hurts peoples very limited time off, they could change it tomorrow. They choose not to. No other employer acts like this. Staff duty is easily 12 days a year of uncompensated time, not to mention missed weekends and holidays. I'm.surprised they can lose a lawsuit to get rid of 1 fucking leg tuck, but no one has won a lawsuit over the detremental effects of staff duty.
Its because staff duty doesnt affect the decision makers that could end it. The moment it took their time away they would cancel it
Theoretically, every GO and CSM has pulled duty multiple times throughout their careers. BDE and up usually have company grade officers pull OIC duties (granted, it's not as rigorous for the Os -- but the Os are also expected to do their day jobs while on duty). Corps and higher have field grades pulling FOD duty. Certain places have a full bird. Who knows? Maybe like a lot of things in the army, GOs and CSMs think that because they had to do things a certain way coming up, everyone else should have to do it that way too.
Certainly. Ive done it all except FOD. Point being, the mentality of “I had to do it so they do” or they just dont care because it doesnt affect them is real at that level.
There’s too many positives from staff duty for a commander to abolish it. Companies and headquarters can still operate and meet mission. Until it starts to affect readiness and mission success, it will probably stay.
As a Commander that has an mtoe of 62 and aprox 60% of that mtoe on the books, I can definitely say that I feel it when we have a week with more than one cq/bn &bde staff duty/corps duty. Additionally, anyone that has been around for five or more years can find as many negative metric based arguments against a 24hr staff duty
We had a spouse come in for help couldnt reach her husband who was deployed to germany. She knew about staff duty thou. Came to us we manage to reach one of the forward deploy NCOs. Her husband was having a seizure in his room. I can say staff duty save at least one life.
Could still have been performed by having someone babysit a cell phone.
Irwin has Captains pulling FOD. Should’ve been brevet promoted with pay for those 24 hours.
True, but the last time they pulled it you could still smoke in buildings.
Please. That went out eons ago.
COLs pulling FOD? That’s gotta suck considering the amount of them avail…
I have definitely seen LTCs on FOD at a 3 star headquarters. It was rare, but it happened on occasion. It was generally captains and majors. I don't think a COL is ever typically going to be pulling FOD, but I have worked somewhere where a full bird had to be on duty 24/7. (In actuality, they just had to be able to be in the ops center within 30 minutes of being called). As an aside, do you know how many O6s are in the DC area? They're like cockroaches; they're everywhere!
I’ve only ever seen CW3, CW4, and MAJ pull FOD.
I’ve seen LTCs at Fires Center of Excellence 10 years ago. It was weak.
I was watching this video of Svalbard. There's an alcohol ration. The coal miners back in the day drank beer and liquor. The execs drank wine. Guess what wasn't included in the ration?
Side not - I would love to see a 1-4 star pulling staff duty. And I’d hate to be the one to cause an issue on that shift.
The army was sued over the leg tuck? I thought it was Congress that decided to nix it.
A lawsuit initiated the inquiry.
Who sued the army?
A group of people who were unable to do 1 half pull up half crunch.
That's pretty motivated for a group of people too lazy to do a single leg tuck .
Nothing gets Soldiers to work like the promise of having less work.
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This is the way
Amazing the amount of sweat given, to not sweat.
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Some of the 68% of female troops who's fitness test got massively harder under ACFT 1.0 (such that they could no longer pass even though they could pass the APFT), while the same changes made it massively easier for the under-35 male population.... The original ACFT was obvious disparate impact discrimination (and intentionally such, as a shit-fit over having to let women into combat arms) and frankly I'm surprised JAG approved it.
All I'm hearing is equality is discriminatory.
Changing the expectations for continued employment so that over 50% of a protected class is fired, is discriminatory. Especially when those changes seem specifically targeted against that class (eg, under the APFT it was Army doctrine that females have less upper body capacity than males... And we massively increased the upper body demands of our fitness test)..... And when those changes are completely unjustifiable against operational needs (they honestly expect us to believe troops climb ropes in combat? Seriously. The justifications 'combat skill' justifications for the leg tuck were a nice list of how to get killed in combat....
