Of Pens and Swords

Me Strong. Maybe this is to help recruit the kids who graduated high school but can’t quite grasp the ability to read so much…since the Army is doubling it’s allocated amount of below average test scorers. So, it’s only going to 4%. I agree that it’s not a test score that says how well you can soldier, but man, nowadays with being scattered to the four winds, the Army needs people that are more intelligent, not less.

I really can’t wait for the next 6.5 years to pass so I can retire. The Army has taken a nose dive like it did post Vietnam, and I’m frankly tired of it. Promotions are based on the ass-to-hickey ratio instead of merit and potential it seems, with puppies being promoted so fast that they’re barely able to keep up with the demands of two ranks ago, much less leading a squad.

I know I’m talking more on the REMF side of the house. I’m sure the Infantry, Arty and tank worlds are keeping the standards, since it’s more or less their real life asses on the line, and not just an award for half ass doing your job.

All Your Base are Belong to Us! Army Strong!

Next, we’ll have a black circle with a gold outline, since it’s too hard to make a Converse Star.

We get there Monday to set up the camp at a local lake here. Mainly, it was setting up a lot of tents, the large tents that the Army likes to use. Being a light-fighter, a tent for me is usually a poncho bungee’d to my ruck and to a tree, or to a buddies ruck, 18″ or closer to the ground, and camouflaged. The ones here are big, heavy, and half of them I think saw service in the jungles of Vietnam…they’re old hehe. Then I came home after that.
Tuesday is when the kids arrived. All 140 or so of them. I have tent Blue 4, along with a deputy that works at the county jail named Denny. We got 8 kids altogether, from all over town. We had the few inner city kids, a couple mommas boys, and a couple that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was interesting to see a wide variety of personalities, and how they worked together. It also showed me that for the most part, the kids wanted to both fit in to their group, and to do their best. It seems to be inherent.
Some of the kids seemed to be starved for attention, and giving them that little attention brought out the best in them. One kid was the typical ‘I Can’t’ kid…everything that was more challenging than standing up, he always said that he couldn’t do it. We did push ups, and he said he couldn’t, so I had him drop to his knee’s and do them that way…he wouldn’t climb the wall, says that he couldn’t…I made him suit up anyways, reassured him that absolutely nothing was going to happen to him….the tug-of-war, he said he couldn’t, he wasn’t strong enough. By the end of the second day, he was up to 20 regular push ups, pretty much because he saw that he was the only one doing them on his knees…I let him know that the day before, he said he couldn’t do 1…the tug-of-war, I made him the anchor, and I let him know that he was a big part in our team winning against a much older and much bigger group, and the climbing wall, although he didn’t get to the top, he did get about 10 ft up, or about 1/3 up…something else he said he couldn’t do. I didn’t even say he had to do any of them, but I did want him to participate. Another kid, came there being a loudmouth and not listening, but by the end of it, he was seriously starting to take charge of the group. Instead of being the instigator in some of the problems, he was trying to solve them.
We had a couple kids who didn’t participate much…one, he started out strong, but the last day and a half, he just seemed to give up. I’m not sure why…he didn’t participate in any of the activities really, he refused to listen to both his peers and to the counselors…he wanted things his way or no way…Another kid, I sort of felt a little bad for him. I talked to his mom and his mom’s friend, and it just seems that he was completely sheltered from everything. It didn’t help that he was the smallest of the group, and it also didn’t help that he was on ADHT medication for the school year, and cut off right before he got out there…but after getting him the opportunity to shine in front of the other kids, and a little positive re enforcement, he finished strong.

We took the kids fishing for a little bit. It was in a couple little stock ponds, so it’s a guarantee that you’ll catch something, but I don’t think any of my kids had ever been fishing before. They all caught at least a couple of fish, and man you could see both the excitement of the catch and the fear of what to do next :) Even the couple of kids who initially didn’t want to fish were out there catching a few. It was a good time.

Overall, I noticed that the kids who had friends already made friends easily, but the kids who didn’t have any, and spent the majority of their time inside playing on the computer or PlayStation, they are the ones who had the most difficult time in adjusting. I also noticed the difference in the kids who had siblings as opposed to the ones who didn’t…they were flat up spoiled if they were the single kid.

I had fun though. Our team won 3 of the 4 competitions, and would have won the fourth (I believe) but there was a little nepotism involved…can’t beat that I guess.

We had a bit of a storm blow through on Thursday night, no rain, just gusts. One of the gusts, about 2am caught everybody by surprise. We were all outside (the counselors), just getting ready to get a little sleep, when all of a sudden the temp dropped about 10 degrees. We knew that something was coming. A lot of us had buttoned up the tents earlier, made sure the lines were tied tight, but some of them still had their sides up. As soon as the temp dropped, a couple of us knew that something was coming, and decided to start getting the tents buttoned up. I saw one tent, wide open, and started to it, grabbing somebody along the way to help. As soon as I said we had to drop the sides on the tent so it didn’t blow over, a nice 50mph gust came along and took that tent right down…We ran over, made sure none of the kids were hurt, and started to evac the kids to the shelter at the rifle range, about 2 miles away. that was fun…140 some kids complaining ;) We got the rest of the tents all buttoned up, the kids out of there. About 15 minutes after we got all the kids over there, we were cleared to come back…overall, about 2 hours had passed from getting them out of the rack to back in.

That was about the extent of last week. 4 days 3 nights of that. I’ll be going back if given the opportunity.

