Just think
If I would have not given up my free ride to USMAPS and the Point when I was a private, or went to OCS like two of my BN commanders told me I should do, I could be a Major right now.I’d most likely be an S3, being stressed out by a BC that is stressed out by BDE, trying to fulfill a damn near impossible training schedule, keeping in the field or keeping one company at the tire-house, one at the rifle range, one on patrols, trying to figure out how and when to get the training in for the annual EIB cert, tasking HHC with a million police calls around post while still trying to get all the paperwork done for the whole battalion. I’d be sucking up my freetime trying to finish up my masters. I might have a girlfriend, though no kids, never married. I’d realize I’d have to get married in order to have a serious look for BC. I’d have to find the woman who is educated and can put on at least one little function a week for all the staff’s wives, or the officers wives, where she could (and would have to) head up the BN FSG, probably be a full-time volunteer at ACS or something on post.
I would have just come from commanding a line company (though I’d try and avoid from ever commanding an HHC, my luck, that would happen to me)(even more of my luck, they’d probably make me command another HHC at either BDE or DIV) I’d sort of be sick and tired of commanding, though I’d miss it, I’d miss running with my soldiers everyday, miss pinning on their EIB’s or Air Assault wings, congratulating them on finishing Ranger school (finally). Instead I’d be scheduling all the courses, making sure the company commanders have implemented a training schedule for all the non-AASLT personnel, making sure that Team leaders are being trained up for Pre-Ranger, Squad leaders are being trained up for Ranger, and all companies are training up for the EIB. I’d be making sure the companies were out keeping the training cycle in the upper half of the oscillation, trying to never drop below the halfway mark, though I know it’s going to happen once a year.I’d be scheduling diversions away from training occasionally to help promote esprit de corps and just to take their minds off the constant headache of always being on their toes, never resting their minds.
I’d be considering that I never really wanted to go past being a platoon sergeant, and now I’m trying to be a BC. I’d realize that I’d never want to go beyond being a BC, though knowing my luck, it’d get sucked into being the hmfic of BDE. I would have most officer’s dislike me because I’d rely on the power of the NCO’s, ensure that they either did their job, or moved on to another unit. I’d make a new LT’s life a living hell, just to do it. Make him rely on his platoon sergeant and his squad leaders for leadership, rely on his company commander for mentorship. I would unemotionally charge the CO’s with damn near impossible tasks due to the manning requirement being higher than they have men, and watch them go from being bewildered to confused to pissed in a matter of seconds that I could even suggest that, and just tell them to Do It Captain, I’m not telling you how. I’d have them pissed and taxed, which sets the stage for them one day being the 3.I know I’d fight and rage against being a politician, though I know I’d get sucked into it by just proximity and the inherent nature of the beast. I know I’d hate it and be unfulfilled. Just to add salt to the wounds, I’d be put into a staff position at Division or higher, dealing with the kind of people I have to deal with now. I would hate most of my peers most likely, and would openly tell them that on a daily basis. They’d still get ahead because their lips were stitched to some COL’s ass, who’s lips where stitched to some Generals ass, and since the whole train only moves in one direction, they’d get pulled ahead. I would take a sore pride in not being on that train, and would feel defeated because that wasn’t the Army I joined and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I gave up that ride I had a long time ago, because I saw it for what it was…something that could and would have more potential for me to be in a position that I didn’t want to be in, a political arena in which I don’t care about, but had to deal with anyways.
The irony to all this. My last posting on active duty put me square in the middle of political hell, with a unit on constant deployment on peacekeeping missions but trying to kid itself that it was still combat ready. The division had only a few sane officers, one being thankfully the CG. A lot of other senior staff still believed that 3 years in Bosnia and 2 in Kosovo made the unit a stronger fighting force…when they also knew that they hadn’t practiced their wartime mission in 5 years…So they kidded themselves, kidded each other, and tried to blow smoke up the CG’s ass. I truly enjoyed working for him…he called their bluff by sending them to the field for months on end, watching them fail and fail, trying to mentor them back into a warfighting stature though the battalion commanders were company commanders on the same peace keeping missions. Instead of trying to solve the problems and become a fighting force, however, a lot of officers went the other direction and started blaming everyone else for their lacking. And once that started it became a frenzy. It very quickly filtered down to the NCO’s as well, and the same thing happened. Training ceased, posturing started…
Then I get here, to this place. I’ve written about here enough to paint that picture. I’m just curious…how in the world did I end up here? Why am I lucky enough to survive severe accidents, being shot, stabbed, fragged, and having a 500lb bomb dropped on me with little or no serious damage
Pet Peeves
1.. Being woken up in the middle of the night to fix a computer problem, to find out it’s someone’s personal computer. If I ask if they plan on paying me to fix it, they give me a stupid look and ask, But I thought this was your job?…
2. Having imbecile that get to make the rules because simply, they get paid more than I do.
3. Have those same idjuts make dozens of worthless rules a week, simply to validate their existence.
4. Having half those rules contradict the other half.
5. Having people who know absolutely nothing about your job try and micromanage you.
6.. micromanagers who think that because I can fix some problems in a matter of seconds, that everything should be fixed that way.