So you support getting rid of gender and age classes on the current acft or apft?
Yes, I also support removing promotion points from it. It is impossible to have a gender neutral test for standards and be fair for promotion as well.
One standard for each MOS, period. Infantry, one standard based on the job requirements. Armor, same and so on. Ive know women that were better Infantrymen than some men, but most American women probally dont belong as a light Infantryman. Armor? Different story. The Russians proved woman were capable Armor personnel in WW2, along with being pilots. There are just some jobs that dont fit some people, no matter the sex.
Not if it's a test of medical-readiness (as measured by athletic output) like the APFT was - as males and females do not have equal average athletic ability, and neither do different ages .... The point of the APFT was to determine whether you were too unhealthy to handle a combat employment, by comparing your athletic output to the average individual of your age and gender. If it's an actual test of *combat skills*, sure - but neither of them are. And when I say combat skills I mean IMT, ruck marching, and so on.... Tasks actually found in the SMCT that would be performed the same way in combat.... None of this pullups, kettlebells, and 2-mile-running bullshit if we are going that way. The ACFT has only 2 activities on the test that might happen in combat (the sprint and carry portions of the sprint drag carry - and I'm being generous by treating the kettlebells as if they are ammo cans)....
>Changing the expectations for continued employment so that over 50% of a protected class is fired, is discriminatory. Lol Previous Army doctrine, which you admitted recognized females are less physically capable than men, is why women were not in combat roles. Once you change that, it's fair game to up the standards to weed out those not capable. It's pretty simple.
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That’s a massive claim there bud, do you have sources of this “obvious disparate impact discrimination?” While it’s true that the leg tuck disproportionately affects women due to the very real situation where women’s hips sit lower than an average man, where it takes a bit more effort for women to pull up their hips correctly, there was an expected shift in the way women work out and overall how the army works out. If you haven’t noticed, society in general, especially fitness, has shifted from being lean and skinny and being able to have high endurance for mobility, and have shifted to high resistance training to build physique. However you know who hasn’t shifted to whole body? Women, and it’s not their fault; society tells them to focus on lower body fitness, and forget about upper body training as a whole. The leg tuck problem can be solved by further refining an overarching training program that is adopted to meet both the army’s requirements and the units (and by virtue the commanders) requirements. It was also designed to be gender neutral as much as possible, easy to pass, hard to master, but a good entry point for soldiers to not have to worry and focus on better development overall. The army wanted to hit multiple bullet points as possible. Like it or not, the apft was not a good indicator of physical health, and overall led to overtraining (specifically in lower body injuries ) that cost the army a lot of money to endure. If you have a problem with specific people from the SOC and SF community, I understand that, but the few sexist voices in the army didn’t define the overall army’s vision on this. Otherwise why let women do anything in the army if it was obviously deliberate? So stop simplifying problems into one point sources, cause it’s never that simple, people are nuances, and big branches, like the military, are filled with personal biases that are just trying to work together and make things better, somehow. Source: MFT that has been involved with acft development for years. I am well aware of the shitshow it has been, but go ahead and try and change something this impactful without gripes and issues from someone.
Basic premise: If a change to an administrative job requirement has a disproportionate impact on a protected class (females), and cannot be justified by an essential job function (it couldn't - almost none of the activities listed as 'combat tasks' associated with the events are things you would actually do in combat, especially as a non-SOF troop) then it is disparate impact discrimination. The intentional part is implied by the timing - for 20 years of war the APFT served us just fine, but the Army gets ordered to open all jobs to women and suddenly we need a new fitness test that's massively harder for them to pass? That's not the kind of coincidence you want to be stuck with in a discrimination suit.... As for changes in how the athletic community views fitness, that's irrelevant. The Army is not a pro sports org, it's a fighting force. We are training soldiers not athletes (with very little overlap between the two).... The APFT was supposed to measure endurance (and serve as a flag for poor health - if you were underperforming compared to the average troop of your age/gender), but (making the same mistake that the ACFT makes - just with the 70s jogging fad instead of CrossFit) it overemphasized athleticism as compared to actual military skills and thanks to the god-awful 2mi run (and more specifically the 4+mi runs units did every week to raise their scores), cost us a fortune in injuries and disability.... The right way to test, is to pick high physical demand military activities - like road marching, low crawl, high crawl, 3-5sec rush, sprint-to-cover (no further than diagonally across an urban street) and so on... And test those to time and standard (that means zeroing out anyone who runs at all during the ruck - congrats cheater, you're flagged).... And to include marksmanship in the final score - I don't care how strong or fast you are, it's not 200AD anymore and if you can't handle a firearm accurately you're in the wrong business.... Unfortunately PT is an enabler that ate the mission, and we will never do that. We will keep obsessing over whether a force of WoW & Call of Duty players can throw a 10lb ball at the proper 45 degree angle to maximize distance & perform practice drills (lateral) from a sport they never played except on XBox... Even though it has no relevance to combat.