Other breaking news…Jessica and I got married on Monday. It was a little civil marriage, just us, the kids, and a couple of friends. I’m feeling pretty good about it. I got pretty lucky with Jessica. 2 years into it, a deployment that lasted 13 months, moving twice to areas she’s never lived, and she just rolls with it. I know that every relationship has ups and downs, but we really haven’t seen a down yet. We’re pretty much on the same level with everything, and it makes things automatically comfortable. She also doesn’t blow things out of proportion, trying to mix drama and more stress into things (and I hope that I don’t either hehe) that area already stressful, but instead figures out the logical process of fixing the problem. I know that I got lucky. A lot more so than a lot of guys I know.

Anyways. This week, it’s back to work. I had a week of catching up to do, but since the week before I left for LAW camp and all the prep work done then, I had everything caught up by lunch Monday. I have a problem or two that I’m still working on, but for the most part, I’m completely caught up, even on my side projects that I’ve been working on. A few blueprints to make, logical network diagrams to produce, and I’ll be sitting pretty. It’ll be a good thing to leave this job, whenever I happen to do that, with the feeling that the next guy or girl taking this job will have a well documented and thoroughly explained group of airports to manage. It’s something that I wish I had when I took over.

I do feel like I’ve made a damn good contribution here though. Being an IT guy that has the responsibility of everything from being the CIO to being the desk side support, it can be both hectic and frustrating. Having a table full of tasks and projects that have to get done creates the hectic part. Having a user come up every 10 minutes and interrupting your work is the frustrating part. When I complain about spending 40 hours getting 2 hours of work done, I’m not kidding. There are documents that I have actually had to make line by line, because that’s the time I get. Type a sentence, and someone needs help. Get back, breathe, type a sentence, and someone needs reassurance. Get back, type a sentence, and someone forgot how to hit the caps-lock key so they can type in their password…It sucks that some days I feel completely under-appreciated and questioned as to why something isn’t done yet, but the days like yesterday when I finally got the security system up fully, and having the senior staff here very happy about that, makes it worth while.

Anyways, other than work, I have the National Guard to deal with. I guess it’s not really ‘dealing’ with it so to speak, it’s just that it takes a little more time than I want it to sometimes. Just not having a weekend occasionally. The unit itself is brand new, one of two of this type of unit in the whole National Guard (all 50 states, PR, so forth) so it’s a little exciting in that regards. The challenge comes with it just being a NG unit, and having people with the NG mindset…not wanting to do anything or contribute to the greater whole of the unit, people who take the drill weekend as an excuse to get drunk and come to work in the morning barely being able to stand, sometimes getting sick…It gets frustrating at times like when I put together a class to give people a little refresher for weapons qualification, nobody participated. It’s even worse when people who are legally considered adults make the same type of excuses that a 3 year old girl makes when they don’t want to do something. I can’t shoot because I had too much coffee and I’m jittery, or I can’t because the sun is in my eyes, or I can’t because I need practice…My response to the first two was simple….you’re jittery now? how jittery do you think you’ll be when someone is shooting at your ass…ahh, the sun is in your eyes, well that’ll never happen in a combat situation, because we usually put in a request for dimmer sunlight prior to an operation…yes, it’s the same form we use when we get it to rain on you in the field…and the third one, the one I think I loved the most…I can’t practice because I need practice. Apparently, this person is over their head as soon as their feet hit the floor in the morning.

We have a lot of good people in the unit though. We have 2 semi-Fullers, not quite as bad as the real thing, but they’re still hero’s in their own mind. And after both of them have been in the NG for 10 years, wow, with all that experience under their belts (almost a full year, non-contiguous), who am I to argue…The only thing I dislike more than new privates, and even more than new Female privates, are Hero’s…the good thing is that privates can be trained correctly if given the time, and Hero’s usually are the first ones off the battlefield, in one way or another. Some assault MG positions with their Leather man, and some just quit early, because war just isn’t what it is in the movies, and they get scared. About the other people in the unit though. We have a lot of good guys and girls who actually try to do the right thing, the Army way, not the “I’ve been here in this very unit for 15 years and we always done it this way” way. It’s refreshing. It’s also more comfortable for me. Even though I don’t have the systems I’m supposed to manage at this unit (quite similar to my old unit), at least the 1SG and the command let me (try) train people, and get involved.

I am volunteering for a week to work a Law Camp, for adolescent kids. It’s also tying into my NG time as well, so I don’t have to worry about doing a 2 week AT this summer. I have another week sometime late august to complete my 2 weeks. It’s nice to have a little flexibility in this, this year at least.

And now, its time for the random thoughts section:

Ever notice how the more nice you try and make society, the more jacked up it becomes. Look at the schools for instance. We try and make it to where more teachers speak Spanish to help the Latino kids to pass, and to help them not learn English, and they drop out more than ever. Look at just our society…people no longer have to take responsibility for their actions, because the government makes an excuse for them. Now, instead of having inner city people trying to get a job, quit selling drugs, quit shooting each other, they don’t have to, because blacks were slaves 200 years ago.

Ever meet that one person who takes an infatuation with something or someone, and try to shape their lives around it? They live around the premise that an infatuation can be made into something real….You can’t live off of chocolate alone…all I want to say is that infatuation is fleeting, why sacrifice the rest of your life on something you know really isn’t there.

I had to get my drivers license renewed. Not a big deal, though the line was long. The whole time standing in line, I never once saw a sign that says that it’s against the law to use turn signals in Kansas, or multiple lane changes at high speed for no apparent reason is a rewarded way of driving here. Yet, I see these non-driving fools do it many times a day here…

I noticed today that sometimes I have a hard time trying to collect my thoughts when talking to one person, and making a concise statement. But when put on the spot in front of a group of people, I’m razor sharp. Maybe it’s the questions I have a problem with, and not the size of the group….hmm.

I like steak. Not an infatuation.

apparently I don’t know how to spell apparently without spell-check…