I was a guest on Hazard Ground a few weeks ago and the episode aired today.
I chose a specific featured image for the podcast because the episode was reflective in nature, and the other person in the picture, MSG (R) Ellery Edwards, was the person outside of my family who most shaped the direction of my Army career. He was my first platoon sergeant when I was an infantry platoon leader in the 101st Airborne Division in the mid-90s. He took care of me, development me professionally (and physically), and gave me space to learn and to lead. Several of the NCOs portrayed in the various case studies I posted on this site are based on things he actually did, or what I think he would have done if certain fictitious situations were true.
As an E7, he was selected from all of the other senior NCOs in the battalion to fill in as the HHC first sergeant. When we eventually got another E8 in he could have gone anywhere in the battalion he wanted, and he chose to come back to our platoon. That was perhaps the best compliment I ever received as a commissioned officer, that someone like him would want to come back to a unit I led, when he had options to go elsewhere.
Then-SFC Edwards is cropped out of the picture in the podcast and I'm sad to say I lost track of him after he came to my promotion to major many years ago, but I have not forgotten what he, and many other NCOs, did for me, for the units I was in, and our Army during my 27+ years in uniform.
I chose a specific featured image for the podcast because the episode was reflective in nature, and the other person in the picture, MSG (R) Ellery Edwards, was the person outside of my family who most shaped the direction of my Army career. He was my first platoon sergeant when I was an infantry platoon leader in the 101st Airborne Division in the mid-90s. He took care of me, development me professionally (and physically), and gave me space to learn and to lead. Several of the NCOs portrayed in the various case studies I posted on this site are based on things he actually did, or what I think he would have done if certain fictitious situations were true.
As an E7, he was selected from all of the other senior NCOs in the battalion to fill in as the HHC first sergeant. When we eventually got another E8 in he could have gone anywhere in the battalion he wanted, and he chose to come back to our platoon. That was perhaps the best compliment I ever received as a commissioned officer, that someone like him would want to come back to a unit I led, when he had options to go elsewhere.
Then-SFC Edwards is cropped out of the picture in the podcast and I'm sad to say I lost track of him after he came to my promotion to major many years ago, but I have not forgotten what he, and many other NCOs, did for me, for the units I was in, and our Army during my 27+ years in uniform.
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