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General control line discussion => Open Forum => Topic started by: Sean McEntee on March 26, 2017, 11:49:30 PM
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Woke up to this on Friday morning. More balsa money 8) 8)
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Congrats Sean. Well deserved I'm sure.
Thanks for your service and what you do!
Randy Cuberly
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+1
Jim
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Woke up to this on Friday morning. More balsa money 8) 8)
Congrats Sean. The US Marine Corp. is the best!
No Diss meant!!!!
George Albo
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Sean explain to us where the Staff Sargeant lies in the hierarchy of non commissioned ranks, relative to other ranks.
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Stay with it Sean and I too thank you and all the other military personal for doing what you do. H^^
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Congrats Sean. The US Marine Corp. is the best!
George Albo
I believe he is in the US Army..........
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Sean and I went flying Saturday after the list was released ----Friday evening...
This Young man had a grin all day despite is airplane woes* and poor weather
We had a nice long chat and I could tell he was proud of his service accomplishments and glad the Army saw his future potential
* Tom Lay ST 51 was cantankerous to start in the coolish 60F and landing (on soccer field grass) revealed a weak starboard landing gear hard point in the wing killing a second flight
Sean is on unit block leave for a few more weeks and I dearly hope to get to fly more with him before he and family are reassigned either to Ft Bragg or Ft Rucker
I cherish the few times Sean and I have had to play airplane and chat Army NCO life
I predict great things from this A-Typical American young man and that is a testament to the great job Dan McEntee and wife did raising this citizen/soldier
One thing I would like to try to a-politically comment on:
As Sean described many of his missions... I was reminded that we are STILL in a WAR against terrorism and it is indeed a shooting WAR with soldiers lives at risk.... curious to me how I can watch a full week of news and zero mention of this fact
Hummmm?
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Congratulations on your promotion. I want to thank you for your service. It is hard for those who have been in the military to realize what a small percentage of the population have ever served. I am so glad to see that more of the population now appreciate our people in uniform. Keep up the great work!
Pat
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Congrats,
I know the feeling as I am Veteran myself and I know how hard it to get promotions
Since ya making all that money you can host a flying event for us all!!!! H^^
Just kidding......Once again congrats!!!
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Ad an old sailor's congrats and huge thank you for your service, Sean. Our guys and gals all deserve more than they are presently getting.
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Sean,
Congrats little brother, GO ARMY!
James
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I believe he is in the US Army..........
lol I just saw that! I bought the USMC recruiting advertising.
Thank you for your service Sean!
George Albo
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Congrat's, SFC McEntee!
(For those not in-the-know, SFC is the US Army's Sergeant First Class - grade E-7.)
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THAT"S MY BOY!!!! y1 y1 y1
I just hope his shirt sleeves are long enough to hold all dem stripes!
Proud Papa
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Thanks for the kind words everyone. :)
Militon- Ill try to explain in as layman's terms as I can. A Staff Sergeant NORMALLY is an immediate supervisor for 7-11 Soldiers, and interacts with them directly. I say "normally" because I have been holding a Platoon Sergeant position (20-34 Soldiers, I have 25 right now) for the past two years. That is normally a Sergeant First Class position, but since we "aint got none", I have been filling that role. At this point, I deal with the Soldiers a bit less frequently, and concentrate on developing and mentoring the junior noncommissioned officers to, essentially, take my job someday.
Up until now, the path to promotion has been pretty simple, quick and straightforward: Study "Army knowledge" for a couple months. Then attend a promotion board, the members of which come from within the unit and pretty much know you and know if you are ready or not. In the promotion board, try not to be nervous and regurgitate the "Army Knowledge" that you have been studying, and if you do well enough, you get promoted. There's a bit more but that's the jest of it. This promotion took a lot longer, more preparation, and a whole lot of waiting (no surprise, right?). There is a promotion board, but I don't go to it, rather my board packet does. The board consists of senior NCOs and officers from throughout the Army. From what I've heard, the board reviews hundreds of packets, and spend only about 2 minutes reviewing each, so of course first impression is key. They look at your DA photo (a high-res picture of me in my uniform) and review my records and performance evaluations. If all of that stuff gives the board that "warm and fuzzy" feeling, then they recommend that person for promotion.
The packet preparation process takes months of getting records and everything straight. Then wait for the promotion board, which was June 2 of last year if I remember right. The results didn't post until the end of September (the longest wait of my life!). I got selected, but one doesn't get promoted until the required schooling is complete. That requires the Department of the Army to schedule me a class date down at Fort Rucker. I was pretty fortunate and only had to wait about 6 months or so to go. Once that was out of the way, it was just a short wait for my orders to post, which is what came out on last Friday. I won't actually "pin on" the new rank until I get back from leave in April.
Wont be a huge change. Ill be doing the same job but finally getting paid enough for it (again, more balsa money #^ #^ ). I'll also have more weight to throw around with which to get stuff done. I've had to...persuade people to get stuff done a lot, but those days are over! There are also intangible privileges that come along with it. The one that I am most looking forward to is no longer driving 25 minutes to Squadron Headquarters to sign in and out of leave. I can just phone it in, then roll over and go back to bed! I've always viewed and been told that the rank of SFC is the "I made it" rank. Its the point that says one's career is a successful one, and anything after that is a bonus. I'm just glad that most of the waiting is over!
