Did you read what I wrote? Did you understand it?
In the military I never "idolized" my C.O., but you can be damn sure I never crossed him and I followed his orders without question.
I never "worshipped him as a God" either, although I am sure he would not have objected if I did. LoL!
Your experience was different from mine. The best relationship I had with my battalion commander was because I spoke my mind. I respected the hell out of him, and he was a leader who demanded imagination and independence from his officers.
As a 1st LT in a primary staff position, I got my butt chewed plenty of times, but I knew it was forgotten 30 seconds after I walked out of his office. As it turned out, I had the good fortune to work for him again after returning from Germany, as he put this young Captain in an O-5's slot.
I rarely did well with micro-managers, so much so that in one brutal evaluation, the Group Commander basically said the Battery CO and Battalion CO were full of fecal matter. It's a long story, interesting only to me, but I saved the BC's rear during a battery-level ARTEP. First by appealing personally to the Group Commander for a two week extension (a third of our weapons systems were non-operational, and we needed every day to get it up to 75% operational).
During that ARTEP, I had my hands full as both the XO and Maintenance Officer (my regular job). Things really broke down the second day, and the attitude among the chain of command was "it's over." I'd been through several ARTEPS with 3 of our 4 platoons, and I knew "the game", i.e. show some improvement by the last day and you pass. At the briefing that night, I lit into the platoon leaders for not showing the leadership expected of them. Then, I went into detail what each of their squad members would do the following day, down to the lowest man on the totem pole.
Little did I know the evaluation team chief was standing outside the CP, and heard every word I said. Heck, he could've been 50 feet away and probably heard everything. I bumped into him after the meeting, and I thought "oh crap!" Instead, he smiled at me, and said "that was beautiful, LT!"
For all my efforts, I was torched, as I paid the price for going outside the chain of command. I was fine with it, I was only expecting to do the required four years of active duty. But I was damned if I was going to stand by, after the BC fouled up one mission by encoding coordinates wrong, after the platoon leader failed to question him even though the mission completely violated Air Defense Artillery tactics. It was such dereliction of duty, I learned of it from our First Sergeant, who was distraught. Imagine that, an Infantry First Sergeant with three tours in Vietnam, and he thought ADA was a transfer to Mars.
I was more concerned about the 100+ soldiers in my battery that were busting their humps, despite all the mistakes their leaders were making.
Apologies for the hijack, but that's my perspective.