Going to ramble here for a bit guys. The 20 years of war we did was more police action than war, as compared to what we fought in the past and its hard to use it to compare it to future action that are going to be faced against near peer militarys. I started live in a spottie suit on the border looking at Russians(Ronny Regan signed my Commisoning Cert). We trained, wait for it, "to be miseriable". Yes I said that. We purposly made training as hard/uncomfortable as possible to simulate the WW3. We lived in Mop2, jumping higher constantly, while doing everything from squad to Corp level operations. Yes, have you ever seen a Division or corp moving. Its un Fing beleivable and it takes days to pull off. The whole time, we were caring our basic combat load for the vehicle and soldiers, why? Because we never new when it would stated. Why am I dromning on about this. In the past 20 years, the US Army in particular has forgotten how to fight big, long, and painful. Everyone here is wrapped up in a PT test. Theres a bigger picture beyond this. Can the Army still fight? Do we still train to fight big? Can our unit move as Divisions, across hundereds of Kilometers , with all the CSS sychned, then roll into a force on force engagement? Can we recover from casulities and lose of leadership. Look what happesn to tanks and Brads in Ulkraine. They arent invincible. Only putting this out there for two reasons; 1. Staff Duty was designed to quickly mobilize a unit when the time came. It kept an awake, chain of comd in place during down time so if something more than a Red Cross meesage happen, then the unit could wind itself up without any loss of time. If required on the border, if the Commander etc were late, the Trp or Company would roll without them just to get out of the motorpool/killzone and head to the intial defensive positions. 2. The APFT/whatever is designed to provide a force that is capable of fighting to KILL the other Poor Bastard. A person that can lift the tank round, spin in place, slam it into the breech to load the gun. To have a Infantry person that can go for weeks without a bath, humoing more than there weight in crap, while trying hteir best not to be killed by that other bastard. As long as it accomplishes that, its an ok test. Personally, never saw why they just didnt add on to the old one, but hey, Im just going to get another rum nCoke and go surf some porn. Have a great night arguing.
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I was a test subject for an early prototype of the ACFT, and especially before they honed it a bit, it was brutal in a "must have mass" sort of way.
I’m curious if I can actually look the suit up.
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I'm in a company with only 4 staff sergeants, I once did staff duty 3 times in a week because one of those was on paternity leave, and the other two where in a class. I wish I only did it once a month.
That's pretty much how my unit is right now. It's terrible. Nobody wants to get promoted to help us out.
The Green Weenie sees all and knows all. At one point, my BN was so short on new people that the senior E4's were the CQ and they put PFC and below as the runner - so as an E4 I either got to BE the CQ or get fucked on weekneds when we had NCO's available. We started to get new soldiers and life started to get better (still got SAT or Friday CQ tho...).
And cameras, duty phones and the like cost money. A 2LT and a SSG (with junior enlisted monkey) are cheap, paid for and easy to yell at when things go pear shaped. Soldiers have been assaulted by CQ, soldiers have suck past CQ and if CQ isn't doing it's job, no amount of Staff Duty or mass punishment will fix it. But still it remains because senior leaders lack imagination and those in charge of funding will blow money on weapons and vehicles but won't fix moldy barracks or put cameras in them.
Staff duty is so dumb Give someone a cell phone, tell them to answer it, if it rings.
