It Ain't Like That pt. 2

 My friend Bill Foster (ET USN retired) published his $0.04 worth on his Substack after he published my piece there.  So I am publishing his here.  Add your own if you are so inclined.

Steve’s thoughts on military members following orders and performing collateral duties yesterday inspired me to write a few thoughts down.

It often surprises me the differences between military and civilian life. For instance, in the military, you have a clear path and a goal. Always. You’re an E-4 and you want to be an E-5. One of the most common things you are told is that you should be observing your boss and thinking “what do I need to do to get his job?” It’s powerful. There is always a goal and always things you can do to move in that direction. When I got out, I took a silly retail job while I looked for a “real” job. The attitude which I was consumed with of wanting your boss’s job didn’t work there at all. It was seen as threatening. In the military, your boss doesn’t care, partly because she wants her boss’s job but especially because she will be leaving soon. After all, everyone moves every 2-4 years. Later, when I got my “real” job, it was completely the opposite. There were 50 people and everyone was in their spot. There was no moving up without moving out except in certain specific cases. Again, quite a culture shock even though half of us were ex-military.

Like Steve, I wasn’t ever only responsible for my job (Electronics Technician – Calibration). At various times, I worked in the CIC, or I was a repair locker leader, a safety officer, a urinalysis coordinator (yes, that involved seeing most of the 1200 or so dicks on the ship). I was a swimmer. I ran a newspaper for two years. I played racquetball. I was public affairs officer (running the newspaper was part of that). I drove a bus to Graceland for a very short period. The point is that in the military, you are rarely supervised closely. You will have at least a couple jobs, and you will certainly hear if you mess one of them up but mostly, you just work.

Another thing that is different than most civilians expect is that the Navy was – although we didn’t call it that at the time – the most DEI, woke, socialist place I ever worked. When I was in Kosovo, someone found some Montana militia stuff and some racist songs on the computer of a dude who worked for me. He was on a plane home two days later. I am not saying there wasn’t any racism, but you are absolutely working with or for Asians, Latinos, Blacks, and Women. My first two jobs after I got out, I only worked with white men but that doesn’t happen in the Navy with its huge black population. In fact, the Army is 50% African American.

So, the composition of the military means you learn diversity and how to work with other people, but you also get taught this stuff. A LOT. Most promotions come with a 2–4-week school with units on racism and sexism. You will attend one-week schools on anger management, on drinking management, on styles of leadership that involve listening to others.

The TV stations at sea and overseas were a service called Armed Forces Radio and Television. Because the majority of the content was donated, by law they had to be commercial free. Instead, they made their own PSAs which ran instead. Don’t Drink. Exercise. Don’t hit your kids. Drive the speed limit. Do the right thing. Threse are your rights. They were incessant and annoying, but I think they were effective. I mean, they may not do much but it’s gotta be better than ten beer commercials in a row. I hated them back then but now I kinda miss them.

And I don’t want to make everything sound rosy. All this work was necessary because there were a lot of stupid people and a lot of incorrect attitudes. Misogyny was rampant. But it was much better when I retired than when I started (Look up something called Operation Tailhook for why). When I entered male homosexuality was greatly suppressed, to the degree that 20-year-old me genuinely believed there were no gays on my ship. We looked at “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” as helpful because at least after that gays could be open and they were not before. The navy was dealing with policemen who shot one another playing quick draw, marines who gave each other tattoos with coat hangers heated up on irons, marines who sexually assaulted their bulldog with radio antennas, drunk drivers killing a goat in Spain, over enthusiastic hazing etc. Those are all things I witnessed.

In the military, there are no private lives. If you get in a bar fight, your commander will know so quickly that it is better if you tell your boss before he finds out. If your wife gets three speeding tickets, you be in someone’s office getting chewed out. If your kid fails school, you’ll hear about it. People could and did get sent to another place for their family’s behavior.

Free complete health care, discounted grocery stores with no tax, free gyms, department stores tax free that could carry anything they wished, your boss knows and controls everything, educational messages on TV, mandatory behavioral training, it is truly a different lifestyle and both in good ways and bad ways, it is way more socialist than anything I experienced in America otherwise.

No Good GOPers

 If any of you were gullible enough to think that some GOPers might have grown a spine or discovered patriotism, the Blanche confirmation holdout senators have said that they find him qualified and suitable for the position.

The guy who has a financial and personal conflict of interest with the POTUS, the guy whose actions as acting AG clearly indicate he has no intention of adhering to the traditional norms of the office, the guy who refuses to act independently of the Executive Office, the guy who has ignored the law passed by Congress pertaining to the release of the Epstein files, the guy who met for hours with a pedophile enabler and abuser yet has refused to spend any time with Epstein's, Maxwell's and Trump's victims, they think that guy is qualified and suitable.

