Sgt. Maj. Michael Weimer has successfully spent his entire Army profession in Special Forces, and a big swath of that point within the secretive Delta Pressure.
He has greater than sufficient fight bona fides — three Bronze Stars and Joint Service Commendation Medal with valor, together with two Purple Hearts.
On Friday, Weimer took the helm as the brand new sergeant main of the Army. The service will now see how a Inexperienced Beret leads its rank-and-file troopers.
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“My very own evaluation was, I’ve the least expertise within the whole Army in comparison with others. … I completely do imagine I come at issues in another way. I like change. I do not like change for change’s sake, however I am not a ‘established order’ individual,” Weimer mentioned in an interview with Navy.com. “I believe [special operations] helped me in that area.
“We’d like a contemporary set of eyes; we are able to use a distinct perspective,” he mentioned.
Because the service’s high enlisted chief, Weimer is in control of assuring the power is prepared for struggle. However the position is way more than that. He’ll be the face of the Army and set the tone whereas overseeing personnel points that make up the majority of the day-to-day considerations of the power.
Nobody questions Weimer’s fight credentials. However he comes into the position with little expertise with the standard Army and all its challenges, steadily totally different from these confronted by particular operations, which is commonly siloed from the common power.
Out of the earlier 16 high enlisted leaders, solely three hung out in particular operations — however even they spent a lot of their careers within the standard Army.
“I needed to mirror on that,” Weimer mentioned.
Michael Grinston, the earlier sergeant main of the Army, urged Weimer apply for the position. Roughly 30 command sergeants main utilized for the place, with three, together with Weimer, being critically thought-about in closing interviews.
Weimer’s Superpower
Weimer, 51, is often jovial. He walks right into a room and makes it some extent to acknowledge everybody there, taking the proper period of time to ask them how their day is; intensely listening; discovering some fast frequent floor; and transferring on. He says his Christian religion is what finally grounds him.
He has a knack for remembering faces and names after solely a single temporary interplay, which one Pentagon staffer described as his superpower.
Weimer typically wears a uniform stripped of accolades, hardly ever sporting his Fight Infantryman or Air Assault badges, awards that aren’t particular within the models he served in. He would not even put on a fight patch, a unit insignia on the proper shoulder sleeve that exhibits who a soldier went to struggle with.
However his formal gown uniform is in excellent situation, stacked with quite a few awards and badges, prepared for essentially the most nitpicky inspection.
“You are going to see me combine it up. However your character and who you’re is not in your badges. These are stuff you achieved in your journey,” Weimer mentioned. “Oftentimes, it was a very long time in the past. I am actually concerned about what you are doing at present.”
On Fridays, he’ll put on a whole uniform as a result of he sees it as the suitable factor to do, however for him, it stays all about now.
“You bought to rise up within the morning and convey it once more. You’ll be able to’t relaxation on, ‘Effectively, I introduced it 10 years in the past,'” Weimer mentioned.
Grinston retired Friday, after enlisting within the Army in 1987 as an artilleryman. He was unusually vocal on social media and uncommonly accessible to the media throughout his tenure.
Throughout his 4 years as sergeant main of the Army, Grinston oversaw among the most transformative occasions for the service, together with the implementation of its new bodily health and marksmanship exams, revamping grooming requirements for ladies, and implementing the Skilled Soldier Badge. His tenure additionally overlapped with the COVID-19 pandemic, Jan. 6 riot on the U.S. Capitol, and the ugly slaying of Spc. Vanessa Guillén.
Grinston was broadly recognized for wielding social media to achieve out to rank-and-file troops and to defend troopers’ rights to serve at the same time as political commentators bludgeoned the power for being extra welcoming to girls and different traditionally marginalized teams.
“There was a requirement to have the ability to do what they did to talk up and advocate, get our messaging out. I give them the massive kudos. They had been what we name the pathfinders in that area,” Weimer mentioned, referring to Grinston and his group. “How it’ll search for me, I do not know. … We’ll interact, and we’re not going to fully withdraw. … I believe it is too essential.”