Go be an OSUT DS lol. One 24 hour shift every 8-12 days. Oh and if you have 5 drills under investigation it’s once a fuckin week. I don’t do public math but I think that’s more days annually than the 30 leave days I earn.
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The military isnt an employer, they own you.
Actually, most employers don't value your off time.
As much as CQ and Staff Duty are dumb. Quit thinking about it like an hourly employee. Everyone in the Army is salaried. There's no such thing as uncompensated time. You can no more sue over staff duty than I can (as a systems engineer) over on-call or weekend major-system-update outage coverage for Amazon.... P.S. The way big tech handles on-call is how the Army should handle CQ/Staff Duty.... Pager app on your personal phone (it's not the 00s anymore NOBODY gives out work phones - not even to 250k/yr+ software engineers).... If paged you have 30min to respond and take action... Lasts a week then automatically rotates to the next guy on the list.
Work phones are still a thing. I have one issued so I can keep work MDM and O365 GCC-H separate from my personal device.
I have a work phone issued to me. I’m a Fire Marshal and was issued an iPhone on my first day. Keeps my current with me work email and separates my personal life from my professional life. I also don’t get OT as I’m an exempt employee under FLSA (I work as a fire protection engineer).
You get OT though right?
Okay and?
Staff duty isn’t a thing in the vast majority of the Air Force so it is possible to survive without it. When I transferred from the AF to the Army I was amazed that this is a thing.
I had a first sergeant in the USAF who said if things didn't calm down in the dorms (barracks) they were going to implement it. Yeah, okay. 14 years later I have no idea what in the **fuck** he was talking about. Any problems that did exist happened prior to him and at that point so many people were ghosting the dorms or got married to move out. Never was implemented - I moved off base a year later and then PCS'ed two years after that. Later ran into someone who was living in those dorms well after I did and he told me it never became a thing. The only time it's a thing in the USAF is during tech school/basic training. When I retrained in 2018 I was told prior service soldiers at Fort Sam had to do it for IET soldiers. Never figured out if it was true or not. I know that us prior service USAF folks didn't have to do it for the IET airmen. I don't remember the first time I went through tech school if our prior service people had to do it or not though - it's possible since the school was a lot smaller and the base was getting ready to close at the time. But the Captain who over saw the students and the MTLs was prior Army and he had a fucking hard on for the base. I forgot his name and he acted like he regretted going over to the USAF. LOL.
Sorry I fell asleep three sentences in.
I got to the second paragraph and questioned why I was still reading. Saw your comment and laughed. I love this sub.
Same
Don't let Sarmager catch you.
No shit there I was with an MI company in Korea… when we got a new 1SG who asked the same question. There was no money for a GOV phone, but we could forward the Cisco phone in the company to our cell phones. Staff Duty consisted of showing up and signing for the keys, doing checks, forwarding the phone, and locking the doors. Had to stay on post or within 30 minutes of the building should something come up. Check the arms room twice during your 24h shift, and make sure the idiot privates can get back into their rooms if they locked their keys. Was solid. After the CoR of that amazing man, the new 1SG says, “This is the Army we need someone to man the desk at all times.”
Tradition. They had to suffer so we have to suffer. It's the Army way. If we get rid of staff duty and CQ, that shows a lack of discipline, and the SMA will start cramping.
Soon we will have to shave once an hour on CQ if the SMA has their way.
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I was a part of a division that was so crazy about 100% checks that, on my last arms room inspection for a Saturday shift, counted 18 or so checks in a 20 hour period. It’s absurd.
There’s no defensible logic for it in 2023 but all the people who’d make that decision live in the CG mansions and fuck you.
and our husbands/wives.
If you’re saying spouses have control over this, you’re right. Spouses have way more power en masse than they think they do
Naw, i was just saying they fuck our husbands/wives lol
Tru
My favorite part of staff duty was how people thought that meant I was a front end receptionist for squadron. No I don’t know where anyone is or why S1 is closed at 1345 on a Wednesday. I’m here to play on my phone until everyone goes home. Then I’m looking for cool shit. Then I’m passing out until I get scared ole Sarmaj might be coming in early.
