Riding Dolphins

Everyone hates their job? I call bullshit.

But, as of the last few months, I am firmly in the 'hates their job' category. I could say it's disillusion of faith in the organization, the mission, the way said non-mission is being handled. But I don't want any of that to be ammunition for the wannabe neo-hippies. Because when I say 'mission' I don't mean Dubya's crusade. I belittle it by the name, but in the end, I understand that most undeducated (or even over-educated sheep) don't give it credit for what it actually is. The foreign policy we have been enacting over the last few years is not--as the neo-hippies' simplifications insist--an act of evil by a cabal of super villains. Contrary to the intellectually-lazy, knee-jerk cries of being led by a 'dumb president,' the former administration did indeed hold a valid theory concerning a democratic Iraq bringing about a stable Middle East. A lynch pin of vague democracy in bordering Afghanistan and Iraq would certainly look interesting on an Iranian map. These aren't ideas borne of Lex Luthor's bald head. These are ideas of scholars and intellectuals and policy wonks, not the unclean masses. That would be the issue, though. [Correctly] Assuming the American public is too dense to understand a far-reaching, long-term solution that extends well beyond any sitting administration's stay, Dubya wrapped the whole thing under the 'WMD' excuse. Most (read: not Joe Sixpack) knew otherwise, understanding the sound theory--whether or not they agreed of its viability. So there's the rub: a policy that has a sound background, that was framed with something Joe Sixpack could understand. Unfortunately that frame fell apart. And the actual painting still had its detractors. Whatever, my beef still has to do with the leadership. A good leader gets people to do things because they want to do it, not because they are forced to do it. That administration didn't have the chops. Whether or not you, or history, judges the poilicy on Iraq as a long-term success is irrelevant in the case of the success of presidential leadership. If he were a great leader, the American people and its allies would have been behind it. I'm not saying it was easy, to make the understatement of the century. The media alone were a formidable opponent to any such intentions. Don't think I'm making a statement one way or another about whether or not this policy was correct. I'm not an apologist here. I only point out that the most vocal critics of it are knee-jerk 'tards that simplify things to 'Republicans evil' or 'war bad.'

Oh boy, that was a ridiculous side thought. What started off as a job rant turned into leadership analysis and my devolving to policy apologist. So. Yeah. I hate my job.

I have a list. One that I couldn't possibly enumerate in a satisfactory way. Let's start with mission. I'm not focusing on 2003, but here in the middle of [censored], Iraq as of 2009. I'll self censor again, here, but let's just say that the Army is the largest bureaucracy in the world. THe military is one big, dumb silverback gorilla. I say nothing about the organization's or individuals' level of competence and intelligence (Read: smarts). But the bureaucracy is completely incapable, it seems, to readjust battalions or brigades. If a battalion is not needed in one place, it cannot be flexed home. If a brigade shows up, completes its mission, and/or finds a mission that has dried up, there are no provisions for it to do anything about it. That's understandable on the grounds of the logistical and financial nightmare that it is to move something like a Heavy Mechanized Brigade Combat Team. But it doesn't mean I like it. Worse, a brigade set to deploy is deploying; there's no possibility, apparently, of a commander telling the powers-that-be that the replacement unit is not necessary, that they can stay home or go elsewhere. I do not know if this is on the part of individual links being powerless, the chain being powerless, or that the individual links see something I don't. Either way, I hate being jerked around on said chain.

I got here as a meat-eating combat platoon leader. Ready to kick in doors. Blow stuff up. And also to (truthfully) shake hands, kiss babies, calm shieks, build bridges. I'm a political nerd, a public policy grognard. I love the decisions, the process, and (on my immediate end) the enaction. Not to toot my own horn, but this deployment has given me more hands-on experience than the average policy wonk in Washington. Stuff that such analysts could only dream of: more on the immediate level than most diplomats to low-profile countries. And that is energizing.

But that was months ago.

Worse still, I hate the fact that I am spending more than a year living in a locker room. A bunch of sweaty dudes. Cussing, scratching, smelling terribly. I am tired of the same stupid movies, the same stupid conversations, the same stupid, filthy jokes.

I wake up every morning disappointed that I did not wake up out of a terrible dream. Every day is better than the next.

