/u/L0st_In_The_Woods once recounted his daily schedule, it went a little like this:

• wake up 0515, shower, shave, brush teeth.
• get to work 0600, attempt to open my email. It fails. Company Commander asks me about the status of my problem Soldier and I tell him it’s on the list for today. He tells me “let’s reattack that and tighten up our shot group.” No idea what that guidance means but I’m a good LT and say “sounds good sir.”
• stand in formation 0615-0630. Flag goes off. Salute.
• 0631 one of my soldiers gets yelled at by his squad leader for wearing blue compression shorts. Told to go change.
• 0631-0745 do PT. It’s poorly planned because I haven’t taken over planning it yet and is an absolute waste of time.
• 0745 PSG texts me and my squad leaders: “all E-4 and above in squad leader office at 0900.”
• change, shower, eat breakfast
• 0900. PSG yells at squad leaders, team leaders, and specialists because during a run another squad was doing half the formation fell out of a 7:30 pace for 3 miles.
• 0930 work call. Lay out night vision equipment for change of command inventories. Missing one? Where is it. Oh it’s from the dude who’s quarantined. Squad leader says “just tell him to come in, he’s faking.” Hard no.
• Spend an hour making a PowerPoint slide that will get looked at for 3 seconds.
• spend an hour making a risk assessment that will get looked at for 3 seconds.
• go over to battalion mandatory fun formation. Battalion commander talks for 20 minutes. I remember none of it.
• come back. Realize I go on leave Thursday and have stuff to do. Can’t eat lunch.
• work through lunch.
• make PT plan 4 weeks out for my guys going on leave. I know none of them will do it. Squad leader says “that’s some intense shit sir” it is toned down from what ranger challenge did.
• ask PSG for his input.
• “PT is designed to maintain sir this is a little much.”
• sigh.
• problem soldier comes in and updates me on his medboard.
• he has no idea what’s going on.
• motherfucker what
• ask for phone number for his primary care physician
• call her
• she updates me
• spend an hour calling various places on post trying to find a link or someone to send me a packet to move my soldier.
• packet is not listed anywhere online
• finally get packet and email to myself
• it gets there after an hour (thanks government email)
• print it. Fill it out.
• go to company commander
• he’s ecstatic we can get rid of this kid
• tell kid. He’s okay with it. Cuts me off when I’m speaking to him.
• NCO hears this. Verbally berates kid for 5 minutes while I stand there off to the side.
• update kid. Tell him he’s fucked.
• put away night vision
• write counseling statement for squad leaders. PSG likes it. Success.
• I close my computer
• go outside talk to guys
• oh fuck wait my mandatory Lieutenant volleyball game is tomorrow followed by mandatory LT professional development
• all my guys go home
• spend 45 minutes reading a 20 page paper written in 1950 about how officers are gentlemen and scholars and a protected class in american society.
• rip it apart from a historical perspective and take notes so I can express my hatred of the paper tomorrow morning.
• look at clock, holy shit it’s only 5.
• leave work.

Would you wanna go through this on a daily basis to just spend your weekends untangling corpses from car wrecks or doing CPR on dying kids?