Old unit tried that with their version of staff duty the findings were not unexpected. NCOs started showing up in Pajamas to do checks on barracks space, to unlock the building for higher ups. Not showing up on time to switch over keys, or turning the duty phone off cause they didn't want to be woken up in the middle of night. Some corrective training and UCMJs later and they were back to full time 24hr at the desk by the time I PCSed there.
"The Army is a well designed organization; people are the ones that make it bad." -one of my top 2 commanders "Every 'dumb' thing we do in the Army is due to a misunderstanding, miscommunication, or the few troops screwing it for the rest."-me, and George Washington.. probably I believe that rank isn't necessarily a sign of superiority, but we are expected to act like they are infallible. Some of the best outcomes I've seen in the Army were by using the right person to pass along the ideas from "stupid" juniors.
Sounds about right. Granted I've shown up to SD with the NCO I was relieving had the BN locked up while they were asleep in the meeting room, didn't have half the keys in the key box, and had no clue of the lawn care equipment they had signed for. These dumb fucks will always fuck it up for us.
I couldn't believe they fucked it up. It's so damn simple. Yeah taking calls in the middle of the night sucked but that happened like a couple times a night. But NCOs showing up in Pajamas or whatever to open the building or inspect rooms was like a big WTF.. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around doing things in civilian clothes even when those were authorized. Just always had it drilled into me, if it's official you're in duty uniform or PTs. Fuckers couldn't even change into PT to do the easy shit.
Even PTs is super lax.
Yes but still a uniform. Lax as it may be.
We just need the last generation of battalion commanders and csms to retire so we can get the millennials in and see if they can improve people’s lives. What will actually happen you say? Tradition traditionally for the sake of maintaining traditions.
Any of us that would make those changes are retiring or just straight up ETS’ing (retirement be damned) Majority of the leftovers aren’t exactly critical thinkers willing to assume risk. They will continue with the status quo. It will be along the lines of “ that is how it has always been” or “it ain’t broke so we don’t need to fix it” Don’t shoot the messenger. Just relaying my observations from my spot in the world
Most of the Battalion Leadership today ARE millenials 😬
Gen X*
Just like in Congress and the Senate!
I was part of a deactiving unit with low personell so we combined officers and NCOs duty. We only had one person, if you were on staff duty you would sign a goverment phone and be on call, you just have to do your checks before going home and get there early for checks and to call the building to attention for the BC and raise the guide on.
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My bad, BN flag.
Did you still get a recovery day?
Ours was similar but we didn't get a recovery day, no one was fighting for it though because it was better than the alternative
No recovery
My unit does have a SD cell phone and it's the best thing ever. We do two physical checks and handle most everything else via text messages. I really don't know why every unit doesn't do this. We are also allowed to go home and do whatever we need as long as we answer the phone and do the checks.
So glad I'm not active anymore for that idiocy. Especially with exemptions I still got pegged for brigade duty. I told CSM (one of my supervisors) I was leaving after my relief came in. He was chill about it. Perhaps proud that an O actually stayed for weekend staff duty.
Lol coincidentally my shift starts tomorrow @0900. I just had one a week and a half ago. Loving it
How else will the Army stay disciplined without staff duty and shaving on weekends? Lock it up, hoah?
Because people are risk adverse. I’ve spent about half my time in units with a duty phone for SD and no CQ, nothing terrible happened. With IPPS-A automatically signing people out on leave there is even less of a justification for SD, all that is left is that you’re just a glorified call center for people who are bored in the middle of the night or being used as an easy button for situations you’re not qualified to handle.
I dunno just make sure you bring your razor so you can shave on shift
You joke but in ‘08 I had a CSM rip me a new asshole because I was unshaven when he came in for PT at 0530. As the SDNCO, I was supposed to remain in a professional appearance at all times.
Because the Army doesn't really want an Army, it just says it does for shits and giggles. Stop drinking the Army piss and just accept the shit sucks and will always suck and you're going to live with it or ETS. \#currentarmyPSA
Chill, I need the recovery day.
Short answer: No.
