Captains Y and Z Interview

 Training Video for Junior Recruits

CPT Y: As Captains in the U.S. Army, it’s a rank. But it’s also much more than that. You have to know what your charge is and, as you take that charge, you don’t just feed, you don’t just listen; you nurture. And what you’re going to nurture is that philosophy of the Army values. You’re going to nurture the philosophy of helping each other.

CPT Z:  Once in command, I had 92 soldiers that I took command of.  But I also know that I had, with those 92 soldiers, about 50 or 55 families that came with it.  I don’t want to say a majority, but a good amount of my time is spent dealing with family members.

CPT Y: You’ve got young soldiers that are being taken care of by their senior non-commissioned officers and the officers above them.  That culture is one that it spreads and you’ll never read about it.  You’ll never see it.  There’s no science to it. It’s just a culture that once you put this uniform on, that you’re part of a family. And it’s a grand scheme of taking care of each other, leaving no man behind and that your small part of the Army is taking care of your family.

CPT Y: The essence of family is not just, you know, mother, child, you know, husband, wife and their children. You have so many different conglomerates of what we call family.

CPT Y:   A soldier is no good without his family.  And even when it comes down to single soldiers, if it’s a grandparent or whatever their support system is, you do all that you can to support it.

CPT Z:  It’s a combat multiplier, and when you have a family or any other soldier that has a strong family, he’s going to come to work and he’s going to be willing to put in those extra hours because he knows his family is taken care of.  He’s going to be motivated to do what he’s supposed to do.

CPT Y: Our chain of command really supports us, and there’s no such word as no when it comes to helping the family.

CPT Z:  There’s a stereotype that if you’re in the Army, that you’ve got to be a man, you’ve got to take care of your family.  You ask for help.  You just drive through that wall and crush it. I think once you get that soldier through that wall, it just opens the floodgates to let us be able to help him. I think once you get that soldier through that wall, it just opens the floodgates to let us be able to help him.

CPT Y: It’s an underlying trust that you build with your soldiers. If my soldier says he needs it or his family needs it, I give him the benefit of the doubt until I see otherwise.

CPT Z: I’ve never seen a unit come together more than when a soldier or a soldier’s family needs help. We will drop training at the drop of a hat to help soldiers out and their families.

CPT Y: When they do need help, you exhaust all possibilities to get him all the help that’s possible.  That’s our approach.

CPT Z:  And that saying, leave no man behind; it doesn’t just refer to when you’re on the battlefield.  It refers to just as much when you’re back here at home station and your soldier needs help.  You just don’t leave him out there on his own.  You bring him in and you take care of him.

CPT Y: It’s also a domino effect.  Once one soldier receives help, he’s willing to help another soldier. That’s the one thing I ask of every soldier.  As we’re willing to help you, a soldier is going to always know more than the Command, and they’re always going to know who’s going to need help.  So if they’re willing to reach out that hand to help each other, it becomes contagious.

CPT Z:  And that’s one of the great things about being in the Army.  It doesn’t matter what other organization you’re in; if you’re working at WalMart, if you’re at Microsoft or Pepsi, no — they’re not going to support you like the Army does.