A Reprimand

Today I was pretty busy down at the shop doing real work installing things as opposed to office work. One of my battalion’s first lieutenants came in to the office sign some paperwork, an action which today I was not involved with, thankfully. On the way down to the shop, the lieutenant had stopped by one of our local Hajji shops and bought a Hajji vision DVD that had eight movies for the price of one. Hajji vision is the semi-racist slang for pirated DVD’s which are usually sold for a dollar. Most are one movie for a dollar, but you can also buy multiple movies on one DVD where you sacrifice quality for quantity while still getting the great low price. They are almost always high enough quality that you can make out the plot. (I have only seen about four or five movies on Hajji vision and have never bought any even though it is a win-win situation for the buyer and the seller. Maybe the producer loses out, but two out of three winning must be okay, right?)

So everyone is looking at the newest purchase which is a collection of eight Oscar nominees: Chariots of Fire, Rocky, the Deer Hunter, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Next, and some others. I had seen exactly one of the movies, Chariots of Fire. Everyone thought this was completely unacceptable. I was accused of Communism, un-Americanism, and being culturally deficient, a berating that took close to a quarter of an hour. I’ll accept guilt on one of those counts. So the lieutenant gives me the disk (forces it on me, really) and tells me that I have to watch the rest of the movies. I bargained my way out of having to give written reports. In an attempt to be more culturally proficient, I will blame my cultural deficiency on my parents, my economic circumstances growing up, and on being a white male. If I hadn’t forgotten the DVD down at the office I would get started on cultural proficiency training tonight.

Gone, But Not Forgotten

As the new academic year starts at USNA, I know that I am not completely forgotten. In addition to still being on the Math Department email distro list, Koichi, who last year was certified as the greatest teacher at USNA, has gotten most of my old students together and made a DVD for me. Thanks for brightening my day.

Jointness

Yesterday for dinner I ate in the DFAC which is slightly out of the ordinary, but football was on the TV so I decided against taking carry-out to my room. The best seat I could get was next to two Air Force majors. One of them noticed that my uniform said Navy so we started chatting. They were both impressed that the Navy would “let me out of my career field so early.” As they were both majors and thus concerned about how every job they get will affect their career, it is starting to make sense to me why they thought I must be special to get to work with the Army, and that I was luck to be out here so young.
In 1987, the Nichols-Goldwater Defense Act instituted a requirement for “joint experience” to advance beyond a certain level. This really does make sense. You wouldn’t want the highest level decision makers in the Navy to understand only, for instance, the tactical employment of submarines. So the Department of Defense instituted two phases of Joint Military Professional Education (JPME I and II) that you should complete by the time you make O-5 and O-6, and as a requirement to make flag rank you have to serve in a joint billet. These billets have been traditionally difficult to get assigned to early in your career because more senior people need them to advance and when you’re a young submariner you should be learning the tactical employment of submarines instead of how to lead infantry. Billets that were designated as joint also tended to be broader in scope, not focused on the day to day employment of troops but on, for instance, the employment of large portions of the Army and how it fit together with the Navy in the grand scheme of making war. Again, this all fits with the idea that Nichols and Goldwater had in mind. As an example of a joint command, the Strategic Command in Omaha has about equal numbers of Air Force and Navy personnel since we both have strategic nuclear weapons. There are also some Army and Marines thrown in, I’m sure. The commander of StratCom used to switch between a Navy admiral and an Air Force general, but the last commander was actually a Marine. Going there was my second choice to teaching at USNA, but even if I had gone there I would not have gotten credit for serving my joint tour because I would have been in a job that was too narrow in scope to see how the Navy fit in with the big picture. There were only certain jobs that got the joint credit because they had a wide enough scope to see how the different services all contributed to the whole national strategic objective. It was a career hurdle that was a pain to get, but it really did make sense.
“So why can I so freely admit that something the military does make sense?” those who think I’m cynical may ask. Is it really me writing? I can say that the Goldwater-Nichols joint service requirement makes sense because they completely changed it this year. Like anything involving government that was not broken, after twenty years of good service we must find a way to break it. The old requirement for joint service did not “capture the broad experiences that many officers were having while conducting the global war on terror.” Something that sounds that well thought out usually precedes a strike by what is known as the “good idea fairy.” The good idea fairy that human tendency which causes people to make changes to a system that is working fine based on no relevant experience. For some reason congress changed Goldwater-Nichols so that there is now a point system which weights your experience and gives a certain credit to different experiences. The result is that I am getting joint credit right now. Let me say that again for all of you more senior officers who struggled to get the right billet: I am getting joint credit. Furthermore, since my joint credit is in a warzone, I get three points a month whereas an O-4 in a previously joint billet would get only one point a month. This is supposedly good for my career, but it is utterly ridiculous.
Here is my “joint experience”: I have been rented out by the Navy to the Army to fill a job that involves turning wrenches and working on a box with three switches and a USB connection. My joint command is headed up by a bunch of guys who are not from a variety of services to reflect the true joint nature of our armed forces, but are all Army. I just happen to be a Navy guy who is stuck with the Army. What am I learning about the Army that will give me a broader understanding of how the services work together to accomplish the National Command Authority’s goals? The first thing I have learned is that the Army generals who invited me out here think that their people are so untrainable that they cannot learn to operate a box with three switches and a USB connection free of Navy supervision. I have learned that the Army thinks the Navy doesn’t contribute to national security because our deployments are not 15 months. I have learned that they whine like two year olds about 15 month deployments. I have learned that most members of the Army are completely entertained by the Navy rank of Seaman and can find hours of amusement making jokes about sailors of that rank. And what has the Army learned about the Navy? I don’t know for sure, but I would guess nothing since by their own generals’ admissions they are untrainable.
That may be a little harsh. I’m sure they’ve learned to resent the Navy, too. Afterall, we only deploy for six months to hop from liberty port to liberty port. They would probably also say something about the Navy not having a PT uniform. The whole point of this is that this is not at all professionally enhancing and it is a travesty that I get joint credit for it.

