The pain of self defeat
For a bunch of crusty old men, their sense in matters makes no sense. Should we have senility checks every year, like we have drivers tests every year, over a certain age? If one person, representing thousands or millions of constituents, makes dumb decisions, should there be any type of mandatory Show Cause hearing?
The stories I’m referring to are these: Women May Be Banned From 22,000 Jobs & Army Offers 1 1/4-Year Hitch.
Ok folks, now, the past year it has been mentioned by only Everybody, to include Mr. Rumsfeld, that we’re short on soldiers in certain positions while being overstrengthed in others. It also has been noted that retention is at a low point. Now, lets take 22,000 jobs away from people who have the job and the experience already, and then convince me that this is helping the cause in any way. Does this mean that I’d prefer to see women killed? In a sense, yes. They too want to serve, or they’d not be here. I haven’t heard any major outcry yet about the women who have lost their lives, gotten blown up in a truck via an IED. Why not? Probably because in the sense of Equality, we’re finally realizing that it’s the way of the land, it’s more closely synchronizing laws with human nature. It’s the old cogier that was a lawmaker in the 60′s that’s still there today that can’t take it, take being equal to anybody else.
Lets tackle that other headline. The Army Offers 1 1/4-Year Hitch one. What’s this remind anybody here of? Anybody? It screams Draft to me, though this time, instead of the government grabbing their balls, they offer someone the opportunity to draft themselves. I have issues with this on a variety of levels. For one, a soldier isn’t going to really start to learn his/her job until after the first year. That first year they’re being bombarded by the reality of their new lives and the people in charge of that life. Sure, they learn, but nothing but an expansion of fundamentals, a total refinement of those fundamentals. They don’t start to really feel like a warfighter until that experience has ground down the rough spots and starts it’s refinement. Another reason I have an issue with this is due to the fact that this very 1 1/4 year enlistment will most likely cause a higher attrition rate among soldiers, because they come in and already have a short-timers attitude. The new soldiers today are already a pain in the ass to deal with, with their ghetto attitudes and the I Don’t Have to Listen to You attitudes ingrained in them due to the years of previous bad leadership. It quite literally takes a few years to breed that smugness out of them to make them truly part of the team. Until that time, they’re out for themselves. So, lets give new kids a year experience, where they don’t truly have to do anything but suck up a year. This decision is going to cost us a lot more than we think. A soldier doesn’t become a true soldier until the time comes where he/she realizes they’re a part of an organism, not the organism. They don’t get anything out of the experience until then. What really irks me, I believe, is that our own government is hollowing our armed forces. This happened after Vietnam and during the cold war, it happened again right after the last Iraq/Kuwait conflict, coinciding with the fall of our enemy of the cold war. We’re now stretched as thin as we can be stretched, and still trying to hollow ourselves. We’re being made insignificant, even though we’re the only ones doing the job. There isn’t a spare to fall back on in this case. The lawmakers have to realize that any conventional force is going to be attrite’d by non-conventional forces, that attrition is going to affect our ability. Yet, we’re also helping attrite ourselves.
Thoughts that have crossed my mind the past 2 weeks
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I do feel that I’m being singled out by my supervisor and by the 1SG. It’s a 5 month history and recent actions that lead me to believe this. Starting in January, my super started getting really frustrated that I was accomplishing tasks in a matter of minutes that was taking him hours or days to do. I got the impression from him, and from the people he was talking to, that I was making him look bad. I try to tell him that he doesn’t need me for that. It was also about the same time that all my responsibilities were taken away. The 1SG comes into play because for some reason, she’s known who I was since about the same time my supervisor started crying that I made him look bad. He is the one, after all, that tells me that the only way to get anything done with her is to “kiss her ass”. Yep, only one person in this world gets her ass kissed by me, and that’s because it makes her squirm. Other than her, everyone else can proverbially kiss my ass, it’s not gonna happen. It never seemed to be an issue in my life, however, until coming here. It probably won’t be an issue once I leave either, so I pay it very little concern.