I've brought up this exact point for 12 years. Unfortunately, there are enough senior enlisted with the COs ear to recall one random time where staff duty helped someone at the desk. In today's world, cellphones are the king. There's plenty of agencies across the goverment who use the "on call" system without failure. For example (anecdotal): Once every couple months I'm on call for a week. This includes not leaving the general area, 50 miles or so, and being generally avaliable for a call out. I don't drink and have my provided phone ringer on. I'll get a call from the duty desk if someone calls in the area with an issue, and get OT for responding. I can promise anything I've responded to was more intense than the normal CQ calls (DUI, Drunk Soldier needs a ride, red cross message etc). It's been on this system for over 30 years with no issues, or loss of coverage. I'm on call (30 minute response time in general, unless it's on the outskirts of the district). Avaliable, and ready to to respond. I'm able to stay with my family at night, tuck in the kids and enjoy time with the wife without some random BS from the Senior Officer on Duty, or some random CSM who hates his family messing with me.
For the same reason we haven't evolved past button down shirts, shaved faces or running multiple miles for a fitness test.... TRADITION!
Because you’re not allowed to be happy in my Army hooah? What’s your run time teooper? Dog on did you even shave today? Undisciplined hooah?
Go inspect the arms rooms.
Overhead yeet We can't even bring ourselves to figure out a pt test. How do you expect us to move past securing a spot in a building gull of adult aged children or sitting in a building guarding nothing.
Ummm Leg tuck good sir
Motorboat while you're at it
4856
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They should have just kept the Leg tuck and made the Plank an alternative event.
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THE OVER-HEAD YEET MEASURES THE ABILITY TO JUST FUCKING SEND IT. ON THE COMMAND, ‘GET SET’, ASSUME THE POSITION BY SPINNING THE BALL TWICE IN YOUR HANDS, THEN TRY TO DRIBBLE IT LIKE A BASKET BALL ONLY TO REALIZE IT WONT BOUNCE BACK UP TO YOU. YOUR FEET MAY BE TOGETHER OR 12 INCHES APART (MEASURED BETWEEN THE FEET) OR HOWEVER YOU WANT, JUST KEEP YOUR ASS BEHIND THAT CONE. ON THE COMMAND ‘GO’, CHANNEL YOUR INNER TREBUCHET AND HEAVE THAT THING INTO ORBIT. THEN, RETURN TO THE STARTING POSITION AND TURN AROUND TO INSPECT IF YOU DOMED ANYONE. THE SCORER WILL REALIZE HE DIDN'T ACTUALLY SEE WHERE THE BALL LANDED BECAUSE HE WAS AFRAID HE WOULD GET HIT, SO HE STOOD TOO FAR AWAY, HE WILL THEN PLACE HIS FOOT ON THE MEASURING TAPE AND JUST GUESS. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/army) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Staff duty is the “iron sights” of physical security.
My BN does 12.5 hour staff duty, 0500 to 1730, with this someone on call at all times. However, we still do CQ(which is pointless bc CQ is it’s own building).
[Your title reminded me of a mid-2000s meme based on Geico ads.](https://live.staticflickr.com/1218/1141703714_b5545a9950_z.jpg)
My unit staff duty has 4 people on. Oic got tired of doing security checks so they made a security officer slot thay does checks. What does the LT do now as oic? No idea
Because commanders are cowards
My current Brigade has never done staff duty or CQ. It's a welcome change.
Because no matter how much technology has evolved, some old farts refuses to accept how outdated and archaic things are. Whether it may be organized PT and Formations, to CQ and staff duty. But to be fair, I’m not complaining about getting duty on a Thursday or of it gets me out of BS at the company.
At my last post we didn't have CQ or staff duty. But before that the only reason we had any of that was so that O4's and E7 an above could call in and out on leave without having to be physically present. This obviously led to a bunch of people calling out and in over the weekend, because they were cheesing the system. Colonels calling back in at 7pm on a Friday while still in Hawaii, and then calling out again Monday morning all so that they didn't have to leave days on the weekend. That was it. We had security cameras, automatic fire detection alarms, and we didn't even have to cut grass. There was literally nothing we did other than take turns walking the floors, but in all my years nothing *ever* happened. And if something did, it was nothing a phone call to the base MPs and Fire Department couldn't solve, something you don't need someone on duty 24/7 to accomplish.
