Discussion of command

On Monday evening the boss called me into his office for some good news: he told me he wanted to give me a company command. Needless to say, I told him that would be a great idea.

It's not immediate -- it won't be until late spring next year -- but as it stands right now I'll get the HHC (headquarters company) for the battalion. Some may say that it's not as good as a line company, but I don't think the distinction really matters that much outside of a maneuver unit. To me, the only downside is that I won't have any lieutenants to mentor.

Besides, the peer-relationship skills required of an HHC commander are just as important as the management skills of a line commander. Given that the Support Operations and S3 shops have just as much say as the commander in a logistics line company does, I don't really see that makes much of a difference.

Just the same, I was thinking about why I was offered this position as opposed to anything else. Here are some thoughts:

• My family. With this postion, I won't have to move.
• Lack of maintenance experience. Two other options are maintenance companies -- units with which I have little experience.
• I get along well with my peers, and
• I don't really care too much about commanding a battalion.

In any case, it's a key developmental position, and I'm lucky to get it given the command bottleneck in my sustainment brigade. There are 24 staff slots for captains at the brigade and battalion levels versus 9 company command slots. When you consider that most officers are only in Korea for a limited time (2 years if you bring family or are single and extend), a captain should be happy to get any command offer.

In my case, there's an added bonus -- the timing works out well. If I'm selected for the West Point professor position, I'll have had 15 months in command -- a good finishing point. If not, I'll still have about a year to fill some other position (aide? speechwriter?) before leaving Korea.

My Taco Bell sauces weighed in on the matter. True.