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    Ordnance Command sergeant major visits Joint Base Lewis-McChord

    JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WA, UNITED STATES

    03.07.2012

    Story by Staff Sgt. Daniel Balda 

    593rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command

    JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. - The U.S. Army Ordnance Corps Regimental Command sergeant major recently visited Joint Base Lewis-McChord to talk with the large number of Ordnance soldiers assigned here and share his expertise and answer questions regarding the future of the second largest branch in the Army.

    Command Sgt. Maj. Sultan A. Muhammad visited JBLM March 5-7 for three reasons.

    The first reason was that he wanted to inform Ordnance soldiers and unit command teams about how the upcoming Army-wide changes will affect their Corps.

    Muhammad spoke to soldiers about the Army career tracker, Structured Self Development and how they tie into the Non-Commissioned Officer Education System and it also ties into the training that is needed to sustain them during their Army career.

    “As the Army talks about shrinking the force, we talked about arming them with the information and the healthiness of our 34 (Military Occupational Specialties) and how they can sustain themselves and remain competitive in the retention world, be competitive in the promotion world and be competitive in the individual Structured Self Development world,” Muhammad said.

    “I look at that as the two arms on my body,” he said. “I look at it from a leadership and a supervisor perspective. What I tell them is that it’s the same thing: soldiers need to balance themselves to make them competitive in the Army, so if I take a soldier from JBLM and put them at Fort Bragg in the 82nd Airborne Division, he or she can fit in regardless of the place they might find themselves. You have to balance themselves tactically and technically, civilian-wise and military-wise.”

    The second topic that Muhammad brought up in conversations was aimed specifically at those in the ammunition community.

    “I made it a point to talk to the ammunition community about their ability to get back to the installation ammunition supply points and getting their relevancy as we transition from a contracted organization function back to a military organization function and to offer them specialized training in the areas of ammunition inspectors and handlers,” Muhammad said.

    Muhammad’s last goal for his visit was to ask the explosive ordnance disposal community to get their opinion on some of the changes that the Corps leadership is implementing.

    Specifically, how they certify team leaders, adding the certification into the Advanced Leadership Course and talking to them about how to reduce the attrition rate in the EOD community.

    One EOD soldier asked Muhammad why he was being sent to teach at the school house at Fort Lee, Va., when he felt his training and expertise was better used taking his team on a deployment. Muhammad turned to the of the soldier’s battle buddy and asked, “is this troop the kind of soldier you would want teaching the next generation of EOD soldiers coming out of (Advanced Individual Training)?”

    The soldier answered, “Yes, sergeant major.”

    “Then the Army needs you at the school house,” Muhammad said. “My job is to make sure that Ordnance soldiers are doing what they need to do to make the Army successful. It’s your job to serve.”

    Muhammad tied it all in to how he views service to the Army, and to the nation as a whole.

    “If service if not your first answer to being in the military, then your second and third answer is going to be flawed,” Muhammad said. “You’ve got to be willing to continue to serve because you never know where you are going to find yourself. I never thought that I’d be serving in two different conflicts at the same time in my military career, Afghanistan or Iraq. I served in both, and that’s not necessarily something that I wanted to do, its something that I had to do. I did it because I’m willing to serve.”

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    NEWS INFO

    Date Taken: 03.07.2012
    Date Posted: 03.15.2012 17:28
    Story ID: 85306
    Location: JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WA, US

    Web Views: 68
    Downloads: 0

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