Page 745 - Total War on PTSD

along those lines, one of the things that you carry around with you is not the ones who got saved but the ones who didn't. Those are the ones who haunt you the most.
As a Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) I always tried to lead by example. I wasn't perfect and I am not going to say that I didn't make mistakes but if I did, I owned up to them. If one of those things, when you, as an NCO in a leadership position, you have to be willing to say to your troops that you screwed up and not to push it off on them if something doesn't go right. The policies and procedures are written as guidelines that say how you are supposed to conduct yourself at all times, not only when you think it should apply. You can't 'ding' your troops if you don't have your own act together. I had seen, on occasion, individuals who held leadership positions but conducted themselves in less than what I would describe as the proper manner. These same individuals would tell their troops one thing, and then do another. Those types of things and that sort of behavior irritated me no end because that is not leading by example or showing your troops what is supposed to be done. I had one NCO that was up and coming and he was always all about himself, and one day I had enough of his jabbering about himself and I told him, "Let me tell you something right now. It is true that you can do all these things that you said you can do and you can do them well. But there is one thing you are not understanding is that you can't do these things 24/7. That's why it's up to you, just like it's up to me, to train these young troops so that they know the job, so that they know your job and not just their own. One of these days you are going to retire and when you do these troops still have to carry on and still have to do the job and take care of the mission. It's up to you to motivate them when they don't apply themselves, so that they can function. Don't try to be a good NCO, anybody can do that. You need to try to be a great NCO, because if you think in terms of the bare minimum, as I
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