needs to wear different jeans

No, no, no, no.

Leadership-wise I think a corporal might have led a patrol group or work group of about four or so. So, some leadership on a very small, very immediate scale.

Probably more than you want to know, but here goes:

That's about par for the course. A corporal is an E-4 and you won't find an E-4 in charge of any significant amount of people. In general, your entire division will be somewhere in the realm of 100-120 people, with an O-3 (Lt.) in charge. There will be an E-7/8 (Gunny or Master Gunny for Marines, Chief or Senior Chief for Navy) who actually directs the division at the personnel level (the "O" is actually expected to do higher level management, not direct supervision of the troops). Under the E-7/8 will be a number of smaller groups (no idea what the grunts would call it, in the Navy/Marine aviation world we had work centers) of 10-20 people depending on their occupational specialties. Those work centers will have an E-6 (Staff Sergeant or Petty Officer First Class) in charge. As a work center supervisor I had 16 people spread over 2 shifts. My night shift supervisor was an E-5 (Sargeant/P.O. Second Class). So, in general, the E-4s had very little responsibility for the direct supervision of personnel. What you do start getting as an E-4 is collateral duties. These are duties that don't take up enough time to require a single person to do them full-time, so they're parceled out among the people in the work center. You'd have a training P.O. who was responsible for maintaining the training jackets of all the people in the work center and arranging monthly training. You'd have a safety P.O. who made sure that your work center complied with all the various safety regulations. You'd have a publications P.O. who made sure that all your manuals were kept up to date with the latest revisions. You'd have quality assurance inspectors and other things depending on the type of command you were in. So an E-4 might not be in charge of people on a regular basis, but he would have responsibilities above that of just doing his day-to-day job. And, as Anne said, he could be placed in charge of smaller work groups (usually cleaning parties and stuff like that).

From the Army perspective, an E4 had the responsibilities of a sergeant and the paygrade of a Specialist. Nobody wanted to be a freaking Corporal (in my unit). The rank doesn't matter much until you hit sergeant, IMHO. But I only know about peace-time heirarchy. And job descriptions seem to fly out the window in wartime. I was told that my job, should it come to it, would not be flipping burgers while jumping out of an airplane, but bagging bodies. I don't know how true that was.

Ash48 is making me read an SPN fusion (lite) of Se7en. Hold me.

Amy Gumenick just tweeted her beiber shirt.

Love Young Mary!

Jim B was just very grouchy about it on twitter. To be fair, he's been sick. But I did reply to his tweet.

Is it wrong that I find Jim not giving a sh** about the scavenger hunt adorable? It just seems so right.

Heh. I thought it was a touch too grumpy. From Bobby, adorable. From Jim, not as much. I just said that I thought fans were just having fun and didn't want him to be uncomfortable. Said I hoped that he felt better soon.

It is probably coincidence but he got less grumpy in his tweets after that.

Amy looked adorable in the Bieber shirt. I love that she had it on at the store.

About a week ago Amber Benson offered to do unique Bieber shirt photos and she was flooded with requests, including one from me. I didn't really expect to get one, but she came through today. Woot. She rocks.

Me too. She totally rocks.

I hope we get to see everyone's entries once the clock has rundown.