Yesterday I got a phone call from the headquarters for all the Navy EWO's out here asking for LT Wagner. There is no LT Wagner on FOB Rustamiyah, but I'm not too surprised that my overlords didn't know that: I'm not even on their contact roster yet, and I've only been here 40+ days. They didn't have the mailing address for my base before I got here, and I still don't think they do. I don't think they have a database to put it in if I sent it to them. I'm surprised they even know they have EWO's out in the field.
The most disappointing part of this IA experience has not been getting sent here. I do not resent the people who chose me (although I do think their reasoning was what you would expect from 3 people who have been in the Navy for a total of 70+ years and maybe have 2 deployments between them), but I do resent the little things that have not been done, little things that don't matter except to say that I'm still on somebody's radar. For instance, no one in my chain of command except my immediate boss ever gave any of us in the IA group from USNA even 5 minutes of their time to say that they appreciated what we were doing. My fitness report has not been sent out to me or even discussed with me via email. The group I came to out here did not have our billets assigned until after we had arrived. Even though I replaced a guy who had been in the system 11 month, the Navy did not have the foresight to let me know I was going until 27 days before I left. The current failure of leadership from the Navy's premier leadership institution is that the submarine detailer is coming to the yard as I found out through a mass email, but the head submariner has not contacted either me or the other USNA sub-JO to ask if their is anything we need from him. I'd probably say no because if the detailer knew what I wanted it would just give him more time how to scheme to keep me from getting it.
All of these things would not change my situation, but they would at least let me know that my bosses know who I am, let alone where I am. Traditionally the military deploys as units and there is a sense of cohesion that goes along with that. A captain will not let anything too bad happen to you because it will happen to him, also. I get the sense that I am more a soldier of fortune out on my own, being a free agent to the highest bidder who does not pay that well. As I was walking to chapel (Chaplain DuCharme was excellent, btw), I was thinking about this post and the phrase "professionally abandoned" was going to figure prominently. Interestingly, a line in one of the songs we sang said "persecuted, not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed." That line made me think about the BN Bible study on Joseph. Last week he was in prison, and he asked the baker and wine taster "Why do you look sad?" Personally, I think that is either a) a rhetorical question to someone in prison, or b) a game they must have played every day: who can name the most bizarre reason to be sad in a dungeon today? The exegesis behind the daily question game theory (besides the fact that they are in prison) is that the answer is bizarre: we don't have a dream interpreter. If I were Joseph, I would have given up right there and let them have that round. How do you top that one? There are alot of things I could think that I'd miss in prison, but not in a thousand years would I have said a dream interpreter. No clean clothes? an uncomfortable bed? missing my family? rats running over me at night? Bubba my cell-mate has inadequate hygeine? Those are reasons to look sad in prison. If the only thing you can come up with is a dream interpreter, you've got to be playing games. Interestingly, as bizarre as that was, it was the one area where God had communicated a promise to Joseph and then had gone one step further than not fulfilling it: He had put Joseph in a position where hope of fulfillment was abandoned. It would have been so easy for Joseph to laugh that reason to be sad off, but by his answer it looks like Jo had a "persecuted, not abandoned" mindset.
Does this mean I don't care if I ever see my fitrep? No. Do I still wish that some submariner would spontaneously remember me in Iraq and ask me if there is anything I would like from the detailer? Sure. Those are leadership failures that are inexcusable. The people who execute those failures, though, can not abandon. I don't even want to challenge the creators of the IA by saying they cannot persecute with the best of them, but that's all they can do - strike down without destroying.
