What Vance is hoping you don't know: CSM Walz COULDN'T have deployed in the first place

[jmowreader]

21. There are two sergeant major ranks in the Army

One of them is Sergeant Major, or SGM.

The other one, which Walz was, is Command Sergeant Major, or CSM.

You address either one as Sergeant Major.

The difference is what they do for a living. A Sergeant Major is in charge of a large staff section, like the Operations staff at battalion level or all four staffs at division and above. Command Sergeants Major are the assistants to commanders at battalion or higher levels.

Soldiers at this level move back and forth between the two ranks. The division personnel staff sergeant major could come to work one morning wearing SGM stripes, be told that the CSM of one of the battalions in the division just got hauled in on sexual harassment charges and...well, sergeant major, it's your turn in the barrel...be wearing CSM stripes before lunch. I knew a CSM that this had happened to eight times in one month...he was working in a division-level staff section as a SGM and kept being sent to battalions as a loaner CSM when the real ones went on leave. Since these guys have their own job title (Command Sergeant Major, MOS 00Z) an MI sergeant major can legally go to an infantry battalion and do sergeant major work, which happened to him.