I also feel that I’m singled out on a few other things. Such as, during PT in the early morning hours, if anybody else has a profile, they don’t have to be there. I on the other hand, have had a severely pulled groin muscle, and right now have some sort of problem with my lower back that is really annoying the hell out of me, but I have to be there, even when I’m not supposed to be doing anything. How about when 1SG went on leave for her two weeks, I’m the only one that she mentioned to the person taking her place temporarily, and if I missed a single beat, she was to be notified and have my leave pulled. How about when I’ve been late to work once in months, and even get bitched out by being early of all things, but my counterpart has been late multiple times, and not one thing has been ever mentioned. I’m not trying to dime him out, but am drawing a comparison. I’ve had the super complain on a few different instances that I was here an hour early, and not ‘on time’. Whatever dude…..
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My supervisor is still annoying the hell out of me. He’s still all about burning bridges, some of which have yet to be crossed. Not only has his complete willingness to lie and falsify documents really gotten on my nerves, but now he’s openly telling my counterpart and myself that ‘in order to ever get ahead in life, you have to lie’. Um, no man, you sure don’t. It really bugs me working for and with someone who has no issues with just lying.
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On lying, it drives me up the wall that when I was counseled by 1SG, on paper it said I was late. Verbally, however, she called me a shitbag and a liar, that shouldn’t even be wearing PFC rank. I guess one can only be good in her eyes if you kiss her ass. I see ton’s of her people who should be PFC’s or SPC’s, wearing SSG rank that magically appears. What really gets on my nerves is someone calling me a liar. Ask my ex-wife, if anything, I’m brutally honest. I have no qualms about admitting when I’m wrong, and I’m too lazy to remember what I lied about anyways.
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On working, or the perception of how much work is done. My super will work on a single issue for days, and I can fix the problem in under an hour (so far). But because I may only sit at a station for 10 minutes and solve a problem but he sat there for 3 days, I’m being told that I don’t work hard enough….I fixed the issue in 10 minutes, he sat here for 3 days and made it worse, where the hell is the problem? I guess the only way for me to be good at my job is by not knowing my job now…and kissing ass….and lying….
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What the hell is ‘Likership’, and who’s the moron that put that sign up. It was dumb enough to have the other ones up…
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Our living arrangements. I think the powers to be here truly think we’re mushrooms: feed them bullshit and keep them in the dark. Let me explain for those of you sucking it up living in regular accommodation’s. We’re now living in 58 man bays, I’d say roughly 2500-3000 sq. feet. The lights never come on. If there are 45 of us getting up in the morning to go to work, and one person asleep, it’s considered ‘inconsiderate’ to turn the lights on because that one person is asleep. How fucking inconsiderate is it when 45 people have to feel around in the dark or use flashlights to get shit done before work, like getting dressed, you inconsiderate, no logic using fucks. Put a god-damned pillow over your head, like your boyfriend does when you cry because it hurts…What really irks the living hell out of me was that we were moved out of relatively comfortable tents, so they could be torn down. Being over there yesterday, they’re being lived in, not torn down, and instead of having 6-8 people in them, they have 2 or 3. ahh, fucking sucks living there, doesn’t it. And why didn’t the chain of command, the same ones living in air conditioned, single man rooms, in hotel arifjan, stick up for their soldiers…don’t tell me that 2 full birds in one unit can’t make a slight difference…ahh, maybe it’s because they had nothing to gain. Who knows. Long story short, I’m tired of having to feel around for my stuff because someone may be sleeping somewhere.
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I’m officially sick and tired of chicken in any form. That and any meat, which constitutes everything else but chicken, covered in gravy. What the fuck is the deal with all the god-damned gravy on everything. It’s not a beverage, it’s not a seasoning, and it is plain old. Maybe have a vat of gravy that’s there on request for those of you that LOVE gravy on everything. I’d like some roast beef, minus gravy. Or pork. Or anything.
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On with the good. If I do get to go on leave in 2 weeks, pending my boots not having any right-over-left lacing issues or I missed a nose-hair, or any other trivial issue that queeny sees fit to make into a horrendous issue, I’ll be in Ireland with my woman. She has to be, by far, the best person I’ve ever been with. Though, we’ve spent a vast majority of our time together, apart…I think in many ways it’s made us a lot stronger. We communicate on a level that I’ve never known with anybody before. We have 9 or so days together, no kids, no work, nothing but relaxation and sight seeing. And real food :) I love that woman and I can’t wait to see her again.