Weimer is available in at a essential time for the service. After twenty years of the World Struggle on Terrorism, the Army is within the midst of shifting its coverage and doctrine and upgrading its gear for standard warfare.
“I am passionate a couple of warrior mindset,” Weimer mentioned. “Now, what does that imply for a cyber warrior [or] logistician? That is the piece I believe we have got to essentially dive right down to,” Weimer mentioned. “It is actually a mindset. I rise up, placed on this [uniform] within the morning. How do I slot in that warrior tradition? We acquired to outline that and coach, educate and mentor and mannequin it.”
Personnel Points
The power is going through quite a lot of personnel points that fall immediately into Weimer’s portfolio, together with an enormous backlog of getting old barracks the place junior enlisted troops persistently report mould infestations and different poor residing situations.
The Army has a finances of about $1 billion per 12 months for renovations and new development, however some estimates recommend that it wants considerably extra funds, and it will be greater than a decade till a few of its worst barracks are addressed.
The service can be going through a suicide disaster inside the ranks, with 255 troopers dying by suicide final 12 months throughout the active-duty and part-time service elements. The Army has just about no coverage or tips for models to deal with troopers with psychological well being points or suicidal ideation. A lot of that has been left to particular person divisions to craft their very own ad-hoc rules after the Army stopped its course of of building service-wide tips that had been no less than three years in growth.
The service can be eyeing modifications in the way it feeds troops, both by upgrading dietary choices at eating amenities or permitting troopers to make use of navy meal playing cards at eating places — the previous is struggling to get off the bottom and the latter is within the midst of a trial interval at Fort Drum, New York.
“We completely want the insurance policies, the expertise and in addition the funding. … It is important. However the fourth piece is engaged management, barely intrusive, simply intrusive sufficient to be concerned within the folks area,” Weimer mentioned. “That is the piece I am going to spend so much of time on whereas I help on the coverage and useful resource piece, as a result of I’ve the flexibility to try this on this place.”
Army Health
The 2 chambers of Congress even have dueling proposals to alter the Army Fight Health Check, or ACFT.
The Home is aiming to set gender-neutral requirements for fight arms, and the Senate needs to revert again to the previous health check — one thing the earlier sergeant main of the Army instantly blasted, calling the concept “unreasonable.”
Like Grinston, Weimer believes maintaining the ACFT is non-negotiable. However he agrees it could possibly slowly morph over time. Army planners have already been mulling a plan much like the Home’s proposal by adjusting the baseline requirements for fight arms.
“We completely wanted to be doing greater than sit-ups, push-ups and a two-mile run to be true professionals at warfighting,” Weimer mentioned, arguing that the previous health check was too straightforward and a poor measure of health. “There’s some uncertainty in the place we’re going … however what we’re not having is a query on whether or not the ACFT is nice for the Army.
“We’re having some discussions on the requirements, and we’ll proceed to try this,” he mentioned.
Weimer beforehand served because the senior enlisted chief for U.S. Army Particular Operations Command. He joined the Army in 1993, earned his Army inexperienced beret in 1996, and served as a Special Forces weapons sergeant. He’s a graduate of Norwich College, the place he earned a bachelor’s in strategic research and protection evaluation.
Lastly, beards are a topic of a lot dialogue among the many rank and file. Typically, with a altering of the guard, there’s a glimmer of hope within the Army’s formations for relaxed grooming requirements.
However for Weimer, that is a tough move.
“No,” he mentioned when Navy.com requested about beards. “I shave seven days every week. For me, it is about self-discipline.”
Editor’s notice: This story was up to date to mirror that Weimer served with U.S. Army Particular Operations Command.
— Steve Beynon will be reached at Steve.Beynon@navy.com. Observe him on Twitter @StevenBeynon.
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