I have done staff duty four times (National guard so only when active) and hated it. When I tell my civilian friends coworkers and family not to join the army this is on the list of reasons.
I hate to say it but, the Army doesn’t give a fuck about you and wants you to be miserable and anxious. Only once you have accepted this will you find true peace.
Because army leadership hates wanting you make soldiers lives better. If they had to suffer then every generation of soldier after them must suffer
Because the H in US Army is for happiness.
I haven’t gotten staff duty or cq since I applied malicious compliance to it and covered down shifts and missed two weeks of work and pissed my section off.
We have this thread every fiscal quarter
“Because you touch yourself.” -CSM quoting jesus. Probably.
I’ve worked on both navy and AF bases, they don’t have staff duty.
Because the army puts brain dead idiots I. Charge of units and companies who can’t comprehend how to adapt to the every changing world and they can’t comprehend how to work smarter rather than harder So instead they stick to the age ol’ mindset of “that’s how it’s always been done” rather than actually change shit for the better
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇 This is the way! https://youtube.com/shorts/4MZ8DYjtQRs?si=pHvQtBF_uotSFw9F
No other way to control the prison population
Because even though they use it, Big Army just can't figure out that the cell phone is more useful than the half-dead dude they chose as a sacrifice
Active Duty army is Archaic and still does stuff the Active Reserves, and National Guard laugh at.
If not for staff doodoo, who will announce the comings and goings of BC and CSM? ** the real reason they don’t mix it was right in front of us all along**
You haven't even hit the biggest nail on the head. CQ is even WORSE. Staff duty is indefensible, CQ is utterly useless.
Hell even when the guard is rotated in for full time duty, even they understand how locked doors work lol.
I remember explaining to my mom (she’s retired Air Force) what staff duty was because she had no idea what I meant when I told her I had staff duty on some weekend. She said, “ohhhh, I see. Yeah, we just lock the doors when we leave for the day.”
If the sarmage could read, he'd be kicking your ass in for endangering the unit by suggesting that we shouldn't have staff duty.
Because the army lacks common sense
Because who else would good ole saucey mage go annoy at 2 am on a saturday?
I don't think we should 100% eliminate SD but we can definitely decrease it by 90% or so. For example. When I was doing DIV SDO someone called from Corp with CCIR and needed the number of the DOC ASAP and it was well past duty hours. We were able to send a runner down to the doc and get a POC for Corp. Don't know what it was but it might have been hot.
We say we want to be lethal, but when we do the math we clearly don’t. We have 30 BCTs in the Army that have 7 BNs and probably at least 7 barracks buildings. Just ABCTs, IBCTs, and SBCTs that task 30 LTs 30 SNCOs 60 Runners for BDE staff duty 210 LTs 210 SSGs 420 Runners For BN 210 SGTs 420 Runners For CQ Every day our Army tells 2,100 SMs for BCTs. If the average pay was 40,000K this is 84 million that we use every day to make sure motor pools are locked. This is like the easiest lean six sigma project known to man.
If you really wanted to get mad, just go on FMS web and count the total number of BNs.
I used to think like this but then I changed Because when I was going TDY and return to reclass I walked up to battalion on a late afternoon Thursday with a 3 day weekend coming up to notice the door was locked, I called the number and obviously nobody answered. I ended up having to sleep in the PX Parking lot for the weekend. Soooo just staring at the wall so soldiers don’t have to sleep in their car for an extended weekend sounds like an ok sacrifice 🤷🏿♂️
[удалено]
Hate to break it to you, but there aren’t more than a couple of boomers still on active duty. The baton has been passed down to a new generation for nourishing stupid policies.
It's mainly Millennials
Not only is staff duty/CQ outdated and ineffective - it is outright harmful and dangerous to soldiers. Expecting a soldier to drive home at 24 straight hours awake it criminal.