This is exactly the sort of crap that would start riots in a nation where citizens thought for themselves instead of kowtowing to state run media.

It Aint Like That

 This is primarily for those that have never served in the military.  Even if you were military adjacent, there is a solid probability that there are things you simply do not understand.  

I frequently hear or read of someone expressing some version of “All you guys can do is take orders”,  Implying that without a superior there standing over us peons, we would not know when to eat, sleep, breathe, fight or fuck.  They seem to think that everything that gets done has to have an officer’s immediate and ongoing expressed approval.

That is exactly how it was not.

I was an enlisted man in the USN for ~10 years.  I did a lot of different jobs while I was in.  Everything from the stereotypical “KP” duty which mostly involved unloading trucks and washing/peeling potatoes to training coworkers and subordinates on computer systems.  I was a Duty Driver on occasion.  I served on Shore Patrol during liberty.  I participated in UNREPs and VERTREPs (underway replenishment and vertical replenishment).  I mopped and buffed floors.  I did other relatively menial things that were not my primary job but were a duty I was assigned.  I also did do my primary job mostly while doing those other things as well. (although the KP was just in Boot Camp before I got to my primary job.)

I am unable to recall a single occasion wherein a commissioned officer ordered me to do something and then supervised me until it was done.  Hell, I cannot think of a senior NCO that did that (think Chief Petty Officer and above).  When given a new job, there MAY have been a 2nd or 1st Class Petty Officer that watched me initially but I can’t think of a specific incident and it certainly did not last past training if it happened at all.

My experiences with orders in the military were primarily with standing and/or general orders.  Once you got your assignment(s), it was up to you to get there at the assigned time.  There were SOPs for everything (usually a three ring binder or a printed book that gave the procedures for anything and everything) but no one read it to me while I worked.  A supervisor might check my work early on in a specific assignment but once they were reasonably sure I knew what I was doing, they moved on to doing other stuff that had nothing to do with me.  -- At one point I was typing up messages on teletypes so they could be transmitted via circuits to any of several recipients up to and including the POTUS.  The standard was that one person typed it and then checked it and passed it to a supervisor for a redundant check before transmitting it.  A lot of that stuff was preliminary analysis of raw intercept and/or observed behavior of other nation’s citizens/military.  So I typed a message and handed it to my supervisor for transmission.  He asked if I had checked it already.  I told him I typed it and had no need to check it.  He checked the message very closely with a look on his face that suggested that WHEN he found a mistake, I would learn a lesson that he would make sure I didn’t forget.  He didn’t find a mistake.  He didn’t find a mistake on the next one either, or the one after that.  He quit checking my work. If I typed it, he sent it.  I even occasionally went to the originating officer to suggest to them that they had left something out or worded something differently than they intended.  After about the 3rd time I did that, they said to just make the corrections and quit bothering them.

I have told a thousand folks quite honestly that I had more freedom in the military than I have ever experienced in civilian life.  I rather doubt my experience was unique.  I would think I don’t have to explain that the concepts of freedom and constant close supervision are incompatible.  I did my primary job very well.  I did my ancillary duties competently.  I was a bit of a screwup with not oversleeping and boy did I like to party but, when I was there, my work was spot on.

An individual that has to be watched/supervised constantly will not be in the military very long - at least not in the USN.  An individual that cannot or will not do anything unless and until they receive a direct order will not be in the military very long.  We are told what the job is and trained to do it.  Then we are expected to get it done even if some improvisation is required.

Y’all need to let go of the idiotic idea that everyone in the military just stands around doing nothing until they get a direct order.  In my experience, it would be difficult to be more wrong about how the military works.

Signing Up For Death

 Every year several tens of thousands of humans die as a direct result of vehicular incidents.  This has been happening for several decades.  It looks to me as though the numbers are slowly declining as more safety is engineered into cars and trucks but it remains the cause of death of several tens of thousands of Americans.  A larger but equally disturbing number of folks are injured in those incidents.

This is not information that is kept secret.  It is promulgated in driver's ed classes.  Insurance companies use the numbers in calculating your rates.  They know what effect details like the gender, age, time as a licensed driver, miles driven, vehicle age, time of day and Gawd-only-knows what else have on the likelihood of an incident and the probable severity.

It has not been my experience that anyone seriously attempts to keep this information from the public. Yet, even with all of those horrible numbers freely available, a crazy percentage of Americans between the ages of 16-80 operate motor vehicles and an even larger percentage of the whole population rides in or on a motor vehicle sporadically or frequently.

I have held a driver's license for about 55 years.  I have driven in several different countries, states, cities and neighborhoods.  I have been involved in vehicular incidents as a driver, a passenger and a witness.  

At no point in my life has anyone said within range of my hearing that a victim in a vehicular incident knew the risks when they got in the car or on the motorcycle or walked alongside a street frequented by vehicles.  We acknowledge the necessity of vehicular transportation in our culture and in general, lament  it when things go horribly wrong.