Tom- You would drool over the nice, flat ramp that sits out at Robert Gray AAF (Named after CPT Robert Gray from the Doolittle Raid). Its smooth as glass and could fit 4 circles easily. Of course, getting both base ops and the local FAA reps to bless off on flying CL so close to a high-activity, joint use runway would take a lot of convincing.
Dad- I went out and got the first of my uniforms updated (getting promoted is expensive!). I brought it home and Crystal put my camo-patterned uniform top on to "take it for a test drive" as she put it. She zipped it up and looked down and said "wow...that's a lot of responsibility down there....nope!" and quickly took it off LL~ LL~
For everyone else, my wife Crystal did 4 years active duty as an AH-64 Apache mechanic. She didn't quite make it to the NCO roles before she got out so she lives vicariously through me :) Its nice to have someone to go home and gripe to and they understand. There is also the presence of the whole manned-unmanned aviation contest at home. I thought it would be funny one day to tell her that an Apache was 50,000 pieces flying in close formation, and it was her job to make sure that they flew in as close a formation as possible. I almost had to sleep on the couch that night! ;D
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Congrats! Sean.
Thank you for keeping us safe and secure.
And I'm sure you will be spending some of that money to buy that little girl of yours a new kite. LL~
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Sean, better take care of that little woman. I don't think I've met her yet. I am so proud to say I know you and your Dad. By the way another Army couple that I knew attended Fort Leavenworth after several years in Hawaii and were just like little kids the first snow fall that year. He and I went to the Nats in Dayton. After he completed his training he was sent off to the Pentagon and haven't heard from them since. On the trip to Dayton I learned he was a West Point graduate. He was just another modeler serving our country. By the way he won a second place in F2C that year. Getting old is great except I'm getting where I can't remember names until days later when I'm not thinking of them. So take care young man. H^^
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Sean,
Excellent!!!! I am sure it is just a happenstance, but I have to ask. Is the effective date and date of rank on this document significant?
Keep up the good work.
Joe
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I have found that military promotions are somewhat predictable. So if you are good at your work, and have the required "time in grade", the powers that be will most likely put you on the list. Some classifications seem to get promoted a bit faster, because the military is interested in keeping you on the payroll for a long time!
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Sean,
Excellent!!!! I am sure it is just a happenstance, but I have to ask. Is the effective date and date of rank on this document significant?
Keep up the good work.
Joe
Hey Joe!;
I get what you mean! I think that was also the same day that we took him to the recruiter office to ship out for basic training. We had our kisses and hugs and said good by, then my wife and I went home. A few hours later, I get a phone call from him and he says he's coming home! I thought, "Bad April Fools joke!" and told him "OH NO! I saw you sign the papers! How can I miss you if you won't go away!" Turns out that there was another group of recruits that were going to be delayed in getting there and they postponed their departure for another day. The next day the routine was repeated, and after I got home the phone rang again and it was Sean again! Each time the phone rang at home back then, it was usually Sean and he was calling because he had wrecked his car! I flashed back to that on both of those phone calls, I swear! This time he was calling because the President, or Vice President was arriving for a visit and he got a good side view of Air Force One landing at Lambert Field that day and he just had to call me and tell me, even though he wasn't supposed to be talking to anyone! Ah, the memories!
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee
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Hey Joe!;
I get what you mean! I think that was also the same day that we took him to the recruiter office to ship out for basic training. We had our kisses and hugs and said good by, then my wife and I went home. A few hours later, I get a phone call from him and he says he's coming home! I thought, "Bad April Fools joke!" and told him "OH NO! I saw you sign the papers! How can I miss you if you won't go away!" Turns out that there was another group of recruits that were going to be delayed in getting there and they postponed their departure for another day. The next day the routine was repeated, and after I got home the phone rang again and it was Sean again! Each time the phone rang at home back then, it was usually Sean and he was calling because he had wrecked his car! I flashed back to that on both of those phone calls, I swear! This time he was calling because the President, or Vice President was arriving for a visit and he got a good side view of Air Force One landing at Lambert Field that day and he just had to call me and tell me, even though he wasn't supposed to be talking to anyone! Ah, the memories!
Type at you later,
Dan McEntee
I remember this as well. The "Practice Day" was indeed on the 1st, a Friday. I had to wait until the following Monday to fly out, so I left on 04 April 2004, or 04/04/04.
I remember getting to Ft Sill, doing some initial inprocessing and getting a few issued items, and when I got to my rack in the barracks, and my head made contact with the pillow, that it dawned on me.
What have I done? ;D
The next two weeks were rainy and crappy, and it didn't help the adjustment. I got a penicillin shot in my butt that made me think I would never sit right again.
Basic Training was (relatively) uneventful. Even the first phone call home once BCT kicked off, it was met with the trained response of "Sean wrecked the car again" :)! The worst night was a thunderstorm whilst out in the field, and we were crammed in a tent that wasn't sealed at the base properly, and it leaked like a strainer. I was cold, wet, tired, and pretty miserable.
AIT/flight school wasn't much fun, mostly because we were there for so long and everyone was going nuts. Fortunately, Lou Crane graciously rescued me from barracks life on occasion, and we would either fly on post or go up to CC Park and fly in a couple contests. Very therapeutic, and Ill always be thankful for his help and friendship, and he is certainly one of many.
It really doesn't seem like 13 years ago. I remember how big of a deal that first deployment was, and wondered how it would affect me afterwards. I'd say it did for the better. Of course at the time, I never gave thought to a second....third...fourth...or fifth tour.