Of course, I used to be simply tired of the vague "them," rather than anyone specific. Unfortunately, I'm being tested, apparently. Enter [fake name] LT Franken. Take all of the terrible, terrible proto-Marxist distrust of Officers--i.e. them being know-nothing, meritless college brats whose family's relative social caste paid for their commission--and hyper-project it into a walking cliche. What's worse is that he's completely oblivious to his downright arrogance. To be fair, it's not a trait one normally associates with the bookish, froggy-voiced, bespectacled guy he is. But there's inherent jackassery when you go into a lecture about binary code or CD laser imagery (complete with dry-erase board diagrams), thinking it's a good conversation starter. "Yes, sergeant, listen, computers actually 'speak' in these following terms..." he says, picking up a dry-erase marker. Now, this seems alright in the context of a question asked. But how big of an asshole are you, that you so desperately go out of your way to bring us poor, useless wretches out of the pitch dark cave of idiocy you think we all live in? We're apparently so stupid that we need your daily lessons to be better people. Half of these lessons we know--which adds to how big of an asshole you look like.

"Oh, that's a song by this band called Cheap Trick."

"This Lay Mizerah-bless is a good movie. It's French for 'the miserable'."

"That sounded like it was 343.5 meters to our north. They train us that in artillery school."

And leadership tips? Thanks, LT. Led any um...people...of any kind, have you? Oh, no? hm. I guess your book knowledge trumps all of my book knowledge. Or even my--I dunno--actual experience? So apparently you can show up halfway through a deployment, make jackass remarks about how jaded you are and how much life sucks out here, not be in an actual leadership position with any actual soldiers under you, and throw on a fucking combat patch on your own arm because everyone else has one. Promote yourself while you're at it.

The thing is, I felt guilty about this a couple months ago. He has a personality that screams to be teased. I have defended him, telling others, "Aww, they're just personality quirks, he's a good guy." It was scary how much of myself I saw in him. Recently, someone told me, "See, XO, that's the thing. You're the nerd that played video games in highschool--the guy you got the cheat codes from, the guy you played Goldeneye with. The wacky, funny nerd. Franken, that was the one we beat up. The one that thinks he's smarter than you. The one that annoys everybody."

"Personality quirks," I say.

Flash forward to last week. "Hey, [spacecadet], can I have a word?" Oh. Maybe he wants some help with something.

"Sure," I say. We find somewhere away from the joes and NCOs that way I can help the kid out away from others so he won't be embarrassed.

"There's something that's been chewing away at me." Sure, ok, let's help you out, I think. But he continues into a counseling session on how he can see I can improve.

WTF? I didn't know whether to chew his ass, punch his face in, or simply walk away. I let him know that those were the reactions I was debating on. In perhaps the most lazy sarcasm produced in my lifetime, I offer him a thanks for the advice and a STFU. There was 'arrogant,' 'presumptuous,' and other such words I threw in there. It could have went worse. I'm not dickhead's peer, I'm his superior. A few minutes later I realized I simply didn't care enough about what he thought about me to make it a bigger issue than the STFU I left it as.

That's the big Eureka!, light bulb over the head moment. If I had a list of people I hated before this deployment it would sum up to a big zero. Somewhere along the way I learned to hate. How's that for a book title?

Individuals have surpassed simply getting on my nerves. There are a distinct few that have firmly established themselves under this new found emotion of mine, hate. I'm kinda disturbed by it. But then, I think it all stems from simple exhaustion. I am simply tired of it all. I talked about this to someone and he said it was that my give a fuck meter got broke (oh, and another endearing trait I picked up: the word "fuck." You'd think my "'give a damn' broke"--but no, it's now 'fuck this,' and 'fuck that.' Locker room). Makes sense. Inhibitions that come about from my trying to be pleasant default to simple apathy (in times past, I failed in that because of social retardedness--big distinction). Whatever.

I don't give a fuck.



Anyone can relate to an ad. That's what makes one successful. But, I can one-up you in this game.

Hate going to work? Check.

Coworkers don't respect you? Check.

Always wish I was somewhere else? Check.

Cry constantly? Umm...I'm still anonymous here, right? Check...

Daydream of punching small animals? Definitely, CHECK.

Sit next to THAT guy? God, yes. Check.

Make loads of money? I guess better than if I were laid off...

But my cubicle is in Iraq. I still get shot at, can't sleep in my bed every night, and that guy who you sit next to? I sleep next to him. I couldn't even see that fucking commercial until I spent weeks trying to get it to load on youtube. And this 'interwebs' luxury is the porcelain toilet for a caveman. It don't flush 100% of the time and it just got installed.

Sorry. Rant. I read somewhere that it was a rookie move to apologize on your blog. STFU. Geek cred: I've been doing this shit since honeyz be wearin sasoon.