Army leadership has challenged top enlisted leaders to find ways to encourage more of the bonding that happens playing beer pong and less of the negative effects that alcohol can have among soldiers. Via starsandstripes
When Tyler Ewell lived in the barracks as a soldier, playing beer pong became a way to get everyone out of their rooms and talking and laughing with each other. Soldiers from different states had different rules for the game, which would spark banter as they negotiated how to play.
Last month, Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Grinston challenged some of the service’s top enlisted leaders to find ways to encourage more of the bonding that happens playing beer pong and less of the negative effects that alcohol can have among soldiers, particularly those younger troops living in the barracks where leaders have more control over their environment.
“In short, targeting alcohol use and misuse is a crucial component enabling primary prevention of all forms of sexual violence,” the commission wrote in its report. During the past two years, the Army has been under increased scrutiny from Congress and the public to protect soldiers from sexual assault, harassment and suicide. In April 2020, Fort Hood soldier Spc. Vanessa Guillen was killed on base by a fellow soldier, and her family said she’d faced sexual harassment prior to her death.
“Do you think we’ve got the alcohol culture right in the Army right now?” Grinston asked of everyone at the conference.“So now the question is, what are we going to do about it?” Grinston asked. The leaders broke off into 10 small groups with two focused on improving the alcohol culture of the Army. Other groups looked at leader engagement and development, recruiting, retention and mentorship.
His group submitted some ideas that were accepted for development that mostly involved creating positive experiences or removing policies that put limits on alcohol in barracks rooms. He envisioned teaching soldiers how to order non-alcoholic drinks at a bar that aren’t obviously so, or taking them to wineries, breweries or distilleries to teach them about alcohol-content labels and increase their appreciation for quality products, not just whatever is cheapest on base.
Clark said he and other soldiers would return to their rooms at the end of the workday and intentionally take two or three shots of alcohol so that they could not be called back to work for additional duties, which was common. “The reason for the drinking is the unaddressed issues in the military with toxic leaders or the fact that barracks soldiers get treated like substandard citizens compared to the married soldiers living in on-base housing or off base,” Clark said. “There’s definitely not fair treatment.”While this new approach, which is still under development, is more about empowering soldiers to make positive choices on their own, leaders at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Initially noncommissioned officers weren’t too happy about the rotations through the barracks, but they came around after garnering some appreciation for the effort from some soldiers, he said.
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