7. Having said micromanager demand that propagation of one db server to another shouldn’t ever take 30 hours, even though it’s 70GB’s of information on a server that can’t be brought down off service to do the propagation, but it should only take 2 hours because he/she read somewhere that in a static, non production environment it only takes that long.
8. Having idjut manager get the credit for training me soooo well in my job, that all of a sudden I’ve surpassed him in knowledge….all of a sudden hey.
9. Walking almost 2 miles in 100+ degree temps, while watching a ton of overpaid staffers driving to work in gov’t owned suburbans, and no passengers, pass you up, and they work in the same area as you.
10. People who can’t read or spell.
11. People who forget their password on a DAILY basis. They can’t even get it right when I write it down for them, tell them that it’s against best practices, yada yada yada, don’t lose this password. They don’t, and still can’t get it right whilst looking at the goddamn paper.
12. Having an officer demand that I come over to his section (only a half mile away) to show him how to fuckin reboot his goddamn machine.
13. Said officer gets pissed when I call the guy next to him to reboot Major soandso’s machine. Pissed because even though I got the job done, I didn’t do it personally.
14. Living in a building with 57 other men, never being able to turn on the lights to see anything because someone may be offended…
15. Said offended person saying it makes no sense that I’d get annoyed because I can’t see a goddamn thing, and I have to carry a flashlight in a new $100k mini-warehouse with a perfectly good lighting system.
16. Grown men who haven’t gotten off their mom’s nipple, yet.
17. Grown men who apparently can’t aim their fuckin dicks and piss in a damn whole instead of all over the goddamn toilet.
18. Grown men who need to wipe their ass with no less than one whole roll of shit tickets and clog the goddamn toilets, everyday.
19. Having to adhere to speed limits like 20 km/hr or slower on every road, and having a battalion of MP’s actually enforcing these dumb rules.
20. Knowing that the D-Day invasion order was hand written on 6 pages of notebook paper, and somehow we got the mission done, but having a 93 page document on how I am going to live in my 7′x6′ area doesn’t seem to be going a bit overboard.
I’ve been trying over the past few months to decide what is the reason we’re here. I think it all could come down to a simple validation. The US government needed to validate the reason for the existence of us, needed to validate new TTP’s, needed to validate with the world community that we’re the super power. I’m not trying to say that gaining validation is bad. Everyone seeks it in their own regard, and techniques have to be in order to be feasible and worth the risk. The whole process of validation has seemed to get so, so distorted over here. It’s redefined reality in many ways, and not just for us. We have redefined the reality of a whole other Country. Sometimes, I’m not proud to wear this uniform. When I first put on this uniform, and the first 8 or 9 years wearing it, I actually felt like we were doing the right thing. We protected those in which couldn’t protect themselves. We stopped, or at least tried to stop (Somalia) the corrupt and greedy few from slaughtering the rest for no other reason than that they could. We stepped in, gave ourselves as targets, and fought back. The missions were simple, clear, and concise. Protect the weak, reduce the weapons, make the land more forgiving (demining ops), and reduce the negative influence that will detract from the overall goal, having a peaceful people coexisting with one another. It’s not always a clean and simple operation, it was always plenty messy, but I always felt that even though we didn’t have the God given right to do this, we were obligated by creed and humanity to do so.
Now, though, it seems we’re trying to shove a square block into the triangle hole. We’re not realizing for some unknown reason that this will never work. The more we push, the more damage to both the block and the hole we’re doing. Force only works if the probability of compatibility is high. I’ll never blame the soldier for this. I’m sure there are thousands that feel that they’re doing the right thing, and a lot of them probably are, in small little pockets.
Here in Kuwait, things just get surreal. The over abundance of officers seeking so badly to have a valid reason in life make conditions here damn near intolerable. No amount of Starbucks and Pizza-huts will ever compensate for the fact that they can’t see past themselves. This is a post full of Mid-life crisis men and menopausal women, coming to the age when they are driven by their insecurities, that are making, creating the law here. They know there is no oversight, they know that what they say is law. They don’t seem to know, realize that everyone here is an adult, that we haven’t lived the past 30 years because we had a babysitter but because we know how to wipe our own asses and look both ways when we cross the street.
I’m done for now. I have work to do…