I have though, heard or seen folks opine that members of the military knew what they were signing up for.  That is the circle I am unable to square.  Why should humans that sign up for the military be held to a higher standard of planning than those who frequently and routinely undertake behaviors that have not gone a whole day without killing a human in over a hundred years.

Young humans are notoriously short-sighted and young males especially so.  Signing up for the military doesn't fix that. If those in the military "know what they were signing up for", then so does every teenager and parent that ever gets in a car or sends their child off in a car.  If you aren't ready to hear that about your little Sorority Susie or Fraternity Fred, then you do not get to say it about any member of the military.

Sympathy For The Devil

 Personally, I have no sympathy for Satan. He created the modern GOP knowing full well that he would have to put up with them when they passed. Just wait until Felon47 gets to hell, then Satan really gets what he deserves.

I mean, hell sounded pretty unpleasant before but most of that unpleasantness appeared to derive from sensitivities and shortcomings of entities with limited physical bodies. Spending an eternity with the likes of Moscow Mitch, Ms Lindsey, Felon47 et al seems like something that a powerful, non-corporeal entity would be punished with.

It is probably just a limitation of my human existence but I have trouble visualizing a sufficiently heinous crime to justify such a punishment. A few hundred years? Perhaps but, an eternity? Satan really should not have done whatever it was that caused it.

Another Word About Words

 Look, I do not like it any better than you do.  It is shameful, pandering and potentially dangerous to the security and well being of the USA.  What it is not, is unConstitutional.

"To qualify as a U.S. Senator, a candidate must be at least 30 years old, a U.S. citizen for at least 9 years, and an inhabitant of the state they represent at the time they are elected,"

Lindsey Graham's sister appears to meet the qualifications laid out in the Constitution.  Another way of saying that is that she is qualified.  I would suggest that quite likely, the overwhelming majority of SC citizens over 30 are qualified.  I would NOT however, suggest that they were all suited for the position.

According to Wikipedia, "Lindsey Graham’s sister is Darline Graham Nordone. She earned a Bachelor of Science in sociology from the College of Charleston in 1989 and later completed a Master of Arts in rehabilitation counseling from South Carolina State University.

Professionally, she has worked in public administration and vocational rehabilitation, including roles with the South Carolina Department of Vocational Rehabilitation and later as commissioner and agency head of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind."

On paper, she might reasonably be considered more suited for the job than Lindsey.  I have no idea how she feels about the taste of of the Felon's ass but I observed Lindsey enjoying it.

I do not know her politics or personal views or how closely she pays attention to politics and I could not pick her out of a police lineup.  The information I have seen so far suggest that she is Constitutionally qualified for the job and I am uncomfortable with choosing a different standard.  I simply cannot at this time discuss her suitability for the position from an informed position.

I do not trust the GOP at all.  I will be totally unshocked if she turns out to be the same sort of irredeemable piece of shit that her brother became.  She can be both totally qualified and totally unsuited.

  

The words just have to mean something.

The Enemy Of Better

 Imagine if you will, Graham Platner had an established history of liberally using the “n” word.  As a Black man, I would not be happy with him being elected.  I am however, also a human who routinely accepts things which are less than perfect rather than waiting indefinitely for perfection, 

In engineering, we are known to say that “Perfect is the enemy of good enough.”  I would suggest that it is reasonable to extend that to perfect is the enemy of better.  It is also true that perfection is not guaranteed.  You could choose to wait for perfection and find that the lifespan of the universe is not a long enough time for perfection to arrive.

Felon47 is an adjudicated rapist, a pedophile and a pedophile’s best friend.  He is also a cowardly draft dodger, an inveterate liar, a racist and is as ignorant of actual history as anyone I have ever met or observed.  He is also the person that Susan Collins has decided is worthy of her absolute support even when she (allegedly) disagrees with what he is doing or how he is doing it.

If Graham Platner had an established history of liberally using the “n” word, his opposition to Felon47 and his policies make me believe that he is better than Susan Collins.  If perfection was on the way and he was the only thing blocking it, I would have no trouble abandoning him.  If he was elected to the Senate, I would have no issue with voting in a better human in six years.

I get it.  I understand why women are uncomfortable with Platner.  We want to show up on election day and then not have to think about it for the next several years.  We want the election process to result in perfection but, that aint how it works.  I think Graham Platner is better - better than Susan Collins.  I think the things that she has enabled Felon47 to do are worse for women and minorities than anything Platner has done.

Some folks value their honor over their rights.  My guess is that works out better as a thought experiment than it does when applied to real life.  What Felon47 has been adjudicated to have done is worse than what Platner is alleged to have done.  I see no benefit to enabling the worse individual.