Bound to Happen

Explosions! Fire! Destruction! Living in a war zone, it is just a matter of time, and two days ago was my time. Yes, my building was “got.”
We had a voltage spike from 220 to over 400 volts on the generator that supplies my barracks. It wreaked havoc on our building. One of the switchboards started smoking. The air conditioner was down for at least five hours. Many people lost everything. Well, they lost their DVD players, TV’s, personal refrigerators, and some even lost their alarm clocks. I got off easy – only lost a power supply to my computer which I replaced for $35 – but that is only because I don’t have a TV or refrigerator. The internet, which I got rid of, was down for a day which almost gave me the feeling that I would suspect an investment broker would get when he sells a stock right before it crashes.
We’re recovering. The AC is back, and people are managing without big screen TV’s. Just goes to show that no matter how much steak and lobster you have, war is hell.

Someone Knows This Is A Big Week

I’m writing this on 11 August which is my anniversary. I just got off the phone with my lovely bride of six years. The irony that it her anniversary is on the same day as mine confirms that we are MFEO as they say in the shows. Here’s another bit of irony. Even though today is Saturday we had chapel tonight as tomorrow is yet another memorial service. (Audible sigh. Those really get old quickly.) So tonight we had church, and as I said, today is our anniversary. Irony of ironies, the text comes from 1 Corinthians 13 – the love chapter. And if that is not enough, as an illustration of the “when I was a child, I used to think as a child…” part of the passage, the chaplain describes how at a first birthday party it is cute when the kid dumps her face in the cake, but you would think something is wrong if a twelve year old did the same thing. So the love chapter on my anniversary, and the illustration of a first birthday on the week of Sarah’s first birthday. What are the odds of those two things being on a church service held on Saturday which also happens to be my anniversary? Spooky.

One Bright Spot

If the World War II raw recruit was a hayseed (I remember my grandpa telling stories about drill instructors calling cadence with “Straw foot, hay foot” instead of left/right because many farm boys didn’t know the difference between left and right), then the raw recruit of this war is a punk. No example necessary. But they are fun. About a week after I get here, I was shaving in the bathroom and this pimply face kid notices my navy shirt and starts talking to me. He must have really needed to hear his voice, because he tells me all about how he grew up in Asia, had spent time in the Philippine militia, and how he didn’t really agree with having to call officers sir. He was a likeable enough guy, but he was really a self-centered punk. He told me how he was not really meshing with his unit, but how that didn’t really matter because he was just in the Army to pad his resume so he could get a job with the “contractors.” I assume he meant CIA or some soldier of fortune organization that he had seen on TV. He was a real character, but I can only say that because he was someone else’s problem child. If I had been his platoon sergeant, I would have popped him in the jaw.
I saw the same kid again in the bathroom yesterday. He remembered me because he said, “You’re an officer, right?” (Obviously he was still not big on the sir thing, but there are really more interesting things to be concerned about in my mind, too. Not having to care about those types of things is one advantage of being with a service whose professional future you really don’t give two hoots about.) I had no rank on as I was about to take a shower. I said, “And you’re the guy who used to be in the Philippine militia.” He said, “Last time we talked, I was really having some problems in my company, but I’m not any more.” He went on to tell me how his company was doing (they have taken no KIA’s, and he is rightfully proud of that since they are in a particularly bad neighborhood.), how he was reenlisting to get orders to Korea, and quite a bit more especially considering that I really just wanted to take a shower. The change in his attitude, no more chip-on-the-shoulder all-about-me tone, was really refreshing.
There is no doubt that this war is messing up a lot of people physically and mentally. It is not easy going from a garrison environment on the FOB to a war zone outside the wire once a day, and there are some really bitter, disillusioned folk in this area. But this war is also shaping a generation of punks into a higher quality of punk than they would have been otherwise with a little bit more of an appreciation for what they have and for the other people around them.

Tut, Tut! Looks Like Rain

Not really, but there were some clouds in the sky today in the middle of the day. It was not cloudy in the “portends of precipitation*” type way. They were more of a “there is hope that somewhere in the atmosphere there is moisture” type of cumulus-nimbus types of clouds. I’m not the most observant, but I don’t think there are many clouds during the day. It has been a balmy 109F which is a welcome break. I no longer feel like all of my flesh is burning off as soon as I step outside which is another much appreciated change.

*I do not know if portends should be followed by “of” or not. Brandon? Tim? Dad?