First sergeant

That's good to know.

I've also had a first sergeant's wife reach out to me on my deployment, and she's like, hey can you go and do it's his birth like she let me know she's like it's his birthday can you guys like if you guys do something for his birthday can you take pictures of him he's never in any of the pictures he won't send any pictures so i think we end up like doing like a d-fat cake uh for him the d-fat is our um is our cafeteria basically on the base and I went up to him.

I was like, Hey, first start your wife reached out to me.

She wants a picture of you.

But talk to me first.

I can give you your next kind of steps or what your options are.

But same thing, because we get some First Sergeant supporters that are like, no, that's not true, Rick.

No, you can tell us that First Sergeant pissed you off and that you're on your way to go and shoot the First Sergeant we cannot even call the first sergeant and give him a heads up warning we're going to try to talk you down we're going to try to do everything we can before you even do it but yeah and the first time's like wait what like yeah and then they usually go and check with jag and like nope like we are protected but that being said you can talk to us about anything you can It doesn't even have to be religious.

[upbeat music] Hello and welcome to Veterans Corner Radio Podcasts, information for and about veterans.

For this podcast, host Joe Mulberger has a conversation with retired United States Army First Sergeant Jay Collins.

Born during our nation's bicentennial year in rural Montana, Jay's journey through to our semi-quincentennial has been an amazing one, from service as an Army National Guard soldier, to a Green Beret, and retiring after 23 years of service.

He is the recipient of two Purple Hearts for wounds received in combat.

I'm your host, Joe Mulberger, and you're listening to Veterans Corner Radio.

Well, today it's, um, no surprise when you hear the name, but we have a true badass that we're gonna be r- having an interview with today.

We have retired United States Army First Sergeant Jay Collins with us.

Sir, welcome to today's show.

the movie.

But he was the US Army First Sergeant who was famous for his leadership in that 1993 battle in Somalia.

So really, really impressive guy.

But one of the things he talked about was people getting us through the crisis and people are the ones who win the day.

And you mentioned optics.

So I had a number of different first sergeants in the army, you know, the senior enlisted advisor for the company.

And they were, they kind of fit into two camps.

One of them or one type of them would focus on the optics.

And it's the fact that there's literally so many requirements that like box checks that you have to accomplish for your soldiers, that it's like, there aren't enough hours in the day to accomplish all of them, but the army requires all of them.

And so you have to have this, you have to somehow navigate through the requirements from higher up without getting fired or, or reprimanded while also training a lethal and effective organization.

And so the one camp of first sergeants that I had was the guys that were focused on optics.

They would focus on just checking all the boxes of these online trainings, of these certifications, of these medical appointments.

it was just an embodiment of he called me and he was telling me that, you know, there's some flaws in it.

And I said, you know, as a soldier for 18 years, retired Marine Corps First Sergeant, from 2000 to 2018, we, sorry about that.

Hey, bud.

How are you doing? I'm doing a podcast, buddy.

Nico Johnson is a retired Air Force chief master sergeant with 28 years of service.

He served as, as a first sergeant, command first sergeant, and commandant of the Air Force First Sergeant Academy.

Nico is the founder and CEO of First Class Leadership, and he's a keynote speaker, executive coach, leadership consultant, and the author of what we're gonna talk about today, The Power of Pivots.

His work helps people turn confidence, purpose, resilience, and authentic leadership into meaningful action.

All right, folks, tomorrow's Training Tuesday.

We will be talking about the Take Care of America's Veterans Act and the Richard Starr, Major Richard Starr Act, because his brother, David Starr, who's also an Army veteran and former First Sergeant, is here to talk about that along with combat-wounded veteran from right here in Mississippi, William Brooks, and they'll be my guest.

I'll see you then.

And I know, I know the officers are obsessed with CFT season, but the last I done checked, November 10th, 1775 is the Marine Corps birthday, and we need to start pushing ball tickets.

So I didn't mean to take away from the brief, but could you put the, the, the, on the slide, you know, ball tickets? And, and that all goes through the First Sergeants, not me.

Absolutely.

Okay.