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I’m excited about seeing Episode III. Call me a geek, I don’t care. It’s rare that I want to see a movie in a theatre, and this is one of those rare moments.
Ginseng for the mind
If you go to the link above, you can reference my little story.
Beer makes one more clever. Well, so far mice, but if it’s a story of mice and men, I’m sure a great deal of people in this place are mice. Beer makes the brain grow new nerve cells, thus empowering the brain. Empower the brain, and maybe the village idiot can move to a higher class town, hey? hmm…The Army, for at least a few years, has said that it is striving for a ‘higher class’ soldier, a smarter one. That is a great contrast from what my first 1SG told me, that technically, NCO’s don’t have to be able to read. I’m sure a few of the Oh’s would still like that…ok, digressing…
Lets figure out why we’re not able to drink on deployments……..um, well…anyone? I can sort of understand here, since alcohol is outlawed in the region of the world where the worlds first alcoholics were born, so there’s that. Any other reasons? I’ve heard it’s so that people don’t come to work hung-over…which makes absolutely no sense. I guarantee that most of us have gone to work before just completely not in the mood to do anything but sleep with earplugs in. The good thing about being shitfaced hungover at work is that by the time you start to feel better, you only have an hour left on the clock, and WOOHOO! back to the bar my friends…it makes the week go by so damn fast that you never know what hit you. A year in a complacency-creating shrine to fraud waste and abuse would go by so goddamn quickly that people might actually volunteer to come back…but alas, along with absolutely no sense of humor, we’re not authorized to actually enjoy ourselves. There’s a whipping pole inside the 1SG’s office to strap you to if you’re found guilty of having fun…anyways…
Maybe we’re not supposed to drink for fear that more fuglies will get the opportunity of a lifetime and find peace within the cusp of an orgasm…but that doesn’t make sense either. So many people here are wasting precious grams of protein everyday, either on the sheets or being swallowed…who knows, I don’t really ask. Hell, I know of at least one guy in sort of a non-binding contract to fulfill Intel girls fantasies with the fear of reprise being one of the two glues keeping that union in an ugly pretzel shape. (By the way, if you do infact read this, you know who you are, remember, ACT OF CONGRESS! quit being a damn pussy!) Anyways, since humans here are doing the unthinkable, and following human nature, it’s proven that a glass of bier isn’t the cause.
The only real reason I can think that we cannot partake in a nice piss-warm glass of some lite beer is that a few people might actually have the balls to quit sucking ass and tell one of 7000 officers to shove it, quit making dumb policy, don’t expect me to enforce it, and sir, you heard of a little thing I like to call Common Sense!!? ahh, but to disrupt the caste system of the gods and servants would bring chaos, or worse, it might be like the Army….for shame, I’ll whip myself after this for thinking such heinous thoughts…
Chuckie, toes.
Who really opposes drinking? No, not just during driving, but at all? The forever self righteous fire breathing right-wingers. I’m not talking the moderates so much, but those little bugs stuck to the edge of the little hairs of a feather on that wing. The ones that make all the noise, also. I’m not just talking the Christian righties, it really goes with any religion. (This still never made sense to me, the church needs numbers, and they get that through propagation…what better way than to get two strangers drunk and yelling OH GOD!) Now, since it seems that the Right has the back of the services, inherently we must put up with the bullshit of the screaming fanatics. So to get them to shut their pie holes a little, the moderates cave, give a little ground. Who’s not drinking gonna hurt? They listen to the same yelling nuts about drugs (I’m not supporting this, but hey…) and how they make people do stupid shit. Have you noticed the people making the noise are the same ones that openly admit to never having a drink or toking a little on lunch hour in the parking lot? How the hell can you say something is bad for you if you haven’t tried?
I’m not supporting the direct opposite either, by the way. The last thing I want to do is be on a patrol with a hippy and his jingle jangle’s on his boot cuffs giving my position away, talking about how cool the stars are, and OHH, a shooting star! Look DUDE, A SHOOTING STAR!. No, Dude, that’s tracer fire you’re attracting, fucking hippy.
Ok, so anyways, I’m saying that a drink or two is supported by medical science to make one more healthy in many ways, helping stave off cancers, keep the colon cleansed, boost brain cell growth, and help the body heal after being bombarded by gamma radiation…So, why aren’t we allowed to have a beer again?