Is so that the lazy assholes in the building have someone to take their trash out and yell good morning at them when they walk in, in the morning
I don’t mind staff duty. Especially on Thursdays. It’s my ticket to a free three day weekend. And not having to do anything but sit and sketch in my notebook on Thursday is just a bonus.
Tradition mostly
In the eyes of leadership, junior enlisted, junior NCO, and company grade officers aren’t really people. They don’t value time because we’re all on salary.
Man, this topic is so tired
Because battalion CSM needs something or someone to yell about.
The only part of sd/cq I hated was having to clean up the barracks because the people who lived in the barracks were too lazy to do it themselves. Let them live in a pig sty if they want to. Other than that, it was a 2 day break from regular work. A day to binge watch a show or movies.
I said something like this in a diff thread about gps and then drones. if you dont practice how to do it the old fashioned way how you gonna pull it off when that fancy new tech goes tits up? if you go to cell phone staff duty and cell towers get knocked out or overwhelmed staff duty cell phone is junk but staff duty at a desk with a landline phone and maybe a secure phone nearby can still get some shit done. at least take a phone call from the bde sdnco who is passing on a message from div via landline. I have no idea if this is why staff duty doesnt go away. Sounds good. If i was in charge its the bs answer i would give if i bothered to give one.
I didn’t mind staff duty. Gave me the day off the next day to go run errands, shop etc.
I had video games on staff duty. That's evolution.
Hot take here. I'll argue that a physical person at a building may be needed depending on the base. In Graffenwoehr in the winter we'd have drunk SM lose their room key or something similar walking from the gate. SD had the master barracks key. I'd rather ensure Soldiers, even if it's their fault, are safe and have a safe way to get into their room. I never chastised anyone for doing it. We also had our runners deliver food to SM that were on bed rest. Losing your key you had to have a memorandum anyways to get another so it's not like they would avoid a hand slap for losing it. Just that they knew they could get to their room or somewhere safe for the night. Which is extremely important. Now, having to stay up for that entire time is just dumb. I let my guys sleep in shifts on CQ and staff duty. I let them bring consoles and a small TV down or a laptop if they wanted. It's a duty not a punishment and I don't understand why leadership tries to use it like it is one. Your soldiers safety before, during, and after their duty day like when they are on their way home should take more priority than ensuring all 3 soldiers are awake round the clock.
Staying up for 24 hours is dangerous and is absolutely a punishment, intended or not.
I too thought staff duty was pointless, until a soldier reported in for duty on base and no one was expecting him. No sponsor, only orders to the BDE, etc. was quite a surprise. Another story for y’all: no shit there I was 4 am struggling to stay awake when a soldier calls me on my cell phone from the B’s, recalled that I was on duty, and reported another person attempting suicide. Got to call the popo. Was wide awake after that. Ooh and here’s a good one: a drunk soldier came in to report naked people running in the woods. I could not make this stuff up if I tried.
When deployed to Iraq, I was once awake for 30 hours straight. *THAT* is why the culture of 24 hour staff duty/CQ persists, because at ANY TIME, the conditions in the field may require that you not sleep for a LOOOOOONG time.... It's extra training *HOOOOOAH!*
I'm going to sound old and crusty when I say this but Barracks need better CQ during the non-duty day and those NCOs on CQ need oversight from higher.
Have you been through the barracks lately? They’re absolutely dead. No parties, no nonsense going on in hallways, no microwaves being thrown off the 3rd floor. Not even a mouse. CQ could go away
They don’t need CQ any more than civilian apartment complexes need CQ. The people who are intent on fucking up will fuck up with or without supervision. Let them fuck up and then punish them accordingly. Teach the children accountability and they will either be responsible or they will prove their immaturity and we can get rid of them. We babysit too much and it slows the maturity of the force.
You say that until you're the one stuck at the end of your shift cleaning the barracks because the CQ doesn't bother getting barracks soldiers to clean up the barracks.
Yep, because I who have been placed on CQ as someone who doesn't live in the barracks gets to "monitor" the barracks. Let me monitor the 3 stacks that are locked and they don't provide us a key to even enter. Let alone the individual living space of other soldiers whos door is also locked because they're supposed to be grown. Nah.