Personal Narrative: Extra Duty

In the beginning of 2001 I was a SGT in the 82nd Airborne Division, by January 2002 I was standing in front of the Battalion Commander’s desk being read my second Field Grade Article 15 in seventy days. I was being demoted to Private First Class, being sent to Correctional Custody in Camp Lejeune, South Carolina for thirty days and being moved to a new company when I returned. The first field grade was for disobeying a lawful order from three senior NCO’s, the Brigade CSM, Battalion CSM, and my Platoon Sergeant. They had all told me in the same day at separate times to get a haircut and I failed too, the second was for stealing from the company supply room while on extra duty from the first field grade.

Introduction

It all began when

I had only been a Specialist for a month when the chain of command decides that I was ready to be a sergeant without ever leading soldiers during

At the end of the duty day which was around 1700 I kept to my normal schedule of going to chow and then the gym instead of prioritizing what needed to be done by getting a haircut prior to chow and the gym. After returning from the gym I took a shower with planes to go to the barber shop. Once I sat down on my bed to cool off I feel asleep until 2100, once I woke up and realized that all of the barber shops would be closed I went around to other people in the barracks asking if anyone had clippers so that I could cut my own hair, no one did. In the morning once I went into the Platoon Sergeants office and noticed that I did not get a haircut he yelled at me “weren’t you told to get a haircut, your fired get out of my office and have SGT Walker come in as your replacement”. When the Platoon Sergeant went down to the 1SG meeting, the first thing that 1SG asked was if I had gotten a haircut, and when told no, immediately called the Battalion CSM to inform him that I had not gotten one as ordered. The 1SG was told to bring me directly to his office, where he proceeded to chew me out and then read me rights and informed me that I would be receiving a Field Grade Article 15 for disobeying a lawful order from three senior NCO’s. My punishment was 45 days of extra duty, 45 days of restriction, and demotion to