Privates being privates: Timeline of Events:

6:25: I Walk into the shoppette to buy a poweraide for softball. Notice a Private trying to buy a case of beer and two bottles of soju who is too drunk to walk and talk.

6:30: Engage soldier and identify myself after store employees tell him he’s to drunk to purchase alcohol. Ask him if he drove, he did not, so I ask if he wants a ride to his barracks. Soldier says yes Sergeant……………..Major. Soldier gets in my truck.

6:35: Complete one lap around the block, and realize soldier can’t remember where his barracks are. Make him phone a friend, tell private who answers the phone who I am and ask them to send me a pin to the barracks.

6:45: After answering a lot of drunk private questions including how he can get his car from El Paso to JBLM and what he has to do to go SF. And listening to his why for entering the Army, I safely drop him off to his barracks and do a battle handoff to who I am sure are very responsible Soldiers at the barracks. I was pretty impressed Soldier made it the mile and a half from his barracks to the store.

6:50: I sat in my truck thinking about how many times I had that same experience (minus a CSM giving me a ride) as an Original Warfighter in Daegu, South Korea and thinking to myself how I wouldn’t of done it any different.

7:00: Arrive to the softball fields and commence to laying an beat down on the BSB.

8:05: Again sitting in my truck, and loving the profession I joined and thankful that as a Command Sergeant Major I have never forgotten where I started and that I was able to take care of that young man.