while I like the idea, I am pretty sure that desire alone is not what
it takes to get published. I appreciate the confidence, but I don't
really look forward to the day when I am told that if I had just
applied myself I'd have had a book deal. What's that self-pitying
tone? It must be time for an Update!
I think it is time, or at least that we have come far enough through
this together, that I can start talking about coming home. Everyone
here has been talking about that return journey for weeks now and the
topics that are cropping up again and again: What will I eat? How many
times will I have sex with my spouse? What movies will I see? How many
strangers will I attempt to have sex with? (That's more the single
guys, but you can see where it would be pertinent after 6 months of
not.) It's not all hedonism. Lots of people see the end of their debts
and the start of new lives. People are leaving here and going to new
duty-stations. Some of them are going to new schools, new professional
jobs within the Navy. There's a lot of hope on the backside of this
trip.
Closing it out, we're all tired. Everyone is tired of having spent 7
months away from home, six months doing the same job every day,
without breaks. I've worked every night for 6+ months. That's a long
time to do that. Getting home will be happiness, but we still have
about 2 weeks of being here, being close together actually. We're all
moving into open-bay tents, all the men, all the women, two tents.
It's good, in that it is closer to home, but it's rotten in all the
regular ways that these things are rotten.
We're not going to get to go back to the tents after work tomorrow
morning. They are fumigating the tents where we all sleep at about
0730. Everyone has to be up and out for a couple of hours after they
do it, till the tents are habitable again. It's a good thing for the
folks who'll be here in the summer, and it's not bad for the rest of
us either. The fellows and I will all be going to breakfast together.
It's the first time we've done that since the day we got here. At that
point we were starving for American food. 2 weeks on a British Army
base, eating the sorry excuse for food that the Brits eat, some real
bacon was heaven. It's less of a treat now, but it'll be nice to get
to hang out together.
I watched Serpico this week, which I'd never watched before. I
actually watched it, coincidentally, on the day that Sidney Lumet
died. It's a good movie. It's about the idea that institutions that
have authority need to be also brought under scrutiny. And I think
that that's true. I think that there is value in that idea. I think
that the institution that is the US military is inadequately
scrutinized. This last week there was nearly a governmental shutdown,
and the military, those stalwart exemplars of volunteerism and duty,
whined and cried at the idea of postponing a paycheck. Now, I will be
the first to admit that missing a paycheck stings. But I've also
worked a lot of places, worked a lot of jobs. You might say that I am
well-rounded or you might say that I am bad at a lot of jobs, but
either way, that experience has offered me the opportunity to know
that a postponed paycheck just means a little lean time. And a little
lean time is not the end of the world.
I appreciated the sense of humor on display, lots of Soldiers and
Marines making "Will Work For Food" signs, offering to sell MRAPs,
etc. That's all in good fun. But we're all men and women, with the
emphasis on maturity. We're individuals who volunteered to put our
lives on the line, and while I can appreciate being frustrated by not
getting paid for it when that's the deal, you're telling me you're
willing to die for your country, but only if the paycheck shows up on
time? We're not a mercenary force, or we shouldn't be. It's
unfortunate that it appears that we cannot retain a professional
demeanor in our nation's time of difficulty.
And that brings me back around to Serpico. It isn't that there isn't
enough money in the DOD budget to pay troops, even with a pay-period
skipped. The money that the DOD receives is fantastic. But so is the
waste. The same show of enlisted and junior unprofessional-ism that
was on display last week, on Facebook and MySpace and Tumblr and
Flickr, is evident in the spending practices of the official levels of
the DOD.
We have an excess of money for this year? Let's spend it on
wide-screen TVs. We have a budgeting officer who saved the Department
$10,000? Fire him and find a way to spend that money before anyone
finds out that we didn't need it, or we won't get it next year. It is
fraud, waste and abuse. But it is consistent with the way business is
done in the military. And that means that we need a Serpico. Or, maybe
we need more than that. Serpico was one guy and what his testimony did
was help expand the Internal Affairs divisions in police forces
everywhere. That's the benefit. That's what needs to happen.
Leaving here just helps to see what it looks like. There are flaws.
I'm sure that that's not a shock to anyone. Huge organizations are
notoriously inefficient. The military is just another one of those.
For more of the Afghan Updates, or any I failed to send you, please visit:
http://dustintheeverything.blogspot.com/?zx=ee6fac97810abcfc
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