Comment of the day: Why do we have so many lousy Command Sgt. Majors?

From Hunter, an interesting
reponse to Col. Bob Killebrew's appreciation
yesterday of NCOs:

I don't know how we
can have so many great PSGs and 1SGs and have so many lousy or mariginal CSMs.
Throughout my career I was always dumbfounded by that glaring gap. Now some
might say, well you were just a dumb LT, CPT or MAJ. But positive reflection
after the fact results in my very same assessment. I can list almost everyone
of them that I worked with by name and it isn't due to admiration.

I've served in IN,
AR, and CAV BNs and BDEs and found perhaps 10% of the CSMs I worked with
actually worthy of the position. COL Killebrew obviously had a very different
experience than I did. The conundrum remains, why were so many of the great
PSGs and 1SGs I worked with never elevated to CSM? Or alternately, how did so
many duds get elevated to that position? Make no mistake, I know what is good
and bad in an NCO and I saw far too much of the latter than the former in the
top of the NCO ranks.