Settling down

My platoon sergeant returned last week, making my life easier. Nowadays I don't really have to worry about how the platoon runs -- I just set the direction and he takes care of that.

Of course, there's still the daily grind of personnel issues. I have one guy whose wife miscarried in her eighth month; going to their baby's funeral was really sad. Another guy tried to commit suicide and a third got arrested for trying to steal a television in his home town (he was drunk and high at the time).

However, I think the biggest issue I've got is that almost half of the platoon will be turning over by Christmas. Between change-of-station moves, ends-of-enlistment, chapters-out, and medical board people, I expect to lose over 40 percent.

In some cases, this is not such a bad thing. With the post's Warrior Transition Unit being full, I have a number of people who are not able to do the basic job of driving a truck.

In other cases, though, I'm losing some hard workers. I just hope whatever replacements we get are healthy enough to pick up the slack.