My uncle served in the Marines back in the 90s got out, later did a little bit of Army and got out again with a skill in satellite communications. He was an outstanding soldier, won numerous awards, coins, plaques, etc in both branches, has always been squared away and never had any issues.

I wanted to follow not only in his footsteps but the African American males and females who have paved the way for me, and keep the tradition going of patriotic and stellar service within the ranks, and for the country.

My uncle always told me about dealing with leaders, he said do your job, be respectful, but don't get ran over. That doesn't mean everytime someone chews you out they're in the wrong, the military has an aggressive up tempo nature, and environment you have to be thick skinned, but that also doesn't mean to be anyone's doormat either, there will be times where your peers as well as leaders will test you to see what they can and cannot get away with, and you have to let them know when they try you. I've always held that in the back of my head, I've been in 5 years and I've seen leaders disrespect soldiers a lot, and when that soldier has had enough and speaks up for themselves, leaders throw it on paper as disrespect, damaging that soldier's career.

Even when soldier's seek help in these situations, leadership is so close knit with each other, they often don't bother listening to the soldier's side of the story, which has always irked me. We have all these briefings about these kinds of things and yet we go back to work and dismiss it. How should soldier's go about defending themselves when getting flat out disrespected by leadership when those leaders have power to make and break their careers?

My uncle said when he was a leader, he had to confront a few leaders himself for abusing their authority, very heated confrontations but they never did it again, and if any leader did, he made it his business to deal with them immediately, but he did this as a joe and a leader, of course it was a different military during his time, but he always tells me it can still be done effectively.