Have you ever accidentally overstated an opinion about something? Man, that can feel really awkward. Poor Private Donner; she just wants to make sure that breakfast was good, and…. yaaak!
One thing I’ve found, though, over the years… when you are new to a unit, whether you are fresh out of Basic and AIT or coming in from a new unit, before too long you will be put in charge of something. Regardless of rank, you will be put in charge of a patrol or a repair job or a firing range… or in this case a food service mission. It will be something you are supposed to be trained in and know well, and your new leadership wants to know how well you’ve internalized your training.
It will be as much about what you’ve learned and retained as well as how you adapt and handle things that went wrong. You learn a lot from people when you see them react to failure, and the Army has a process for addressing and learning from failure. The idea of course is to make your actions better in the future; learn and adapt.
Of course, right at that moment, when you realize someone was let down, you do feel kinda humbled for a moment.
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