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Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael Grinston is going back to the basics.
As he looks to pull soldiers together and move the force forward after a grueling year packed with missions at home and overseas and the lingering COVID-19 pandemic, Grinston said he believes it all starts with trust.
"How do we get through such a trying time?" he said. "You have a really tight, small group."
If soldiers can trust their teammates, rely on them, confide in them, that's the key to improving the Army, Grinston said. "We might get mad. It's like a family, right? You fight with your family, but you still love them," he said. "So, the blueprint, the base is still there, where we can say, 'I know my squad and the people in my squad, and I know them so well that I won't let anything happen to them.' "
Grinston, who became the Army's senior enlisted leader on Aug. 9, 2019, said he knows it's easier said than done, especially as he works to get the message to stick at the small-unit level. "What I wanted to do is change the culture of the Army, where everybody treats everybody as a part of a cohesive team that's highly trained, disciplined and fit," Grinston said.
Changing the Army's culture is "the hardest, but I still think it's the most important," he said.
Grinston said he's going to keep trying as long as he's the sergeant major of the Army. "We've got to keep going. We're not there yet. It's clearly not," he said, citing rising numbers of suicides and sexual assaults.
Keep Going
Last year was "a heck of a year," Grinston said. As the country shut down because of the pandemic, the Army worked hard and fast to find a safe way to continue training. "We'd already decided that the Army has to keep going," Grinston said. "We have to be ready to fight the nation's wars. We still have to go to the National Training Center. We still have to have a ready Army."
Leaders put in place health and safety measures and slowly resumed basic training and combat training center rotations. At the same time, soldiers were serving overseas and being called on to help...